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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The History of a Crime, by Victor Hugo
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The History of a Crime
+       The Testimony of an Eye-Witness
+
+Author: Victor Hugo
+
+Release Date: December 4, 2003 [EBook #10381]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HISTORY OF A CRIME ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Stan Goodman, Beth Trapaga and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+THE HISTORY OF A CRIME
+
+THE TESTIMONY OF AN EYE-WITNESS
+
+
+By VICTOR HUGO
+
+
+Translated by T.H. JOYCE and ARTHUR LOCKER.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER
+
+       THE FIRST DAY--THE AMBUSH.
+
+    I. "Security"
+   II. Paris sleeps--the Bell rings
+  III. What had happened during the Night
+   IV. Other Doings of the Night
+    V. The Darkness of the Crime
+   VI. "Placards"
+  VII. No. 70, Rue Blanche
+ VIII. "Violation of the Chamber"
+   IX. An End worse than Death
+    X. The Black Door
+   XI. The High Court of Justice
+  XII. The Mairie of the Tenth Arrondissement
+ XIII. Louis Bonaparte's Side-face
+  XIV. The D'Orsay Barracks
+   XV. Mazas
+  XVI. The Episode of the Boulevard St. Martin
+ XVII. The Rebound of the 24th June, 1848, on the 2d December 1851
+XVIII. The Representatives hunted down
+  XIX. One Foot in the Tomb
+   XX. The Burial of a Great Anniversary
+
+       THE SECOND DAY--THE STRUGGLE.
+
+    I. They come to Arrest me
+   II. From the Bastille to the Rue de Cotte
+  III. The St. Antoine Barricade
+   IV. The Workmen's Societies ask us for the Order to fight
+    V. Baudin's Corpse
+   VI. The Decrees of the Representatives who remained Free
+  VII. The Archbishop
+ VIII. Mount Valérien
+   IX. The Lightning begins to flash among the People
+    X. What Fleury went to do at Mazas
+   XI. The End of the Second Day
+
+       THE THIRD DAY--THE MASSACRE.
+
+    I. Those who sleep and He who does not sleep
+   II. The Proceedings of the Committee
+  III. Inside the Elysée
+   IV. Bonaparte's Familiar Spirits
+    V. A Wavering Ally
+   VI. Denis Dussoubs
+  VII. Items and Interviews
+ VIII. The Situation
+   IX. The Porte Saint Martin
+    X. My Visit to the Barricades
+   XI. The Barricade of the Rue Meslay
+  XII. The Barricade of the Mairie of the Fifth Arrondissement
+ XIII. The Barricade of the Rue Thévenot
+  XIV. Ossian and Scipio
+   XV. The Question presents itself
+  XVI. The Massacre
+ XVII. The Appointment made with the Workmen's Societies
+XVIII. The Verification of Moral Laws
+
+       THE FOURTH DAY--THE VICTORY.
+
+    I. What happened during the Night--the Rue Tiquetonne
+   II. What happened during the Night--the Market Quarter
+  III. What happened during the Night--the Petit Carreau
+   IV. What was done during the Night--the Passage du Saumon
+    V. Other Deeds of Darkness
+   VI. The Consultative Committee
+  VII. The Other List
+ VIII. David d'Angers
+   IX. Our Last Meeting
+    X. Duty can have two Aspects
+   XI. The Combat finished, the Ordeal begins
+  XII. The Exiled
+ XIII. The Military Commissions and the mixed Commissions
+  XIV. A Religious Incident
+   XV. How they came out of Ham
+  XVI. A Retrospect
+ XVII. Conduct of the Left
+XVIII. A Page written at Brussels
+  XIX. The Infallible Benediction
+
+       CONCLUSION--THE FALL.
+
+CHAPTER    I
+CHAPTER   II
+CHAPTER  III
+CHAPTER   IV
+CHAPTER    V
+CHAPTER   VI
+CHAPTER  VII
+CHAPTER VIII
+CHAPTER   IX
+CHAPTER    X
+
+
+
+
+THE FIRST DAY--THE AMBUSH.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+"SECURITY"
+
+On December 1, 1851, Charras[1] shrugged his shoulder and unloaded his
+pistols. In truth, the belief in the possibility of a _coup d'état_ had
+become humiliating. The supposition of such illegal violence on the part
+of M. Louis Bonaparte vanished upon serious consideration. The great
+question of the day was manifestly the Devincq election; it was clear
+that the Government was only thinking of that matter. As to a conspiracy
+against the Republic and against the People, how could any one
+premeditate such a plot? Where was the man capable of entertaining such a
+dream? For a tragedy there must be an actor, and here assuredly the actor
+was wanting. To outrage Right, to suppress the Assembly, to abolish the
+Constitution, to strangle the Republic, to overthrow the Nation, to sully
+the Flag, to dishonor the Army, to suborn the Clergy and the Magistracy,
+to succeed, to triumph, to govern, to administer, to exile, to banish, to
+transport, to ruin, to assassinate, to reign, with such complicities that
+the law at last resembles a foul bed of corruption. What! All these
+enormities were to be committed! And by whom? By a Colossus? No, by a
+dwarf. People laughed at the notion. They no longer said "What a crime!"
+but "What a farce!" For after all they reflected; heinous crimes require
+stature. Certain crimes are too lofty for certain hands. A man who would
+achieve an 18th Brumaire must have Arcola in his past and Austerlitz in
+his future. The art of becoming a great scoundrel is not accorded to the
+first comer. People said to themselves, Who is this son of Hortense? He
+has Strasbourg behind him instead of Arcola, and Boulogne in place of
+Austerlitz. He is a Frenchman, born a Dutchman, and naturalized a Swiss;
+he is a Bonaparte crossed with a Verhuell; he is only celebrated for the
+ludicrousness of his imperial attitude, and he who would pluck a feather
+from his eagle would risk finding a goose's quill in his hand. This
+Bonaparte does not pass currency in the array, he is a counterfeit image
+less of gold than of lead, and assuredly French soldiers will not give us
+the change for this false Napoleon in rebellion, in atrocities, in
+massacres, in outrages, in treason. If he should attempt roguery it would
+miscarry. Not a regiment would stir. Besides, why should he make such an
+attempt? Doubtless he has his suspicious side, but why suppose him an
+absolute villain? Such extreme outrages are beyond him; he is incapable
+of them physically, why judge him capable of them morally? Has he not
+pledged honor? Has he not said, "No one in Europe doubts my word?" Let us
+fear nothing. To this could be answered, Crimes are committed either on a
+grand or on a mean scale. In the first category there is Caesar; in the
+second there is Mandrin. Caesar passes the Rubicon, Mandrin bestrides the
+gutter. But wise men interposed, "Are we not prejudiced by offensive
+conjectures? This man has been exiled and unfortunate. Exile enlightens,
+misfortune corrects."
+
+For his part Louis Bonaparte protested energetically. Facts abounded in
+his favor. Why should he not act in good faith? He had made remarkable
+promises. Towards the end of October, 1848, then a candidate for the
+Presidency, he was calling at No. 37, Rue de la Tour d'Auvergne, on a
+certain personage, to whom he remarked, "I wish to have an explanation
+with you. They slander me. Do I give you the impression of a madman? They
+think that I wish to revivify Napoleon. There are two men whom a great
+ambition can take for its models, Napoleon and Washington. The one is a
+man of Genius, the other is a man of Virtue. It is ridiculous to say, 'I
+will be a man of Genius;' it is honest to say, 'I will be a man of
+Virtue.' Which of these depends upon ourselves? Which can we accomplish
+by our will? To be Genius? No. To be Probity? Yes. The attainment of
+Genius is not possible; the attainment of Probity is a possibility. And
+what could I revive of Napoleon? One sole thing--a crime. Truly a worthy
+ambition! Why should I be considered man? The Republic being established,
+I am not a great man, I shall not copy Napoleon; but I am an honest man.
+I shall imitate Washington. My name, the name of Bonaparte, will be
+inscribed on two pages of the history of France: on the first there will
+be crime and glory, on the second probity and honor. And the second will
+perhaps be worth the first. Why? Because if Napoleon is the greater,
+Washington is the better man. Between the guilty hero and the good
+citizen I choose the good citizen. Such is my ambition."
+
+From 1848 to 1851 three years elapsed. People had long suspected Louis
+Bonaparte; but long-continued suspicion blunts the intellect and wears
+itself out by fruitless alarms. Louis Bonaparte had had dissimulating
+ministers such as Magne and Rouher; but he had also had straightforward
+ministers such as Léon Faucher and Odilon Barrot; and these last had
+affirmed that he was upright and sincere. He had been seen to beat his
+breast before the doors of Ham; his foster sister, Madame Hortense
+Cornu, wrote to Mieroslawsky, "I am a good Republican, and I can answer
+for him." His friend of Ham, Peauger, a loyal man, declared, "Louis
+Bonaparte is incapable of treason." Had not Louis Bonaparte written the
+work entitled "Pauperism"? In the intimate circles of the Elysée Count
+Potocki was a Republican and Count d'Orsay was a Liberal; Louis
+Bonaparte said to Potocki, "I am a man of the Democracy," and to
+D'Orsay, "I am a man of Liberty." The Marquis du Hallays opposed the
+_coup d'état_, while the Marquise du Hallays was in its favor. Louis
+Bonaparte said to the Marquis, "Fear nothing" (it is true that he
+whispered to the Marquise, "Make your mind easy"). The Assembly, after
+having shown here and there some symptoms of uneasiness, had grown calm.
+There was General Neumayer, "who was to be depended upon," and who from
+his position at Lyons would at need march upon Paris. Changarnier
+exclaimed, "Representatives of the people, deliberate in peace." Even
+Louis Bonaparte himself had pronounced these famous words, "I should see
+an enemy of my country in any one who would change by force that which
+has been established by law," and, moreover, the Army was "force," and
+the Army possessed leaders, leaders who were beloved and victorious.
+Lamoricière, Changarnier, Cavaignac, Leflô, Bedeau, Charras; how could
+any one imagine the Army of Africa arresting the Generals of Africa? On
+Friday, November 28, 1851, Louis Bonaparte said to Michel de Bourges,
+"If I wanted to do wrong, I could not. Yesterday, Thursday, I invited to
+my table five Colonels of the garrison of Paris, and the whim seized me
+to question each one by himself. All five declared to me that the Army
+would never lend itself to a _coup de force_, nor attack the
+inviolability of the Assembly. You can tell your friends this."--"He
+smiled," said Michel de Bourges, reassured, "and I also smiled." After
+this, Michel de Bourges declared in the Tribune, "this is the man for
+me." In that same month of November a satirical journal, charged with
+calumniating the President of the Republic, was sentenced to fine and
+imprisonment for a caricature depicting a shooting-gallery and Louis
+Bonaparte using the Constitution as a target. Morigny, Minister of the
+Interior, declared in the Council before the President "that a Guardian
+of Public Power ought never to violate the law as otherwise he would
+be--" "a dishonest man," interposed the President. All these words and
+all these facts were notorious. The material and moral impossibility of
+the _coup d'état_ was manifest to all. To outrage the National Assembly!
+To arrest the Representatives! What madness! As we have seen, Charras,
+who had long remained on his guard, unloaded his pistols. The feeling of
+security was complete and unanimous. Nevertheless there were some of us
+in the Assembly who still retained a few doubts, and who occasionally
+shook our heads, but we were looked upon as fools.
+
+
+[1] Colonel Charras was Under-Secretary of State in 1848, and Acting
+Secretary of War under the Provisional Government.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+PARIS SLEEPS--THE BELL RINGS
+
+On the 2d December, 1851, Representative Versigny, of the Haute-Saône,
+who resided at Paris, at No. 4, Rue Léonie, was asleep. He slept
+soundly; he had been working till late at night. Versigny was a young
+man of thirty-two, soft-featured and fair-complexioned, of a courageous
+spirit, and a mind tending towards social and economical studies. He had
+passed the first hours of the night in the perusal of a book by Bastiat,
+in which he was making marginal notes, and, leaving the book open on the
+table, he had fallen asleep. Suddenly he awoke with a start at the sound
+of a sharp ring at the bell. He sprang up in surprise. It was dawn. It
+was about seven o'clock in the morning.
+
+Never dreaming what could be the motive for so early a visit, and
+thinking that someone had mistaken the door, he again lay down, and was
+about to resume his slumber, when a second ring at the bell, still
+louder than the first, completely aroused him. He got up in his
+night-shirt and opened the door.
+
+Michel de Bourges and Théodore Bac entered. Michel de Bourges was the
+neighbor of Versigny; he lived at No. 16, Rue de Milan.
+
+Théodore Bac and Michel were pale, and appeared greatly agitated.
+
+"Versigny," said Michel, "dress yourself at once--Baune has just been
+arrested."
+
+"Bah!" exclaimed Versigny. "Is the Mauguin business beginning again?"
+
+"It is more than that," replied Michel. "Baune's wife and daughter came
+to me half-an-hour ago. They awoke me. Baune was arrested in bed at six
+o'clock this morning."
+
+"What does that mean?" asked Versigny.
+
+The bell rang again.
+
+"This will probably tell us," answered Michel de Bourges.
+
+Versigny opened the door. It was the Representative Pierre Lefranc. He
+brought, in truth, the solution of the enigma.
+
+"Do you know what is happening?" said he.
+
+"Yes," answered Michel. "Baune is in prison."
+
+"It is the Republic who is a prisoner," said Pierre Lefranc. "Have you
+read the placards?"
+
+"No."
+
+Pierre Lefranc explained to them that the walls at that moment were
+covered with placards which the curious crowd were thronging to read,
+that he had glanced over one of them at the corner of his street, and
+that the blow had fallen.
+
+"The blow!" exclaimed Michel. "Say rather the crime."
+
+Pierre Lefranc added that there were three placards--one decree and two
+proclamations--all three on white paper, and pasted close together.
+
+The decree was printed in large letters.
+
+The ex-Constituent Laissac, who lodged, like Michel de Bourges, in the
+neighborhood (No. 4, Cité Gaillard), then came in. He brought the same
+news, and announced further arrests which had been made during the
+night.
+
+There was not a minute to lose.
+
+They went to impart the news to Yvan, the Secretary of the Assembly, who
+had been appointed by the Left, and who lived in the Rue de Boursault.
+
+An immediate meeting was necessary. Those Republican Representatives who
+were still at liberty must be warned and brought together without delay.
+
+Versigny said, "I will go and find Victor Hugo."
+
+It was eight o'clock in the morning. I was awake and was working in bed.
+My servant entered and said, with an air of alarm,--
+
+"A Representative of the people is outside who wishes to speak to you,
+sir."
+
+"Who is it?"
+
+"Monsieur Versigny:"
+
+"Show him in."
+
+Versigny entered, and told me the state of affairs. I sprang out of bed.
+
+He told me of the "rendezvous" at the rooms of the ex-Constituent
+Laissac.
+
+"Go at once and inform the other Representatives," said I.
+
+He left me.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+WHAT HAD HAPPENED DURING THE NIGHT
+
+Previous to the fatal days of June, 1848, the esplanade of the Invalides
+was divided into eight huge grass plots, surrounded by wooden railings
+and enclosed between two groves of trees, separated by a street running
+perpendicularly to the front of the Invalides. This street was traversed
+by three streets running parallel to the Seine. There were large lawns
+upon which children were wont to play. The centre of the eight grass
+plots was marred by a pedestal which under the Empire had borne the
+bronze lion of St. Mark, which had been brought from Venice; under the
+Restoration a white marble statue of Louis XVIII.; and under Louis
+Philippe a plaster bust of Lafayette. Owing to the Palace of the
+Constituent Assembly having been nearly seized by a crowd of insurgents on
+the 22d of June, 1848, and there being no barracks in the neighborhood,
+General Cavaignac had constructed at three hundred paces from the
+Legislative Palace, on the grass plots of the Invalides, several rows of
+long huts, under which the grass was hidden. These huts, where three or
+four thousand men could be accommodated, lodged the troops specially
+appointed to keep watch over the National Assembly.
+
+On the 1st December, 1851, the two regiments hutted on the Esplanade were
+the 6th and the 42d Regiments of the Line, the 6th commanded by Colonel
+Garderens de Boisse, who was famous before the Second of December, the
+42d by Colonel Espinasse, who became famous since that date.
+
+The ordinary night-guard of the Palace of the Assembly was composed of a
+battalion of Infantry and of thirty artillerymen, with a captain. The
+Minister of War, in addition, sent several troopers for orderly service.
+Two mortars and six pieces of cannon, with their ammunition wagons, were
+ranged in a little square courtyard situated on the right of the Cour
+d'Honneur, and which was called the Cour des Canons. The Major, the
+military commandant of the Palace, was placed under the immediate control
+of the Questors.[2] At nightfall the gratings and the doors were secured,
+sentinels were posted, instructions were issued to the sentries, and the
+Palace was closed like a fortress. The password was the same as in the
+Place de Paris.
+
+The special instructions drawn up by the Questors prohibited the entrance
+of any armed force other than the regiment on duty.
+
+On the night of the 1st and 2d of December the Legislative Palace was
+guarded by a battalion of the 42d.
+
+The sitting of the 1st of December, which was exceedingly peaceable,
+and had been devoted to a discussion on the municipal law, had finished
+late, and was terminated by a Tribunal vote. At the moment when M.
+Baze, one of the Questors, ascended the Tribune to deposit his vote, a
+Representative, belonging to what was called "Les Bancs Elyséens"
+approached him, and said in a low tone, "To-night you will be carried
+off." Such warnings as these were received every day, and, as we have
+already explained, people had ended by paying no heed to them.
+Nevertheless, immediately after the sitting the Questors sent for the
+Special Commissary of Police of the Assembly, President Dupin being
+present. When interrogated, the Commissary declared that the reports of
+his agents indicated "dead calm"--such was his expression--and that
+assuredly there was no danger to be apprehended for that night. When
+the Questors pressed him further, President Dupin, exclaiming "Bah!"
+left the room.
+
+On that same day, the 1st December, about three o'clock in the afternoon,
+as General Leflô's father-in-law crossed the boulevard in front of
+Tortoni's, some one rapidly passed by him and whispered in his ear these
+significant words, "Eleven o'clock--midnight." This incident excited but
+little attention at the Questure, and several even laughed at it. It had
+become customary with them. Nevertheless General Leflô would not go to
+bed until the hour mentioned had passed by, and remained in the Offices
+of the Questure until nearly one o'clock in the morning.
+
+The shorthand department of the Assembly was done out of doors by four
+messengers attached to the _Moniteur_, who were employed to carry the
+copy of the shorthand writers to the printing-office, and to bring back
+the proof-sheets to the Palace of the Assembly, where M. Hippolyte Prévost
+corrected them. M. Hippolyte Prévost was chief of the stenographic staff,
+and in that capacity had apartments in the Legislative Palace. He was at
+the same time editor of the musical _feuilleton_ of the _Moniteur_. On
+the 1st December he had gone to the Opéra Comique for the first
+representation of a new piece, and did not return till after midnight.
+The fourth messenger from the _Moniteur_ was waiting for him with a proof
+of the last slip of the sitting; M. Prévost corrected the proof, and the
+messenger was sent off. It was then a little after one o'clock, profound
+quiet reigned around, and, with the exception of the guard, all in the
+Palace slept. Towards this hour of the night, a singular incident
+occurred. The Captain-Adjutant-Major of the Guard of the Assembly came to
+the Major and said, "The Colonel has sent for me," and he added according
+to military etiquette, "Will you permit me to go?" The Commandant was
+astonished. "Go," he said with some sharpness, "but the Colonel is wrong
+to disturb an officer on duty." One of the soldiers on guard, without
+understanding the meaning of the words, heard the Commandant pacing up
+and down, and muttering several times, "What the deuce can he want?"
+
+Half an hour afterwards the Adjutant-Major returned. "Well," asked the
+Commandant, "what did the Colonel want with you?" "Nothing," answered the
+Adjutant, "he wished to give me the orders for to-morrow's duties." The
+night became further advanced. Towards four o'clock the Adjutant-Major
+came again to the Major. "Major," he said, "the Colonel has asked for
+me." "Again!" exclaimed the Commandant. "This is becoming strange;
+nevertheless, go."
+
+The Adjutant-Major had amongst other duties that of giving out the
+instructions to the sentries, and consequently had the power of
+rescinding them.
+
+As soon as the Adjutant-Major had gone out, the Major, becoming uneasy,
+thought that it was his duty to communicate with the Military Commandant
+of the Palace. He went upstairs to the apartment of the Commandant--
+Lieutenant Colonel Niols. Colonel Niols had gone to bed and the attendants
+had retired to their rooms in the attics. The Major, new to the Palace,
+groped about the corridors, and, knowing little about the various rooms,
+rang at a door which seemed to him that of the Military Commandant. Nobody
+answered, the door was not opened, and the Major returned downstairs,
+without having been able to speak to anybody.
+
+On his part the Adjutant-Major re-entered the Palace, but the Major did
+not see him again. The Adjutant remained near the grated door of the
+Place Bourgogne, shrouded in his cloak, and walking up and down the
+courtyard as though expecting some one.
+
+At the instant that five o'clock sounded from the great clock of the
+dome, the soldiers who slept in the hut-camp before the Invalides were
+suddenly awakened. Orders were given in a low voice in the huts to take
+up arms, in silence. Shortly afterwards two regiments, knapsack on back
+were marching upon the Palace of the Assembly; they were the 6th and the
+42d.
+
+At this same stroke of five, simultaneously in all the quarters of Paris,
+infantry soldiers filed out noiselessly from every barrack, with their
+colonels at their head. The _aides-de-camp_ and orderly officers of Louis
+Bonaparte, who had been distributed in all the barracks, superintended
+this taking up of arms. The cavalry were not set in motion until
+three-quarters of an hour after the infantry, for fear that the ring of
+the horses' hoofs on the stones should wake slumbering Paris too soon.
+
+M. de Persigny, who had brought from the Elysée to the camp of the
+Invalides the order to take up arms, marched at the head of the 42d, by
+the side of Colonel Espinasse. A story is current in the army, for at the
+present day, wearied as people are with dishonorable incidents, these
+occurrences are yet told with a species of gloomy indifference--the story
+is current that at the moment of setting out with his regiment one of the
+colonels who could be named hesitated, and that the emissary from the
+Elysée, taking a sealed packet from his pocket, said to him, "Colonel, I
+admit that we are running a great risk. Here in this envelope, which I
+have been charged to hand to you, are a hundred thousand francs in
+banknotes _for contingencies_." The envelope was accepted, and the
+regiment set out. On the evening of the 2d of December the colonel said
+to a lady, "This morning I earned a hundred thousand francs and my
+General's epaulets." The lady showed him the door.
+
+Xavier Durrieu, who tells us this story, had the curiosity later on to
+see this lady. She confirmed the story. Yes, certainly! she had shut the
+door in the face of this wretch; a soldier, a traitor to his flag who
+dared visit her! She receive such a man? No! she could not do that,
+"and," states Xavier Durrieu, she added, "And yet I have no character to
+lose."
+
+Another mystery was in progress at the Prefecture of Police.
+
+Those belated inhabitants of the Cité who may have returned home at a
+late hour of the night might have noticed a large number of street cabs
+loitering in scattered groups at different points round about the Rue de
+Jerusalem.
+
+From eleven o'clock in the evening, under pretext of the arrivals of
+refugees at Paris from Genoa and London, the Brigade of Surety and the
+eight hundred _sergents de ville_ had been retained in the Prefecture. At
+three o'clock in the morning a summons had been sent to the forty-eight
+Commissaries of Paris and of the suburbs, and also to the peace officers.
+An hour afterwards all of them arrived. They were ushered into a separate
+chamber, and isolated from each other as much as possible. At five
+o'clock a bell was sounded in the Prefect's cabinet. The Prefect Maupas
+called the Commissaries of Police one after another into his cabinet,
+revealed the plot to them, and allotted to each his portion of the crime.
+None refused; many thanked him.
+
+It was a question of arresting at their own homes seventy-eight Democrats
+who were influential in their districts, and dreaded by the Elysée as
+possible chieftains of barricades. It was necessary, a still more daring
+outrage, to arrest at their houses sixteen Representatives of the People.
+For this last task were chosen among the Commissaries of Police such of
+those magistrates who seemed the most likely to become ruffians. Amongst
+these were divided the Representatives. Each had his man. Sieur Courtille
+had Charras, Sieur Desgranges had Nadaud, Sieur Hubaut the elder had M.
+Thiers, and Sieur Hubaut the younger General Bedeau, General Changarnier
+was allotted to Lerat, and General Cavaignac to Colin. Sieur Dourlens
+took Representative Valentin, Sieur Benoist Representative Miot, Sieur
+Allard Representative Cholat, Sieur Barlet took Roger (Du Nord), General
+Lamoricière fell to Commissary Blanchet, Commissary Gronfier had
+Representative Greppo, and Commissary Boudrot Representative Lagrange.
+The Questors were similarly allotted, Monsieur Baze to the Sieur
+Primorin, and General Leflô to Sieur Bertoglio.
+
+Warrants with the name of the Representatives had been drawn up in the
+Prefect's private Cabinet. Blanks had been only left for the names of the
+Commissaries. These were filled in at the moment of leaving.
+
+In addition to the armed force which was 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 police agents in plain
+clothes. As Prefect Maupas had told M. Bonaparte, the Captain of the
+Republican Guard, Baudinet, was associated with Commissary Lerat in the
+arrest of General Changarnier.
+
+Towards half-past five the _fiacres_ which were in waiting were called
+up, and all started, each with his instructions.
+
+During this time, in another corner of Paris--the old Rue du Temple--in
+that ancient Soubise Mansion which had been transformed into a Royal
+Printing Office, and is to-day a National Printing Office, another
+section of the Crime was being organized.
+
+Towards one in the morning a passer-by who had reached the old Rue du
+Temple by the Rue de Vieilles-Haudriettes, noticed at the junction of
+these two streets several long and high windows brilliantly lighted up,
+These were the windows of the work-rooms of the National Printing Office.
+He turned to the right and entered the old Rue du Temple, and a moment
+afterwards paused before the crescent-shaped entrance of the front of the
+printing-office. The principal door was shut, two sentinels guarded the
+side door. Through this little door, which was ajar, he glanced into the
+courtyard of the printing-office, and saw it filled with soldiers. The
+soldiers were silent, no sound could be heard, but the glistening of
+their bayonets could be seen. The passer-by surprised, drew nearer. One
+of the sentinels thrust him rudely back, crying out, "Be off."
+
+Like the _sergents de ville_ at the Prefecture of Police, the workmen had
+been retained at the National Printing Office under plea of night-work.
+At the same time that M. Hippolyte Prévost returned to the Legislative
+Palace, the manager of the National Printing Office re-entered his
+office, also returning from the Opéra Comique, where he had been to see
+the new piece, which was by his brother, M. de St. Georges. Immediately
+on his return the manager, to whom had come an order from the Elysée
+during the day, took up a pair of pocket pistols, and went down into the
+vestibule, which communicates by means of a few steps with the courtyard.
+Shortly afterwards the door leading to the street opened, a _fiacre_
+entered, a man who carried a large portfolio alighted. The manager went
+up to the man, and said to him, "Is that you, Monsieur de Béville?"
+
+"Yes," answered the man.
+
+The _fiacre_ was put up, the horses placed in a stable, and the coachman
+shut up in a parlor, where they gave him drink, and placed a purse in his
+hand. Bottles of wine and louis d'or form the groundwork of this hind of
+politics. The coachman drank and then went to sleep. The door of the
+parlor was bolted.
+
+The large door of the courtyard of the printing-office was hardly shut
+than it reopened, gave passage to armed men, who entered in silence, and
+then reclosed. The arrivals were a company of the Gendarmerie Mobile, the
+fourth of the first battalion, commanded by a captain named La Roche
+d'Oisy. As may be remarked by the result, for all delicate expeditions
+the men of the _coup d'état_ took care to employ the Gendarmerie Mobile
+and the Republican Guard, that it is to say the two corps almost entirely
+composed of former Municipal Guards, bearing at heart a revengeful
+remembrance of the events of February.
+
+Captain La Roche d'Oisy brought a letter from the Minister of War, which
+placed himself and his soldiers at the disposition of the manager of the
+National Printing Office. The muskets were loaded without a word being
+spoken. Sentinels were placed in the workrooms, in the corridors, at the
+doors, at the windows, in fact, everywhere, two being stationed at the
+door leading into the street. The captain asked what instructions he
+should give to the sentries. "Nothing more simple," said the man who had
+come in the _fiacre_. "Whoever attempts to leave or to open a window,
+shoot him."
+
+This man, who, in fact, was De Béville, orderly officer to M. Bonaparte,
+withdrew with the manager into the large cabinet on the first story, a
+solitary room which looked out on the garden. There he communicated to
+the manager what he had brought with him, the decree of the dissolution
+of the Assembly, the appeal to the Army, the appeal to the People, the
+decree convoking the electors, and in addition, the proclamation of the
+Prefect Maupas and his letter to the Commissaries of Police. The four
+first documents were entirely in the handwriting of the President, and
+here and there some erasures might be noticed.
+
+The compositors were in waiting. Each man was placed between two
+gendarmes, and was forbidden to utter a single word, and then the
+documents which had to be printed were distributed throughout the room,
+being cut up in very small pieces, so that an entire sentence could not
+be read by one workman. The manager announced that he would give them an
+hour to compose the whole. The different fragments were finally brought
+to Colonel Béville, who put them together and corrected the proof sheets.
+The machining was conducted with the same precautions, each press being
+between two soldiers. Notwithstanding all possible diligence the work
+lasted two hours. The gendarmes watched over the workmen. Béville watched
+over St. Georges.
+
+When the work was finished a suspicious incident occurred, which greatly
+resembled a treason within a treason. To a traitor a greater traitor.
+This species of crime is subject to such accidents. Béville and St.
+Georges, the two trusty confidants in whose hands lay the secret of the
+_coup d'état_, that is to say the head of the President;--that secret,
+which ought at no price to be allowed to transpire before the appointed
+hour, under risk of causing everything to miscarry, took it into their
+heads to confide it at once to two hundred men, in order "to test the
+effect," as the ex-Colonel Béville said later on, rather naïvely. They
+read the mysterious document which had just been printed to the Gendarmes
+Mobiles, who were drawn up in the courtyard. These ex-municipal guards
+applauded. If they had hooted, it might be asked what the two
+experimentalists in the _coup d'état_ would have done. Perhaps M.
+Bonaparte would have waked up from his dream at Vincennes.
+
+The coachman was then liberated, the _fiacre_ was horsed, and at four
+o'clock in the morning the orderly officer and the manager of the
+National Printing Office, henceforward two criminals, arrived at the
+Prefecture of Police with the parcels of the decrees. Then began for
+them the brand of shame. Prefect Maupas took them by the hand.
+
+Bands of bill-stickers, bribed for the occasion, started in every
+direction, carrying with them the decrees and proclamations.
+
+This was precisely the hour at which the Palace of the National Assembly
+was invested. In the Rue de l'Université there is a door of the Palace
+which is the old entrance to the Palais Bourbon, and which opened into
+the avenue which leads to the house of the President of the Assembly.
+This door, termed the Presidency door, was according to custom guarded by
+a sentry. For some time past the Adjutant-Major, who had been twice sent
+for during the night by Colonel Espinasse, had remained motionless and
+silent, close by the sentinel. Five minutes after, having left the huts
+of the Invalides, the 42d Regiment of the line, followed at some distance
+by the 6th Regiment, which had marched by the Rue de Bourgogne, emerged
+from the Rue de l'Université. "The regiment," says an eye-witness,
+"marched as one steps in a sickroom." It arrived with a stealthy step
+before the Presidency door. This ambuscade came to surprise the law.
+
+The sentry, seeing these soldiers arrive, halted, but at the moment when
+he was going to challenge them with a _qui-vive_, the Adjutant-Major
+seized his arm, and, in his capacity as the officer empowered to
+countermand all instructions, ordered him to give free passage to the
+42d, and at the same time commanded the amazed porter to open the door.
+The door turned upon its hinges, the soldiers spread themselves through
+the avenue. Persigny entered and said, "It is done."
+
+The National Assembly was invaded.
+
+At the noise of the footsteps the Commandant Mennier ran up.
+"Commandant," Colonel Espinasse cried out to him, "I come to relieve your
+battalion." The Commandant turned pale for a moment, and his eyes
+remained fixed on the ground. Then suddenly he put his hands to his
+shoulders, and tore off his epaulets, he drew his sword, broke it across
+his knee, threw the two fragments on the pavement, and, trembling with
+rage, exclaimed with a solemn voice, "Colonel, you disgrace the number of
+your regiment."
+
+"All right, all right," said Espinasse.
+
+The Presidency door was left open, but all the other entrances remained
+closed. All the guards were relieved, all the sentinels changed, and the
+battalion of the night guard was sent back to the camp of the Invalides,
+the soldiers piled their arms in the avenue, and in the Cour d'Honneur.
+The 42d, in profound silence, occupied the doors outside and inside, the
+courtyard, the reception-rooms, the galleries, the corridors, the
+passages, while every one slept in the Palace.
+
+Shortly afterwards arrived two of those little chariots which are called
+"forty sons," and two _fiacres_, escorted by two detachments of the
+Republican Guard and of the Chasseurs de Vincennes, and by several squads
+of police. The Commissaries Bertoglio and Primorin alighted from the two
+chariots.
+
+As these carriages drove up a personage, bald, but still young, was seen
+to appear at the grated door of the Place de Bourgogne. This personage
+had all the air of a man about town, who had just come from the opera,
+and, in fact, he had come from thence, after having passed through a den.
+He came from the Elysée. It was De Morny. For an instant he watched the
+soldiers piling their arms, and then went on to the Presidency door.
+There he exchanged a few words with M. de Persigny. A quarter of an hour
+afterwards, accompanied by 250 Chasseurs de Vincennes, he took possession
+of the ministry of the Interior, startled M. de Thorigny in his bed, and
+handed him brusquely a letter of thanks from Monsieur Bonaparte. Some
+days previously honest M. De Thorigny, whose ingenuous remarks we have
+already cited, said to a group of men near whom M. de Morny was passing,
+"How these men of the Mountain calumniate the President! The man who
+would break his oath, who would achieve a _coup d'état_ must necessarily
+be a worthless wretch." Awakened rudely in the middle of the night, and
+relieved of his post as Minister like the sentinels of the Assembly, the
+worthy man, astounded, and rubbing his eyes, muttered, "Eh! then the
+President _is_ a ----."
+
+"Yes," said Morny, with a burst of laughter.
+
+He who writes these lines knew Morny. Morny and Walewsky held in the
+quasi-reigning family the positions, one of Royal bastard, the other of
+Imperial bastard. Who was Morny? We will say, "A noted wit, an intriguer,
+but in no way austere, a friend of Romieu, and a supporter of Guizot
+possessing the manners of the world, and the habits of the roulette
+table, self-satisfied, clever, combining a certain liberality of ideas
+with a readiness to accept useful crimes, finding means to wear a
+gracious smile with bad teeth, leading a life of pleasure, dissipated but
+reserved, ugly, good-tempered, fierce, well-dressed, intrepid, willingly
+leaving a brother prisoner under bolts and bars, and ready to risk his
+head for a brother Emperor, having the same mother as Louis Bonaparte,
+and like Louis Bonaparte, having some father or other, being able to call
+himself Beauharnais, being able to call himself Flahaut, and yet calling
+himself Morny, pursuing literature as far as light comedy, and politics,
+as far as tragedy, a deadly free liver, possessing all the frivolity
+consistent with assassination, capable of being sketched by Marivaux and
+treated of by Tacitus, without conscience, irreproachably elegant,
+infamous, and amiable, at need a perfect duke. Such was this malefactor."
+
+It was not yet six o'clock in the morning. Troops began to mass
+themselves on the Place de la Concorde, where Leroy-Saint-Arnaud on
+horseback held a review.
+
+The Commissaries of Police, Bertoglio and Primorin ranged two companies
+in order under the vault of the great staircase of the Questure, but did
+not ascend that way. They were accompanied by agents of police, who knew
+the most secret recesses of the Palais Bourbon, and who conducted them
+through various passages.
+
+General Leflô was lodged in the Pavilion inhabited in the time of the Duc
+de Bourbon by Monsieur Feuchères. That night General Leflô had staying
+with him his sister and her husband, who were visiting Paris, and who
+slept in a room, the door of which led into one of the corridors of the
+Palace. Commissary Bertoglio knocked at the door, opened it, and together
+with his agents abruptly burst into the room, where a woman was in bed.
+The general's brother-in-out sprang out of bed, and cried out to the
+Questor, who slept in an adjoining room, "Adolphe, the doors are being
+forced, the Palace is full of soldiers. Get up!"
+
+The General opened his eyes, he saw Commissary Bertoglio standing beside
+his bed.
+
+He sprang up.
+
+"General," said the Commissary, "I have come to fulfil a duty."
+
+"I understand," said General Leflô, "you are a traitor."
+
+The Commissary stammering out the words, "Plot against the safety of the
+State," displayed a warrant. The General, without pronouncing a word,
+struck this infamous paper with the back of his hand.
+
+Then dressing himself, he put on his full uniform of Constantine and of
+Médéah, thinking in his imaginative, soldier-like loyalty that there were
+still generals of Africa for the soldiers whom he would find on his way.
+All the generals now remaining were brigands. His wife embraced him; his
+son, a child of seven years, in his nightshirt, and in tears, said to the
+Commissary of Police, "Mercy, Monsieur Bonaparte."
+
+The General, while clasping his wife in his arms, whispered in her ear,
+"There is artillery in the courtyard, try and fire a cannon."
+
+The Commissary and his men led him away. He regarded these policemen with
+contempt, and did not speak to them, but when he recognized Colonel
+Espinasse, his military and Breton heart swelled with indignation.
+
+"Colonel Espinasse," said he, "you are a villain, and I hope to live long
+enough to tear the buttons from your uniform."
+
+Colonel Espinasse hung his head, and stammered, "I do not know you."
+
+A major waved his sword, and cried, "We have had enough of lawyer
+generals." Some soldiers crossed their bayonets before the unarmed
+prisoner, three _sergents de ville_ pushed him into a _fiacre_, and a
+sub-lieutenant approaching the carriage, and looking in the face of the
+man who, if he were a citizen, was his Representative, and if he were a
+soldier was his general, flung this abominable word at him, "Canaille!"
+
+Meanwhile Commissary Primorin had gone by a more roundabout way in order
+the more surely to surprise the other Questor, M. Baze.
+
+Out of M. Baze's apartment a door led to the lobby communicating with the
+chamber of the Assembly. Sieur Primorin knocked at the door. "Who is
+there?" asked a servant, who was dressing. "The Commissary of Police,"
+replied Primorin. The servant, thinking that he was the Commissary of
+Police of the Assembly, opened the door.
+
+At this moment M. Baze, who had heard the noise, and had just awakened,
+put on a dressing-gown, and cried, "Do not open the door."
+
+He had scarcely spoken these words when a man in plain clothes and three
+_sergents de ville_ in uniform rushed into his chamber. The man, opening
+his coat, displayed his scarf of office, asking M. Baze, "Do you
+recognize this?"
+
+"You are a worthless wretch," answered the Questor.
+
+The police agents laid their hands on M. Baze. "You will not take me
+away," he said. "You, a Commissary of Police, you, who are a magistrate,
+and know what you are doing, you outrage the National Assembly, you
+violate the law, you are a criminal!" A hand-to-hand struggle
+ensued--four against one. Madame Baze and her two little girls giving
+vent to screams, the servant being thrust back with blows by the
+_sergents de ville_. "You are ruffians," cried out Monsieur Baze. They
+carried him away by main force in their arms, still struggling, naked,
+his dressing-gown being torn to shreds, his body being covered with
+blows, his wrist torn and bleeding.
+
+The stairs, the landing, the courtyard, were full of soldiers with fixed
+bayonets and grounded arms. The Questor spoke to them. "Your
+Representatives are being arrested, you have not received your arms to
+break the laws!" A sergeant was wearing a brand-new cross. "Have you been
+given the cross for this?" The sergeant answered, "We only know one
+master." "I note your number," continued M. Baze. "You are a dishonored
+regiment." The soldiers listened with a stolid air, and seemed still
+asleep. Commissary Primorin said to them, "Do not answer, this has
+nothing to do with you." They led the Questor across the courtyard to the
+guard-house at the Porte Noire.
+
+This was the name which was given to a little door contrived under the
+vault opposite the treasury of the Assembly, and which opened upon the
+Rue de Bourgogne, facing the Rue de Lille.
+
+Several sentries were placed at the door of the guard-house, and at the
+top of the flight of steps which led thither, M. Baze being left there in
+charge of three _sergents de ville_. Several soldiers, without their
+weapons, and in their shirt-sleeves, came in and out. The Questor
+appealed to them in the name of military honor. "Do not answer," said the
+_sergent de ville_ to the soldiers.
+
+M. Baze's two little girls had followed him with terrified eyes, and when
+they lost sight of him the youngest burst into tears. "Sister," said the
+elder, who was seven years old, "let us say our prayers," and the two
+children, clasping their hands, knelt down.
+
+Commissary Primorin, with his swarm of agents, burst into the Questor's
+study, and laid hands on everything. The first papers which he perceived
+on the middle of the table, and which he seized, were the famous decrees
+which had been prepared in the event of the Assembly having voted the
+proposal of the Questors. All the drawers were opened and searched. This
+overhauling of M. Baze's papers, which the Commissary of Police termed a
+domiciliary visit, lasted more than an hour.
+
+M. Baze's clothes had been taken to him, and he had dressed. When the
+"domiciliary visit" was over, he was taken out of the guard-house. There
+was a _fiacre_ in the courtyard, into which he entered, together with the
+three _sergents de ville_. The vehicle, in order to reach the Presidency
+door, passed by the Cour d'Honneur and then by the Courde Canonis. Day
+was breaking. M. Baze looked into the courtyard to see if the cannon were
+still there. He saw the ammunition wagons ranged in order with their
+shafts raised, but the places of the six cannon and the two mortars were
+vacant.
+
+In the avenue of the Presidency the _fiacre_ stopped for a moment. Two
+lines of soldiers, standing at ease, lined the footpaths of the avenue.
+At the foot of a tree were grouped three men: Colonel Espinasse, whom M.
+Baze knew and recognized, a species of Lieutenant-Colonel, who wore a
+black and orange ribbon round his neck, and a Major of Lancers, all three
+sword in hand, consulting together. The windows of the _fiacre_ were
+closed; M. Baze wished to lower them to appeal to these men; the
+_sergents de ville_ seized his arms. The Commissary Primorin then came
+up, and was about to re-enter the little chariot for two persons which
+had brought him.
+
+"Monsieur Baze," said he, with that villainous kind of courtesy which the
+agents of the _coup d'état_ willingly blended with their crime, "you must
+be uncomfortable with those three men in the _fiacre_. You are cramped;
+come in with me."
+
+"Let me alone," said the prisoner. "With these three men I am cramped;
+with you I should be contaminated."
+
+An escort of infantry was ranged on both sides of the _fiacre_. Colonel
+Espinasse called to the coachman, "Drive slowly by the Quai d'Orsay until
+you meet a cavalry escort. When the cavalry shall have assumed the
+charge, the infantry can come back." They set out.
+
+As the _fiacre_ turned into the Quai d'Orsay a picket of the 7th Lancers
+arrived at full speed. It was the escort: the troopers surrounded the
+_fiacre_, and the whole galloped off.
+
+No incident occurred during the journey. Here and there, at the noise of
+the horses' hoofs, windows were opened and heads put forth; and the
+prisoner, who had at length succeeded in lowering a window heard startled
+voices saying, "What is the matter?"
+
+The _fiacre_ stopped. "Where are we?" asked M. Baze.
+
+"At Mazas," said a _sergent de ville_.
+
+The Questor was taken to the office of the prison. Just as he entered he
+saw Baune and Nadaud being brought out. There was a table in the centre,
+at which Commissary Primorin, who had followed the _fiacre_ in his
+chariot, had just seated himself. While the Commissary was writing, M.
+Baze noticed on the table a paper which was evidently a jail register, on
+which were these names, written in the following order: Lamoricière,
+Charras, Cavaignac, Changarnier, Leflô, Thiers, Bedeau, Roger (du Nord),
+Chambolle. This was probably the order in which the Representatives had
+arrived at the prison.
+
+When Sieur Primorin had finished writing, M. Baze said, "Now, you will be
+good enough to receive my protest, and add it to your official report."
+"It is not an official report," objected the Commissary, "it is simply an
+order for committal." "I intend to write my protest at once," replied M.
+Baze. "You will have plenty of time in your cell," remarked a man who
+stood by the table. M. Baze turned round. "Who are you?" "I am the
+governor of the prison," said the man. "In that case," replied M. Baze,
+"I pity you, for you are aware of the crime you are committing." The man
+turned pale, and stammered a few unintelligible words.
+
+The Commissary rose from his seat; M. Baze briskly took possession of his
+chair, seated himself at the table, and said to Sieur Primorin, "You are
+a public officer; I request you to add my protest to your official
+report." "Very well," said the Commissary, "let it be so." Baze wrote the
+protest as follows:--
+
+  "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,
+  protest in the name of the National Assembly and in my own name against
+  the outrage on national representation committed upon my colleagues and
+  upon myself.
+
+  "Given at Mazas on the 2d December 1851, at eight o'clock in the
+  morning.
+
+  "BAZE."
+
+While this was taking place at Mazas, the soldiers were laughing and
+drinking in the courtyard of the Assembly. They made their coffee in the
+saucepans. They had lighted enormous fires in the courtyard; the flames,
+fanned by the wind, at times reached the walls of the Chamber. A
+superior official of the Questure, an officer of the National Guard,
+Ramond de la Croisette, ventured to say to them, "You will set the
+Palace on fire;" whereupon a soldier struck him a blow with his fist.
+
+Four of the pieces taken from the Cour de Canons were ranged in battery
+order against the Assembly; two on the Place de Bourgogne were pointed
+towards the grating, and two on the Pont de la Concorde were pointed
+towards the grand staircase.
+
+As side-note to this instructive tale let us mention a curious fact. The
+42d Regiment of the line was the same which 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 beauty of passive obedience.
+
+
+[2] The Questors were officers elected by the Assembly, whose special
+duties were to keep and audit the accounts, and who controlled all
+matters affecting the social economy of the House.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+OTHER DOINGS OF THE NIGHT
+
+During the same night in all parts of Paris acts of brigandage took
+place. Unknown men leading armed troops, and themselves armed with
+hatchets, mallets, pincers, crow-bars, life-preservers, swords hidden
+under their coats, pistols, of which the butts could be distinguished
+under the folds of their cloaks, arrived in silence before a house,
+occupied the street, encircled the approaches, picked the lock of the
+door, tied up the porter, invaded the stairs, and burst through the doors
+upon a sleeping man, and when that man, awakening with a start, asked of
+these bandits, "Who are you?" their leader answered, "A Commissary of
+Police." So it happened to Lamoricière who was seized by Blanchet, who
+threatened him with the gag; to Greppo, who was brutally treated and
+thrown down by Gronfier, assisted by six men carrying a dark lantern and
+a pole-axe; to Cavaignac, who was secured by Colin, a smooth-tongued
+villain, who affected to be shocked on hearing him curse and swear; to M.
+Thiers, who was arrested by Hubaut (the elder); who professed that he had
+seen him "tremble and weep," thus adding falsehood to crime; to Valentin,
+who was assailed in his bed by Dourlens, taken by the feet and shoulders,
+and thrust into a padlocked police van; to Miot, destined to the tortures
+of African casemates; to Roger (du Nord), who with courageous and witty
+irony offered sherry to the bandits. Charras and Changarnier were taken
+unawares.
+
+They lived in the Rue St. Honoré, nearly opposite to each other,
+Changarnier at No. 3, Charras at No. 14. Ever since the 9th of September
+Changarnier had dismissed the fifteen men armed to the teeth by whom he
+had hitherto been guarded during the night, and on the 1st December, as
+we have said, Charras had unloaded his pistols. These empty pistols were
+lying on the table when they came to arrest him. The Commissary of Police
+threw himself upon them. "Idiot," said Charras to him, "if they had been
+loaded, you would have been a dead man." These pistols, we may note, had
+been given to Charras upon the taking of Mascara by General Renaud, who
+at the moment of Charras' arrest was on horseback in the street helping
+to carry out the _coup d'état_. If these pistols had remained loaded, and
+if General Renaud had had the task of arresting Charras, it would have
+been curious if Renaud's pistols had killed Renaud. Charras assuredly
+would not have hesitated. We have already mentioned the names of these
+police rascals. It is useless to repeat them. It was Courtille who
+arrested Charras, Lerat who arrested Changarnier, Desgranges who arrested
+Nadaud. The men thus seized in their own houses were Representatives of
+the people; they were inviolable, so that to the crime of the violation
+of their persons was added this high treason, the violation of the
+Constitution.
+
+There was no lack of impudence in the perpetration of these outrages. The
+police agents made merry. Some of these droll fellows jested. At Mazas
+the under-jailors jeered at Thiers, Nadaud reprimanded them severely. The
+Sieur Hubaut (the younger) awoke General Bedeau. "General, you are a
+prisoner."--"My person is inviolable."--"Unless you are caught red-handed,
+in the very act."--"Well," said Bedeau, "I am caught in the act, the
+heinous act of being asleep." They took him by the collar and dragged him
+to a _fiacre_.
+
+On meeting together at Mazas, Nadaud grasped the hand of Greppo, and
+Lagrange grasped the hand of Lamoricière. This made the police gentry
+laugh. A colonel, named Thirion, wearing a commander's cross round his
+neck, helped to put the Generals and the Representatives into jail. "Look
+me in the face," said Charras to him. Thirion moved away.
+
+Thus, without counting other arrests which took place later on, there
+were imprisoned during the night of the 2d of December, sixteen
+Representatives and seventy-eight citizens. The two agents of the crime
+furnished a report of it to Louis Bonaparte. Morny wrote "Boxed up;"
+Maupas wrote "Quadded." The one in drawing-room slang, the other in the
+slang of the galleys. Subtle gradations of language.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+THE DARKNESS OF THE CRIME
+
+Versigny had just left me.
+
+While I dressed hastily there came in a man 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 carver of wood, and
+not illiterate. He came in from the street; he was trembling.
+
+"Well," I asked, "what do the people say?"
+
+Girard answered me,--
+
+"People are dazed. The blow has been struck in such a manner that it
+is not realized. Workmen read the placards, say nothing, and go to
+their work. Only one in a hundred speaks. It is to say, 'Good!' This
+is how it appears to them. The law of the 31st May is abrogated--'Well
+done!' Universal suffrage is re-established--'Also well done!' The
+reactionary majority has been driven away--'Admirable!' Thiers is
+arrested--'Capital!' Changarnier is seized--'Bravo!' Round each placard
+there are _claqueurs_. Ratapoil explains his _coup d'état_ to Jacques
+Bonhomme, Jacques Bonhomme takes it all in. Briefly, it is my impression
+that the people give their consent."
+
+"Let it be so," said I.
+
+"But," asked Girard of me, "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
+Mieroslawsky in the Sicilian insurrection. He has, in a few moving and
+enthusiastic pages, 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 in this century has two fatherlands--the Rome of
+yesterday and the Paris of to-day.
+
+"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 invested. I
+have come from thence. The Place de la Révolution, the Quays, the
+Tuileries, the boulevards, are crowded with troops. The soldiers have
+their knapsacks. The batteries are harnessed. If fighting takes place it
+will be desperate work."
+
+I answered him, "There will be fighting."
+
+And I added, laughing, "You have proved that the colonels write like
+poets; now it is the turn of the poets 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. I put on my wife's bed
+a box containing nine hundred francs, all the money which remained to me,
+and I told her what had happened.
+
+She turned pale, and said to me, "What are you going to do?"
+
+"My duty."
+
+She embraced me, and only said two words:--
+
+"Do it."
+
+My breakfast was ready. I ate a cutlet in two mouthfuls. As I finished,
+my daughter came in. She was startled by the manner in which I kissed
+her, and asked me, "What is the matter?"
+
+"Your mother will explain to you."
+
+And I left them.
+
+The Rue de la Tour d'Auvergne was as quiet and deserted as usual. Four
+workmen were, however, chatting near my door; they wished me "Good
+morning."
+
+I cried out to them, "You know what is going on?"
+
+"Yes," said they.
+
+"Well. It is treason! Louis Bonaparte is strangling the Republic. The
+people are attacked. The people must defend themselves."
+
+"They will defend themselves."
+
+"You promise me that?"
+
+"Yes," they answered.
+
+One of them added, "We swear it."
+
+They kept their word. Barricades were constructed in my street (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 these brave men I could read at the corner of the Rue de la
+Tour d'Auvergne and the Rue des Martyrs, the three infamous placards
+which 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. Every day which
+  passes enhances the dangers of the country. The Assembly, which ought
+  to be the firmest support of order, has become a focus of conspiracies.
+  The patriotism of three hundred of its members has been unable to check
+  its fatal tendencies. Instead of making laws in the public interest it
+  forges arms for civil war; it attacks the power which I hold directly
+  from the People, it encourages all bad passions, it compromises the
+  tranquillity of France; I have dissolved it, and I constitute the whole
+  People a judge between it and me.
+
+  "The Constitution, as you know, was constructed with the object of
+  weakening beforehand the power which you were about to confide to me.
+  Six millions of votes formed an emphatic protest against it, and yet
+  I have faithfully respected it. Provocations, calumnies, outrages,
+  have found me unmoved. Now, however, that the fundamental compact is
+  no longer respected by those very men who incessantly invoke it, and
+  that the men who have ruined two monarchies wish to tie my hands in
+  order to overthrow the Republic, my duty is to frustrate their
+  treacherous schemes, to maintain the Republic, and to save the Country
+  by appealing to the solemn judgment of the only Sovereign whom I
+  recognize in France--the People.
+
+  "I therefore make a loyal appeal to the whole nation, and I say to
+  you: If you wish to continue this condition of uneasiness which
+  degrades us and compromises our future, choose another in my place,
+  for I will no longer retain a power which is impotent to do good,
+  which renders me responsible for actions which I cannot prevent, and
+  which binds me to the helm when I see the vessel driving towards the
+  abyss.
+
+  "If on the other hand you still place confidence in me, give me the
+  means of accomplishing the great mission which I hold from you.
+
+  "This mission consists in closing the era of revolutions, by satisfying
+  the legitimate needs of the People, and by protecting them from
+  subversive passions. It consists, above all, in creating institutions
+  which survive men, and which shall in fact form the foundations on
+  which something durable may be established.
+
+  "Persuaded that the instability of power, that the preponderance of a
+  single Assembly, are the permanent causes of trouble and discord, I
+  submit to your suffrage the following fundamental bases of a
+  Constitution which will be developed by the Assemblies later on:--
+
+  "1. A responsible Chief appointed for ten years.
+
+  "2. Ministers dependent upon the Executive Power alone.
+
+  "3. A Council of State composed of the most distinguished men, who shall
+  prepare laws and shall support them in debate before the Legislative
+  Body.
+
+  "4. A Legislative Body which shall discuss and vote the laws, and which
+  shall be elected by universal suffrage, without _scrutin de liste_,
+  which falsifies the elections.
+
+  "5. A Second Assembly composed of the most illustrious men of the
+  country, a power of equipoise the guardian of the fundamental compact,
+  and of the public liberties.
+
+  "This system, created by the first Consul at the beginning of the
+  century, has already given repose and prosperity to France; it would
+  still insure them to her.
+
+  "Such is my firm conviction. If you share it, declare it by your votes.
+  If, on the contrary, you prefer a government without strength,
+  Monarchical or Republican, borrowed I know not from what past, or from
+  what chimerical future, answer in the negative.
+
+  "Thus for the first time since 1804, you will vote with a full knowledge
+  of the circumstances, knowing exactly for whom and for what.
+
+  "If I do not obtain the majority of your suffrages I shall call together
+  a New Assembly and shall place in its hands the commission which I have
+  received from you.
+
+  "But if you believe that the cause of which my name is the symbol,--that
+  is to say, France regenerated by the Revolution of '89, and organized by
+  the Emperor, is to be still your own, proclaim it by sanctioning the
+  powers which I ask from you.
+
+  "Then France and Europe will be preserved from anarchy, obstacles will
+  be removed, rivalries will have disappeared, for all will respect, in
+  the decision of the People, the decree of Providence.
+
+  "Given at the Palace of the Elysée, 2d December, 1851.
+
+  "LOUIS NAPOLEON BONAPARTE."
+
+
+
+  PROCLAMATION OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC TO THE ARMY.
+
+  "Soldiers! Be proud of your mission, you will save the country, for I
+  count upon you not to violate the laws, but to enforce respect for the
+  first law of the country, the national Sovereignty, of which I am the
+  Legitimate Representative.
+
+  "For a long time past, like myself, you have suffered from obstacles
+  which have opposed themselves both to the good that I wished to do and
+  to the demonstrations of your sympathies in my favor. These obstacles
+  have been broken down.
+
+  "The Assembly has tried to attack the authority which 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 give me the means of insuring your prosperity, or choose another
+  in my place.
+
+  "In 1830, as in 1848, you were treated as vanquished men. After having
+  branded your heroic disinterestedness, they disdained to consult your
+  sympathies and your wishes, and yet you are the flower of the Nation.
+  To-day, at this solemn moment, I am resolved that the voice of the Army
+  shall be heard.
+
+  "Vote, therefore, freely as citizens; but, as soldiers do not forget
+  that passive obedience to the orders of the Chief of the State is the
+  rigorous duty of the Army, from the general to the private soldier.
+
+  "It is for me, responsible for my actions both to the People and to
+  posterity, to take those measures which may seem to me indispensable for
+  the public welfare.
+
+  "As for you, remain immovable within the rules of discipline and of
+  honor. By your imposing attitude help the country to manifest its will
+  with calmness and reflection.
+
+  "Be ready to repress every attack upon the free exercise of the
+  sovereignty of the People.
+
+  "Soldiers, I do not speak to you of the memories which my name recalls.
+  They are engraven in your hearts. We are united by indissoluble ties.
+  Your history is mine. There is between us, in the past, a community of
+  glory and of misfortune.
+
+  "There will be in the future community of sentiment and of resolutions
+  for the repose and the greatness of France.
+
+  "Given at the Palace of the Elysée, December 2d, 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 are convoked in their electoral
+  districts from the 14th December to the 21st December following.
+
+  "ARTICLE IV. The State of Siege is decreed 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 of the Elysée, 2d December, 1851.
+
+  "LOUIS NAPOLEON 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, lived there. It was not in his rooms, however, that
+the meeting was to take place.
+
+The porter of No. 70 told me to go up to the first floor. The door was
+opened, and a handsome, gray-haired woman of some forty summers, the
+Baroness Coppens, whom I recognized as having seen in society and at my
+own house, ushered me into a drawing-room.
+
+Michel de Bourges and Alexander Rey were there, the latter an
+ex-Constituent, an eloquent writer, a brave man. At that time Alexander
+Rey edited the _National_.
+
+We shook hands.
+
+Michel said to me,--
+
+"Hugo, what will you do?"
+
+I answered him,--
+
+"Everything."
+
+"That also is my opinion," said he.
+
+Numerous representatives arrived, and amongst others Pierre Lefranc,
+Labrousse, Théodore Bac, Noël Parfait, Arnauld (de l'Ariége), Demosthenes
+Ollivier, an ex-Constituent, and Charamaule. There was deep and
+unutterable indignation, but no useless words were spoken.
+
+All were imbued with that manly anger whence issue great resolutions.
+
+They talked. They set forth the situation. Each brought forward the news
+which he had learnt.
+
+Théodore Bac came from Léon Faucher, who lived in the Rue Blanche. It
+was he who had awakened Léon Faucher, and had announced the news to him.
+The first words of Léon Faucher were, "It is an infamous deed."
+
+From the first moment Charamaule displayed a courage which, during
+the four days of the struggle, never flagged for a single instant.
+Charamaule is a very tall man, possessed of vigorous features and
+convincing eloquence; he voted with the Left, but sat with the Right.
+In the Assembly he was the neighbor of Montalembert and of Riancey.
+He sometimes had warm disputes with them, which we watched from afar
+off, and which amused us.
+
+Charamaule had come to the meeting at No. 70 dressed in a sort of blue
+cloth military cloak, and armed, as we found out later on.
+
+The situation was grave; sixteen Representatives arrested, all the
+generals of the Assembly, and he who was more than a general, Charras.
+All the journals suppressed, all the printing offices occupied by
+soldiers. On the side of Bonaparte an army of 80,000 men which could be
+doubled in a few hours; on our side nothing. The people deceived, and
+moreover disarmed. The telegraph at their command. All the walls covered
+with their placards, and at our disposal not a single printing case, not
+one sheet of paper. No means of raising the protest, no means of
+beginning the combat. The _coup d'état_ was clad with mail, the Republic
+was naked; the _coup d'état_ had a speaking trumpet, the Republic wore a
+gag.
+
+What was to be done?
+
+The raid against the Republic, against the Assembly, against Right,
+against Law, against Progress, against Civilization, was commanded by
+African generals. These heroes had just proved that they were cowards.
+They had taken their precautions well. Fear alone can engender so much
+skill. They had arrested all the men of war of the Assembly, and all the
+men of action of the Left, Baune, Charles Lagrange, Miot, Valentin,
+Nadaud, Cholat. Add to this that all the possible chiefs of the
+barricades were in prison. The organizers of the ambuscade had carefully
+left at liberty Jules Favre, Michel de Bourges, and myself, judging us
+to be less men of action than of the Tribune; wishing to leave the Left
+men capable of resistance, but incapable of victory, hoping to dishonor
+us if we did not fight, and to shoot us if we did fight.
+
+Nevertheless, no one hesitated. The deliberation began. Other
+representatives arrived every minute, Edgar Quinet, Doutre, Pelletier,
+Cassal, Bruckner, Baudin, Chauffour. The room was full, some were
+seated, most were standing, in confusion, but without tumult.
+
+I was the first to speak.
+
+I said that the struggle ought to be begun at once. Blow for blow.
+
+That it was my opinion that the hundred and fifty Representatives of the
+Left should put on their scarves of office, should march in procession
+through the streets and the boulevards as far as the Madeleine, and
+crying "Vive la République! Vive la Constitution!" should appear before
+the troops, and alone, calm and unarmed, should summon Might to obey
+Right. If the soldiers yielded, they should go to the Assembly and make
+an end of Louis Bonaparte. If the soldiers fired upon their legislators,
+they should disperse throughout Paris, cry "To Arms," and resort to
+barricades. Resistance should be begun constitutionally, and if that
+failed, should be continued revolutionarily. There was no time to be
+lost.
+
+"High treason," said I, "should be seized red-handed, is a great mistake
+to suffer such an outrage to be accepted by the hours as they elapse.
+Each minute which passes is an accomplice, and endorses the crime.
+Beware of that calamity called an 'Accomplished fact.' To arms!"
+
+Many warmly supported this advice, among others Edgar Quinet, Pelletier,
+and Doutre.
+
+Michel de Bourges seriously
+objected. My instinct was to begin at once, his advice was to wait and
+see. According to him there was danger in hastening the catastrophe. The
+_coup d'état_ was organized, and the People were not. They had been
+taken unawares. We must not indulge in illusion. The masses could not
+stir yet. Perfect calm reigned in the faubourgs; Surprise existed, yes;
+Anger, no. The people of Paris, although so intelligent, did not
+understand.
+
+Michel added, "We are not in 1830. Charles X., in turning out the 221,
+exposed himself to this blow, the re-election of the 221. We are not in
+the same situation. The 221 were popular. The present Assembly is not: a
+Chamber which has been insultingly dissolved is always sure to conquer,
+if the People support it. Thus the People rose in 1830. To-day they
+wait. They are dupes until they shall be victims." Michel de Bourges
+concluded, "The People must be given time to understand, to grow angry,
+to rise. As for us, Representative, we should be rash to precipitate the
+situation. If we were to march immediately straight upon the troops, we
+should only be shot to no purpose, and the glorious insurrection for
+Right would thus be beforehand deprived of its natural leaders--the
+Representatives of the People. We should decapitate the popular army.
+Temporary delay, on the contrary, would be beneficial. Too much zeal
+must be guarded against, self-restraint is necessary, to give way would
+be to lose the battle before having begun it. Thus, for example, we must
+not attend the meeting announced by the Right for noon, all those who
+went there would be arrested. We must remain free, we must remain in
+readiness, we must remain calm, and must act waiting the advent of the
+People. Four days of this agitation without fighting would weary the
+army." Michel, however, advised a beginning, but simply by placarding
+Article 68 of the Constitution. But where should a printer be found?
+
+Michel de Bourges spoke with an experience of revolutionary procedure
+which was wanting in me. For many years past he had acquired a certain
+practical knowledge of the masses. His council was wise. It must be
+added that all the information which came to us seconded him, and
+appeared conclusive against me. Paris was dejected.
+
+The army of the _coup d'état_ invaded her peaceably. Even the placards
+were not torn down. Nearly all the Representatives present, even the
+most daring, agreed with Michel's counsel, to wait and see what would
+happen. "At night," said they, "the agitation will begin," and they
+concluded, like Michel de Bourges, that the people must be given time
+to understand. There would be a risk of being alone in too hasty a
+beginning. We should not carry the people with us in the first moment.
+Let us leave the indignation to increase little by little in their
+hearts. If it were begun prematurely our manifestation would miscarry.
+These were the sentiments of all. For myself, while listening to them, I
+felt shaken. Perhaps they were right. It would be a mistake to give the
+signal for the combat in vain. What good is the lightning which is not
+followed by the thunderbolt?
+
+To raise a voice, to give vent to a cry, to find a printer, there was
+the first question. But was there still a free Press?
+
+The brave old ex-chief of the 6th Legion, Colonel Forestier, came in. He
+took Michel de Bourges and myself aside.
+
+"Listen," said he to us. "I come to you. I have been dismissed. I no
+longer command my legion, but appoint me in the name of the Left,
+Colonel of the 6th. Sign me an order and I will go at once and call them
+to arms. In an hour the regiment will be on foot."
+
+"Colonel," answered I, "I will do more than sign an order, I will
+accompany you."
+
+And I turned towards Charamaule, who had a carriage in waiting.
+
+"Come with us," said I.
+
+Forestier was sure of two majors of the 6th. We decided to drive to them
+at once, while Michel and the other Representatives should await us at
+Bonvalet's, in the Boulevard du Temple, near the Café Turc. There they
+could consult together.
+
+We started.
+
+We traversed Paris, where people were already beginning to swarm in a
+threatening manner. The boulevards were thronged with an uneasy crowd.
+People walked to and fro, passers-by accosted each other without any
+previous acquaintance, a noteworthy sign of public anxiety; and groups
+talked in loud voices at the corners of the streets. The shops were
+being shut.
+
+"Come, this looks better," cried Charamaule.
+
+He had been wandering about the town since the morning, and he had
+noticed with sadness the apathy of the masses.
+
+We found the two majors at home upon whom Colonel Forestier counted.
+They were two rich linendrapers, who received us with some
+embarrassment. The shopmen had gathered together at the windows, and
+watched us pass by. It was mere curiosity.
+
+In the meanwhile one of the two majors countermanded a journey which he
+was going to undertake on that day, and promised us his co-operation.
+
+"But," added he, "do not deceive yourselves, one can foresee that we
+shall be cut to pieces. Few men will march out."
+
+Colonel Forestier said to us, "Watrin, the present colonel of the 6th,
+does not care for fighting; perhaps he will resign me the command
+amicably. I will go and find him alone, so as to startle him the less,
+and will join you at Bonvalet's."
+
+Near the Porte St. Martin we left our carriage, and Charamaule and
+myself proceeded along the boulevard on foot, in order to observe the
+groups more closely, and more easily to judge the aspect of the crowd.
+
+The recent levelling of the road had converted the boulevard of the
+Porte St. Martin into a deep cutting, commanded by two embankments. On
+the summits of these embankments were the footways, furnished with
+railings. The carriages drove along the cutting, the foot passengers
+walked along the footways.
+
+Just as we reached the boulevard, a long column of infantry filed into
+this ravine with drummers at their head. The thick waves of bayonets
+filled the square of St. Martin, and lost themselves in the depths of
+the Boulevard Bonne Nouvelle.
+
+An enormous and compact crowd covered the two pavements of the Boulevard
+St. Martin. Large numbers of workmen, in their blouses, were there,
+leaning upon the railings.
+
+At the moment when the head of the column entered the defile before the
+Theatre of the Porte St. Martin a tremendous shout of "Vive la
+République!" came forth from every mouth as though shouted by one man.
+The soldiers continued to advance in silence, but it might have been
+said that their pace slackened, and many of them regarded the crowd with
+an air of indecision. What did this cry of "Vive la République!" mean?
+Was it a token of applause? Was it a shout of defiance?
+
+It seemed to me at that moment that the Republic raised its brow, and
+that the _coup d'état_ hung its head.
+
+Meanwhile Charamaule said to me, "You are recognized."
+
+In fact, near the Château d'Eau the crowd surrounded me. Some young men
+cried out, "Vive Victor Hugo!" One of them asked me, "Citizen Victor
+Hugo, what ought we to do?"
+
+I answered, "Tear down the seditious placards of the _coup d'état_, and
+cry 'Vive la Constitution!'"
+
+"And suppose they fire on us?" said a young workman.
+
+"You will hasten to arms."
+
+"Bravo!" shouted the crowd.
+
+I added, "Louis Bonaparte is a rebel, he has steeped himself to-day in
+every crime. We, Representatives of the People, declare him an outlaw,
+but there is no need for our declaration, since he is an outlaw by the
+mere fact of his treason. Citizens, you have two hands; take in one your
+Right, and in the other your gun and fall upon Bonaparte."
+
+"Bravo! Bravo!" again shouted the people.
+
+A tradesman who was shutting up his shop said to me, "Don't speak so
+loud, if they heard you talking like that, they would shoot you."
+
+"Well, then," I replied, "you would parade my body, and my death would
+be a boon if the justice of God could result from it."
+
+All shouted "Long live Victor Hugo!"
+
+"Shout 'Long live the Constitution,'" said I.
+
+A great cry of "Vive la Constitution! Vive la République;" came forth
+from every breast.
+
+Enthusiasm, indignation, anger flashed in the faces of all. I thought
+then, and I still think, that this, perhaps, was the supreme moment. I
+was tempted to carry off all that crowd, and to begin the battle.
+
+Charamaule restrained me. He whispered to me,--
+
+"You will bring about a useless fusillade. Every one is unarmed. The
+infantry is only two paces from us, and see, here comes the artillery."
+
+I looked round; in truth several pieces of cannon emerged at a quick
+trot from the Rue de Bondy, behind the Château d'Eau.
+
+The advice to abstain, given by Charamaule, made a deep impression on
+me. Coming from such a man, and one so dauntless, it was certainly not
+to be distrusted. Besides, I felt myself bound by the deliberation which
+had just taken place at the meeting in the Rue Blanche.
+
+I shrank before the responsibility which I should have incurred. To have
+taken advantage of such a moment might have been victory, it might also
+have been a massacre. Was I right? Was I wrong?
+
+The crowd thickened around us, and it became difficult to go forward. We
+were anxious, however, to reach the _rendezvous_ at Bonvalet's.
+
+Suddenly some one touched me on the arm. It was Léopold Duras, of the
+_National_.
+
+"Go no further," he whispered, "the Restaurant Bonvalet is surrounded.
+Michel de Bourges has attempted to harangue the People, but the soldiers
+came up. He barely succeeded in making his escape. Numerous
+Representatives who came to the meeting have been arrested. Retrace your
+steps. We are returning to the old _rendezvous_ in the Rue Blanche. I
+have been looking for you to tell you this."
+
+A cab was passing; Charamaule hailed the driver. We jumped in, followed
+by the crowd, shouting, "Vive la République! Vive Victor Hugo!"
+
+It appears that just at that moment a squadron of _sergents de ville_
+arrived on the Boulevard to arrest me. The coachman drove off at full
+speed. A quarter of an hour afterwards 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 free.
+The large grated gate of the Palace of the Assembly was closed; through
+the bars might be seen the flight of steps, that flight of steps whence
+the Republic had been proclaimed on the 4th May, 1848, covered with
+soldiers; and their piled arms might be distinguished upon the platform
+behind those high columns, which, during the time of the Constituent
+Assembly, after the 15th of May and the 23d June, masked small mountain
+mortars, loaded and pointed.
+
+A porter with a red collar, wearing the livery of the Assembly, stood by
+the little door of the grated gate. From time to time Representatives
+arrived. The porter said, "Gentlemen, are you Representatives?" and
+opened the door. Sometimes he asked their names.
+
+M. Dupin's quarters could be entered without hindrance. In the great
+gallery, in the dining-room, in the _salon d'honneur_ of the Presidency,
+liveried attendants silently opened the doors as usual.
+
+Before daylight, immediately after the arrest of the Questors MM. Baze
+and Leflô, M. de Panat, the only Questor who remained free, having been
+spared or disdained as a Legitimist, awoke M. Dupin and begged him to
+summon immediately the Representatives from their own homes. M. Dupin
+returned this unprecedented answer, "I do not see any urgency."
+
+Almost at the same time as M. Panat, the Representative Jerôme Bonaparte
+had hastened thither. He had summoned M. Dupin to place himself at the
+head of the Assembly. M. Dupin had answered, "I cannot, I am guarded."
+Jerôme Bonaparte burst out laughing. In fact, no one had deigned to
+place a sentinel at M. Dupin's door; they knew that it was guarded by
+his meanness.
+
+It was only later on, towards noon, that they took pity on him. They
+felt that the contempt was too great, and allotted him two sentinels.
+
+At half-past seven, fifteen or twenty Representatives, among whom were
+MM. Eugène Sue, Joret, de Rességuier, and de Talhouet, met together in
+M. Dupin's room. They also had vainly argued with M. Dupin. In the
+recess of a window a clever member of the Majority, M. Desmousseaux de
+Givré, who was a little deaf and exceedingly exasperated, almost
+quarrelled with a Representative of the Right like himself whom he
+wrongly supposed to be favorable to the _coup d'état_.
+
+M. Dupin, apart from the group of Representatives, alone dressed in
+black, his hands behind his back, his head sunk on his breast, walked up
+and down before the fire-place, where a large fire was burning. In his
+own room, and in his very presence, they were talking loudly about
+himself, yet he seemed not to hear.
+
+Two members of the Left came in, Benoît (du Rhône), and Crestin. Crestin
+entered the room, went straight up to M. Dupin, and said to him,
+"President, you know what is going on? How is it that the Assembly has
+not yet been convened?"
+
+M. Dupin halted, and answered, with a shrug which was habitual with him,--
+
+"There is nothing to be done."
+
+And he resumed his walk.
+
+"It is enough," said M. de Rességuier.
+
+"It is too much," said Eugène Sue.
+
+All the Representatives left the room.
+
+In the meantime the Pont de la Concorde became covered with troops.
+Among them General Vast-Vimeux, lean, old, and little; his lank white
+hair plastered over his temples, in full uniform, with his laced hat on
+his head. He was laden with two huge epaulets, and displayed his scarf,
+not that of a Representative, but of a general, which scarf, being too
+long, trailed on the ground. He crossed the bridge on foot, shouting to
+the soldiers inarticulate cries of enthusiasm for the Empire and the
+_coup d'état_. Such figures as these were seen in 1814. Only instead of
+wearing a large tri-colored, cockade, they wore a large white cockade.
+In the main the same phenomenon; old men crying, "Long live the Past!"
+Almost at the same moment M. de Larochejaquelein crossed the Place de la
+Concorde, surrounded by a hundred men in blouses, who followed him in
+silence, and with an air of curiosity. Numerous regiments of cavalry
+were drawn up in the grand avenue of the Champs Elysées.
+
+At eight o'clock a formidable force invested the Legislative Palace.
+All the approaches were guarded, all the doors were shut. Some
+Representatives nevertheless succeeded in penetrating into the interior
+of the Palace, not, as has been wrongly stated, by the passage of the
+President's house on the side of the Esplanade of the Invalides, but by
+the little door of the Rue de Bourgogne, called the Black Door. This
+door, by what omission or what connivance I do not know, remained open
+till noon on the 2d December. The Rue de Bourgogne was nevertheless full
+of troops. Squads of soldiers scattered here and there in the Rue de
+l'Université allowed passers-by, who were few and far between, to use it
+as a thoroughfare.
+
+The Representatives who entered by the door in Rue de Bourgogne,
+penetrated as far as the Salle des Conférences, where they met their
+colleagues coming out from M. Dupin.
+
+A numerous group of men, representing every shade of opinion in the
+Assembly, was speedily assembled in this hall, amongst whom were MM.
+Eugène Sue, Richardet, Fayolle, Joret, Marc Dufraisse, Benoît (du
+Rhône), Canet, Gambon, d'Adelsward, Créqu, Répellin, Teillard-Latérisse,
+Rantion, General Leydet, Paulin Durrieu, Chanay, Brilliez, Collas (de la
+Gironde), Monet, Gaston, Favreau, and Albert de Rességuier.
+
+Each new-comer accosted M. de Panat.
+
+"Where are the vice-Presidents?"
+
+"In prison."
+
+"And the two other Questors?"
+
+"Also in prison. And I beg you to believe, gentlemen," added M. de
+Panat, "that I have had nothing to do with the insult which has been
+offered me, in not arresting me."
+
+Indignation was at its height; every political shade was blended in the
+same sentiment of contempt and anger, and M. de Rességuier was no less
+energetic than Eugène Sue. For the first time the Assembly seemed only
+to have one heart and one voice. Each at length said what he thought of
+the man of the Elysée, and it was then seen that for a long time past
+Louis Bonaparte had imperceptibly created a profound unanimity in the
+Assembly--the unanimity of contempt.
+
+M. Collas (of the Gironde) gesticulated and told his story. He came from
+the Ministry of the Interior. He had seen M. de Morny, he had spoken to
+him; and he, M. Collas, was incensed beyond measure at M. Bonaparte's
+crime. Since then, that Crime has made him Councillor of State.
+
+M. de Panat went hither and thither among the groups, announcing to the
+Representatives that he had convened the Assembly for one o'clock. But it
+was impossible to wait until that hour. Time pressed. At the Palais
+Bourbon, as in the Rue Blanche, it was the universal feeling that each
+hour which passed by helped to accomplish the _coup d'état_. Every one
+felt as a reproach the weight of his silence or of his inaction; the
+circle of iron was closing in, the tide of soldiers rose unceasingly,
+and silently invaded the Palace; at each instant a sentinel the more was
+found at a door, which a moment before had been free. Still, the group of
+Representatives assembled together in the Salle des Conférences was as
+yet respected. It was necessary to act, to speak, to deliberate, to
+struggle, and not to lose a minute.
+
+Gambon said, "Let us try Dupin once more; he is our official man, we
+have need of him." They went to look for him. They could not find him.
+He was no longer there, he had disappeared, he was away, hidden,
+crouching, cowering, concealed, he had vanished, he was buried. Where?
+No one knew. Cowardice has unknown holes.
+
+Suddenly a man entered the hall. A man who was a stranger to the Assembly,
+in uniform, wearing the epaulet of a superior officer and a sword by his
+side. He was a major of the 42d, who came to summon the Representatives
+to quit their own House. All, Royalists and Republicans alike, rushed
+upon him. Such was the expression of an indignant eye-witness. General
+Leydet addressed him in language such as leaves an impression on the
+cheek rather than on the ear.
+
+"I do my duty, I fulfil my instructions," stammered the officer.
+
+"You are an idiot, if you think you are doing your duty," cried Leydet
+to him, "and you are a scoundrel if you know that you are committing a
+crime. Your name? What do you call yourself? Give me your name."
+
+The officer refused to give his name, and replied, "So, gentlemen, you
+will not withdraw?"
+
+"No."
+
+"I shall go and obtain force."
+
+"Do so."
+
+He left the room, and in actual fact went to obtain orders from the
+Ministry of the Interior.
+
+The Representatives waited in that kind of indescribable agitation which
+might be called the Strangling of Right by Violence.
+
+In a short time one of them who had gone out came back hastily, and warned
+them that two companies of the _Gendarmerie Mobile_ were coming with
+their guns in their hands.
+
+Marc Dufraisse cried out, "Let the outrage be thorough. Let the _coup
+d'état_ find us on our seats. Let us go to the Salle des Séances," he
+added. "Since things have come to such a pass, let us afford the genuine
+and living spectacle of an 18th Brumaire."
+
+They all repaired to the Hall of Assembly. The passage was free. The
+Salle Casimir-Périer was not yet occupied by the soldiers.
+
+They numbered about sixty. Several were girded with their scarves of
+office. They entered the Hall meditatively.
+
+There, M. de Rességuier, undoubtedly with a good purpose, and in order
+to form a more compact group, urged that they should all install
+themselves on the Right side.
+
+"No," said Marc Dufraisse, "every one to his bench." They scattered
+themselves about the Hall, each in his usual place.
+
+M. Monet, who sat on one of the lower benches of the Left Centre, held
+in his hand a copy of the Constitution.
+
+Several minutes elapsed. No one spoke. It was the silence of expectation
+which precedes decisive deeds and final crises, and during which every
+one seems respectfully to listen to the last instructions of his
+conscience.
+
+Suddenly the soldiers of the _Gendarmerie Mobile_, headed by a captain
+with his sword drawn, appeared on the threshold. The Hall of Assembly
+was violated. The Representatives rose from their seats simultaneously,
+shouting "Vive la République!"
+
+The Representative Monet alone remained standing, and in a loud and
+indignant voice, which resounded through the empty hall like a trumpet,
+ordered the soldiers to halt.
+
+The soldiers halted, looking at the Representatives with a bewildered
+air.
+
+The soldiers as yet only blocked up the lobby of the Left, and had not
+passed beyond the Tribune.
+
+Then the Representative Monet read the Articles 36, 37, and 68 of the
+Constitution.
+
+Articles 36 and 37 established the inviolability of the
+Representatives. Article 68 deposed the President in the event of
+treason.
+
+That moment was a solemn one. The soldiers listened in silence.
+
+The Articles having been read, Representative d'Adelsward, who sat on
+the first lower bench of the Left, and who was nearest to the soldiers,
+turned towards them and said,--
+
+"Soldiers, you see that the President of the Republic is a traitor, and
+would make traitors of you. You violate the sacred precinct of rational
+Representation. In the name of the Constitution, in the name of the Law,
+we order you to withdraw."
+
+While Adelsward was speaking, the major commanding the _Gendarmerie
+Mobile_ had entered.
+
+"Gentlemen," said he, "I have orders to request you to retire, and, if
+you do not withdraw of your own accord, to expel you."
+
+"Orders to expel us!" exclaimed Adelsward; and all the Representatives
+added, "Whose orders; Let us see the orders. Who signed the orders?"
+
+The major drew forth a paper and unfolded it. Scarcely had he unfolded
+it than he attempted to replace it in his pocket, but General Leydet
+threw himself upon him and seized his arm. Several Representatives leant
+forward, and read the order for the expulsion of the Assembly, signed
+"Fortoul, Minister of the Marine."
+
+Marc Dufraisse turned towards the _Gendarmes Mobiles_, and cried out to
+them,--
+
+"Soldiers, your very presence here is an act of treason. Leave the
+Hall!"
+
+The soldiers seemed undecided. Suddenly a second column emerged from the
+door on the right, and at a signal from the commander, the captain
+shouted,--
+
+"Forward! Turn them all out!"
+
+Then began an indescribable hand-to-hand fight between the gendarmes and
+the legislators. The soldiers, with their guns in their hands, invaded
+the benches of the Senate. Repellin, Chanay, Rantion, were forcibly torn
+from their seats. Two gendarmes rushed upon Marc Dufraisse, two upon
+Gambon. A long struggle took place on the first bench of the Right, the
+same place where MM. Odilon Barrot and Abbatucci were in the habit of
+sitting. Paulin Durrieu resisted violence by force, it needed three men
+to drag him from his bench. Monet was thrown down upon the benches of the
+Commissaries. They seized Adelsward by the throat, and thrust him outside
+the Hall. Richardet, a feeble man, was thrown down and brutally treated.
+Some were pricked with the points of the bayonets; nearly all had their
+clothes torn.
+
+The commander shouted to the soldiers, "Rake them out."
+
+It was thus that sixty Representatives of the People were taken by the
+collar by the _coup d'état_, and driven from their seats. The manner in
+which the deed was executed completed the treason. The physical
+performance was worthy of the moral performance.
+
+The three last to come out were Fayolle, Teillard-Latérisse, and Paulin
+Durrieu.
+
+They were allowed to pass by the great door of the Palace, and they
+found themselves in the Place Bourgogne.
+
+The Place Bourgogne was occupied by the 42d Regiment of the Line, under
+the orders of Colonel Garderens.
+
+Between the Palace and the statue of the Republic, which occupied the
+centre of the square, a piece of artillery was pointed at the Assembly
+opposite the great door.
+
+By the side of the cannon some Chasseurs de Vincennes were loading their
+guns and biting their cartridges.
+
+Colonel Garderens was on horseback near a group of soldiers, which
+attracted the attention of the Representatives Teillard-Latérisse,
+Fayolle, and Paulin Durrieu.
+
+In the middle of this group three men, who had been arrested, were
+struggling crying, "Long live the Constitution! Vive la République!"
+
+Fayolle, Paulin Durrieu, and Teillard-Latérisse approached, and
+recognized in the three prisoners three members of the majority,
+Representatives Toupet-des-Vignes Radoubt, Lafosse, and Arbey.
+
+Representative Arbey was warmly protesting. As he raised his voice,
+Colonel Garderens cut him short with these words, which are worthy of
+preservation,--
+
+"Hold your tongue! One word more, and I will have you thrashed with the
+butt-end of a musket."
+
+The three Representatives of the Left indignantly called on the Colonel
+to release their colleagues.
+
+"Colonel," said Fayolle, "You break the law threefold."
+
+"I will break it sixfold," answered the Colonel, and he arrested
+Fayolle, Durrieu, and Teillard-Latérisse.
+
+The soldiery were ordered to conduct them to the guard house of the
+Palace then being built for the Minister of Foreign Affairs.
+
+On the way the six prisoners, marching between a double file of bayonets,
+met three of their colleagues Representatives Eugène Sue, Chanay, and
+Benoist (du Rhône).
+
+Eugène Sue placed himself before the officer who commanded the detachment,
+and said to him,--
+
+"We summon you to set our colleagues at liberty."
+
+"I cannot do so," answered the officer.
+
+"In that case complete your crimes," said Eugène Sue, "We summon you to
+arrest us also."
+
+The officer arrested them.
+
+They were taken to the guard-house of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs,
+and, later on, to the barracks of the Quai d'Orsay. It was not till
+night that two companies of the line came to transfer them to this
+ultimate resting-place.
+
+While placing them between his soldiers the commanding officer bowed
+down to the ground, politely remarking, "Gentlemen, my men's guns are
+loaded."
+
+The clearance of the hall was carried out, as we have said, in a
+disorderly fashion, the soldiers pushing the Representatives before them
+through all the outlets.
+
+Some, and amongst the number those of whom we have just spoken, wens out
+by the Rue de Bourgogne, others were dragged through the Salle des Pas
+Perdus towards the grated door opposite the Pont de la Concorde.[3]
+
+The Salle des Pas Perdus has an ante-chamber, a sort of crossway room,
+upon which opened the staircase of the High Tribune, and several doors,
+amongst others the great glass door of the gallery which leads to the
+apartments of the President of the Assembly.
+
+As soon as they had reached this crossway room which adjoins the little
+rotunda, where the side door of exit to the Palace is situated, the
+soldiers set the Representatives free.
+
+There, in a few moments, a group was formed, in which the
+Representatives Canet and Favreau began to speak. One universal cry was
+raised, "Let us search for Dupin, let us drag him here if it is
+necessary."
+
+They opened the glass door and rushed into the gallery. This time M.
+Dupin was at home. M. Dupin, having learnt that the gendarmes had
+cleared out the Hall, had come out of his hiding-place. The Assembly
+being thrown prostrate, Dupin stood erect. The law being made prisoner,
+this man felt himself set free.
+
+The group of Representatives, led by MM. Canet and Favreau, found him in
+his study.
+
+There a dialogue ensued. The Representatives summoned the President to
+put himself at their head, and to re-enter the Hall, he, the man of the
+Assembly, with them, the men of the Nation.
+
+M. Dupin refused point-blank, maintained his ground, was very firm, and
+clung bravely to his nonentity.
+
+"What do you want me to do?" said he, mingling with his alarmed protests
+many law maxims and Latin quotations, an instinct of chattering jays,
+who pour forth all their vocabulary when they are frightened. "What do
+you want me to do? Who am I? What can I do? I am nothing. No one is any
+longer anything. _Ubi nihil, nihil_. Might is there. Where there is
+Might the people lose their Rights. _Novus nascitur ordo_. Shape your
+course accordingly. I am obliged to submit. _Dura lex, sed lex_. A law
+of necessity we admit, but not a law of right. But what is to be done? I
+ask to be let alone. I can do nothing. I do what I can. I am not wanting
+in good will. If I had a corporal and four men, I would have them
+killed."
+
+"This man only recognizes force," said the Representatives. "Very well,
+let us employ force."
+
+They used violence towards him, they girded him with a scarf like a cord
+round his neck, and, as they had said, they dragged him towards the
+Hall, begging for his "liberty," moaning, kicking--I would say
+wrestling, if the word were not too exalted.
+
+Some minutes after the clearance, this Salle des Pas Perdus, which had
+just witnessed Representatives pass by in the clutch of gendarmes, saw
+M. Dupin in the clutch of the Representatives.
+
+They did not get far. Soldiers barred the great green folding-doors.
+Colonel Espinasse hurried thither, the commander of the gendarmerie came
+up. The butt-ends of a pair of pistols were seen peeping out of the
+commander's pocket.
+
+The colonel was pale, the commander was pale, M. Dupin was livid. Both
+sides were afraid. M. Dupin was afraid of the colonel; the colonel
+assuredly was not afraid of M. Dupin, but behind this laughable and
+miserable figure he saw a terrible phantom rise up--his crime, and he
+trembled. In Homer there is a scene where Nemesis appears behind
+Thersites.
+
+M. Dupin remained for some moments stupefied, bewildered and speechless.
+
+The Representative Gambon exclaimed to him,--
+
+"Now then, speak, M. Dupin, the Left does not interrupt you."
+
+Then, with the words of the Representatives at his back, and the
+bayonets of the soldiers at his breast, the unhappy man spoke. What
+his mouth uttered at this moment, what the President of the Sovereign
+Assembly of France stammered to the gendarmes at this intensely critical
+moment, no one could gather.
+
+Those who heard the last gasps of this moribund cowardice, hastened
+to purify their ears. It appears, however, that he stuttered forth
+something like this:--
+
+"You are Might, you have bayonets; I invoke Right and I leave you. I
+have the honor to wish you good day."
+
+He went away.
+
+They let him go. At the moment of leaving he turned round and let fall a
+few more words. We will not gather them up. History has no rag-picker's
+basket.
+
+
+[3] This grated door was closed on December 2, and was not reopened
+until the 12th March, when M. Louis Bonaparte came to inspect the works
+of the Hall of the Corps Legislatif.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+AN END WORSE THAN DEATH
+
+We should have been glad to have put aside, never to have spoken of him
+again, this man who had borne for three years this most honorable title,
+President of the National Assembly of France, and who had only known how
+to be lacquey to the majority. He contrived in his last hour to sink
+even lower than could have been believed possible even for him. His
+career in the Assembly had been that of a valet, his end was that of a
+scullion.
+
+The unprecedented attitude that M. Dupin assumed before the gendarmes
+when uttering with a grimace his mockery of a protest, even engendered
+suspicion. Gambion exclaimed, "He resists like an accomplice. He knew
+all."
+
+We believe these suspicions to be unjust. M. Dupin knew nothing. Who
+indeed amongst the organizers of the _coup d'état_ would have taken the
+trouble to make sure of his joining them? Corrupt M. Dupin? was it
+possible? and, further, to what purpose? To pay him? Why? It would be
+money wasted when fear alone was enough. Some connivances are secured
+before they are sought for. Cowardice is the old fawner upon felony. The
+blood of the law is quickly wiped up. Behind the assassin who holds the
+poniard comes the trembling wretch who holds the sponge.
+
+Dupin took refuge in his study. They followed him. "My God!" he cried,
+"can't they understand that I want to be left in peace."
+
+In truth they had tortured him ever since the morning, in order to
+extract from him an impossible scrap of courage.
+
+"You ill-treat me worse than the gendarmes," said he.
+
+The Representatives installed themselves in his study, seated themselves
+at his table, and, while he groaned and scolded in an arm-chair, they
+drew up a formal report of what had just taken place, as they wished to
+leave an official record of the outrage in the archives.
+
+When the official report was ended Representative Canet read it to the
+President, and offered him a pen.
+
+"What do you want me to do with this?" he asked.
+
+"You are the President," answered Canet. "This is our last sitting. It
+is your duty to sign the official report."
+
+This man refused.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+
+THE BLACK DOOR
+
+M. Dupin is a matchless disgrace.
+
+Later on he had his reward. It appears that he became some sort of an
+Attorney-General at the Court of Appeal.
+
+M. Dupin renders to Louis Bonaparte the service of being in his place
+the meanest of men.
+
+To continue this dismal history.
+
+The Representatives of the Right, in their first bewilderment caused
+by the _coup d'état_, hastened in large numbers to M. Daru, who was
+Vice-President of the Assembly, and at the same time one of the
+Presidents of the Pyramid Club. This Association had always supported
+the policy of the Elysée, but without believing that a _coup d'état_
+was premeditated. M. Daru lived at No. 75, Rue de Lille.
+
+Towards ten o'clock in the morning about a hundred of these
+Representatives had assembled at M. Daru's home. They resolved to
+attempt to penetrate into the Hall where the Assembly held its sittings.
+The Rue de Lille opens out into the Rue de Bourgogne, almost opposite
+the little door by which the Palace is entered, and which is called the
+Black Door.
+
+They turned their steps towards this door, with M. Daru at their head.
+They marched arm in arm and three abreast. Some of them had put on their
+scarves of office. They took them off later on.
+
+The Black Door, half-open as usual, was only guarded by two sentries.
+
+Some of the most indignant, and amongst them M. de Kerdrel, rushed
+towards this door and tried to pass. The door, however, was violently
+shut, and there ensued between the Representatives and the _sergents de
+ville_ who hastened up, a species of struggle, in which a Representative
+had his wrist sprained.
+
+At the same time a battalion which was drawn up on the Place de
+Bourgogne moved on, and came at the double towards the group of
+Representatives. M. Daru, stately and firm, signed to the commander
+to stop; the battalion halted, and M. Daru, in the name of the
+Constitution, and in his capacity as Vice-President of the Assembly,
+summoned the soldiers to lay down their arms, and to give free passage
+to the Representatives of the Sovereign People.
+
+The commander of the battalion replied by an order to clear the street
+immediately, declaring that there was no longer an Assembly; that as for
+himself, he did not know what the Representatives of the People were,
+and that if those persons before him did not retire of their own accord,
+he would drive them back by force.
+
+"We will only yield 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 order.
+
+There was a moment of confusion; almost a collision. The Representatives,
+forcibly driven back, ebbed into the Rue de Lille. Some of them fell
+down. Several members of the Right were rolled in the mud by the
+soldiers. One of them, M. Etienne, received a blow on the shoulder from
+the butt-end of a musket. We may here add that a week afterwards M.
+Etienne was a member of that concern which they styled the Consultative
+Committee. He found the _coup d'état_ to his taste, the blow with the
+butt-end of a musket included.
+
+They went back to M. Daru's house, and on the way the scattered group
+reunited, and was even strengthened by some new-comers.
+
+"Gentlemen," said M. Daru, "the President has failed us, the Hall is
+closed against us. I am the Vice-President; my house is the Palace of
+the Assembly."
+
+He opened a large room, and there the Representatives of the Right
+installed themselves. At first the discussions were somewhat noisy. M.
+Daru, however, observed that the moments were precious, and silence was
+restored.
+
+The first measure to be taken was evidently the deposition of the
+President of the Republic by virtue of Article 68 of the Constitution.
+Some Representatives of the party which was called _Burgraves_ sat round
+a table and prepared the deed of deposition.
+
+As they were about to read it aloud a Representative who came in from
+out of doors appeared at the door of the room, and announced to the
+Assembly that the Rue de Lille was becoming filled with troops, and that
+the house was being surrounded.
+
+There was not a moment to lose.
+
+M. Benoist-d'Azy said, "Gentlemen, let us go to the Mairie of the tenth
+arrondissement; there we shall be able to deliberate under the protection
+of the tenth legion, of which our colleague, General Lauriston, is the
+colonel."
+
+M. Daru's house had a back entrance by a little door which was at the
+bottom of the garden. Most of the Representatives went out that way.
+
+M. Daru was about to follow them. Only himself, M. Odilon Barrot, and
+two or three others remained in the room, when the door opened. A
+captain entered, and said to M. Daru,--
+
+"Sir, you are my prisoner."
+
+"Where am I to follow you?" asked M. Daru.
+
+"I have orders to watch over you in your own house."
+
+The house, in truth, was militarily occupied, and it was thus that M.
+Daru was prevented from taking part in the sitting at the Mairie of the
+tenth arrondissement.
+
+The officer allowed M. Odilon Barrot to go out.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+
+THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
+
+While all this was taking place on the left bank of the river, towards
+noon a man was noticed walking up and down the great Salles des Pas
+Perdus of the Palace of Justice. This man, carefully buttoned up in an
+overcoat, appeared to be attended at a distance by several possible
+supporters--for certain police enterprises employ assistants whose
+dubious appearance renders the passers-by uneasy, so much so that they
+wonder whether they are magistrates or thieves. The man in the
+buttoned-up overcoat loitered from door to door, from lobby to lobby,
+exchanging signs of intelligence with the myrmidons who followed him;
+then came back to the great Hall, stopping on the way the barristers,
+solicitors, ushers, clerks, and attendants, and repeating to all in a low
+voice, so as not to be heard by the passers-by, the same question. To
+this question some answered "Yes," others replied "No." And the man set
+to work again, prowling about the Palace of Justice with the appearance
+of a bloodhound seeking the trail.
+
+He was a Commissary of the Arsenal Police.
+
+What was he looking for?
+
+The High Court of Justice.
+
+What was the High Court of Justice doing?
+
+It was hiding.
+
+Why? To sit in Judgment?
+
+Yes and no.
+
+The Commissary of the Arsenal Police had that morning received from the
+Prefect Maupas the order to search everywhere for the place where the
+High Court of Justice might be sitting, if perchance it thought it its
+duty to meet. Confusing the High Court with the Council of State, the
+Commissary of Police had first gone to the Quai d'Orsay. Having found
+nothing, not even the Council of State, he had come away empty-handed, at
+all events had turned his steps towards the Palace of Justice, thinking
+that as he had to search for justice he would perhaps find it there.
+
+Not finding it, he went away.
+
+The High Court, however, had nevertheless met together.
+
+Where, and how? We shall see.
+
+At the period whose annals we are now chronicling, before the present
+reconstruction of the old buildings of Paris, when the Palace of Justice
+was reached by the Cour de Harlay, a staircase the reverse of majestic
+led thither by turning out into a long corridor called the Gallerie
+Mercière. Towards the middle of this corridor there were two doors; one
+on the right, which led to the Court of Appeal, the other on the left,
+which led to the Court of Cassation. The folding-doors to the left opened
+upon an old gallery called St. Louis, recently restored, and which serves
+at the present time for a Salle des Pas Perdus to the barristers of the
+Court of Cassation. A wooden statue of St. Louis stood opposite the
+entrance door. An entrance contrived in a niche to the right of this
+statue led into a winding lobby ending in a sort of blind passage, which
+apparently was closed by two double doors. On the door to the right might
+be read "First President's Room;" on the door to the left, "Council
+Chamber." Between these two doors, for the convenience of the barristers
+going from the Hall to the Civil Chamber, which formerly was the Great
+Chamber of Parliament, had been formed a narrow and dark passage, in
+which, as one of them remarked, "every crime could be committed with
+impunity."
+
+Leaving on one side the First President's Room and opening the door which
+bore the inscription "Council Chamber," a large room was crossed,
+furnished with a huge horse-shoe table, surrounded by green chairs. At
+the end of this room, which in 1793 had served as a deliberating hall for
+the juries of the Revolutionary Tribunal, there was a door placed in the
+wainscoting, which led into a little lobby where were two doors, on the
+right the door of the room appertaining to the President of the Criminal
+Chamber, on the left the door of the Refreshment Room. "Sentenced to
+death!--Now let us go and dine!" These two ideas, Death and Dinner, have
+jostled against each other for centuries. A third door closed the
+extremity of this lobby. This door was, so to speak, the last of the
+Palace of Justice, the farthest off, the least known, the most hidden; it
+opened into what was called the Library of the Court of Cassation, a
+large square room lighted by two windows overlooking the great inner yard
+of the Concièrgerie, furnished with a few leather chairs, a large table
+covered with green cloth, and with law books lining the walls from the
+floor to the ceiling.
+
+This room, as may be seen, is the most secluded and the best hidden of
+any in the Palace.
+
+It was here,--in this room, that there arrived successively on the 2d
+December, towards eleven o'clock in the morning, numerous men dressed in
+black, without robes, without badges of office, affrighted, bewildered,
+shaking their heads, and whispering together. These trembling men were
+the High Court of Justice.
+
+The High Court of Justice, according to the terms of the Constitution,
+was composed of seven magistrates; a President, four Judges, and two
+Assistants, chosen by the Court of Cassation from among its own members
+and renewed every year.
+
+In December, 1851, these seven judges were named Hardouin, Pataille,
+Moreau, Delapalme, Cauchy, Grandet, and Quesnault, the two last-named
+being Assistants.
+
+These men, almost unknown, had nevertheless some antecedents. M. Cauchy,
+a few years previously President of the Chamber of the Royal Court of
+Paris, an amiable man and easily frightened, was the brother of the
+mathematician, member of the Institute, to whom we owe the computation of
+waves of sound, and of the ex-Registrar Archivist of the Chamber of
+Peers. M. Delapalme had been Advocate-General, and had taken a prominent
+part in the Press trials under the Restoration; M. Pataille had been
+Deputy of the Centre under the Monarchy of July; M. Moreau (de la Seine)
+was noteworthy, inasmuch he had been nicknamed "de la Seine" to
+distinguish him from M. Moreau (de la Meurthe), who on his side was
+noteworthy, inasmuch as he had been nicknamed "de la Meurthe" to
+distinguish him from M. Moreau (de la Seine). The first Assistant, M.
+Grandet, had been President of the Chamber at Paris. I have read this
+panegyric of him: "He is known to possess no individuality or opinion of
+his own whatsoever." The second Assistant, M. Quesnault, a Liberal, a
+Deputy, a Public Functionary, Advocate-General, a Conservative, learned,
+obedient, had attained by making a stepping-stone of each of these
+attributes, to the Criminal Chamber of the Court of Cassation, where he
+was known as one of the most severe members. 1848 had shocked his notion
+of Right, he had resigned after the 24th of February; he did not resign
+after the 2d December.
+
+M. Hardouin, who presided over the High Court, was an ex-President of
+Assizes, a religious man, a rigid Jansenist, noted amongst his colleagues
+as a "scrupulous magistrate," living in Port Royal, a diligent reader of
+Nicolle, belonging to the race of the old Parliamentarians of the Marais,
+who used to go to the Palais de Justice mounted on a mule; the mule had
+now gone out of fashion, and whoever visited President Hardouin would
+have found no more obstinacy in his stable than in his conscience.
+
+On the morning of the 2d December, at nine o'clock, two men mounted the
+stairs of M. Hardouin's house, No. 10, Rue de Condé, and met together at
+his door. One was M. Pataille; the other, one of the most prominent
+members of the bar of the Court of Cassation, was the ex-Constituent
+Martin (of Strasbourg). M. Pataille had just placed himself at M.
+Hardouin's disposal.
+
+Martin's first thought, while reading the placards of the _coup d'état_,
+had been for the High Court. M. Hardouin ushered M. Pataille into a room
+adjoining his study, and received Martin (of Strasbourg) as a man to
+whom he did not wish to speak before witnesses. Being formally requested
+by Martin (of Strasbourg) to convene the High Court, he begged that he
+would leave him alone, declared that the High Court would "do its duty,"
+but that first he must "confer with his colleagues," concluding with
+this expression, "It shall be done to-day or to-morrow." "To-day or
+to-morrow!" exclaimed Martin (of Strasbourg); "Mr. President, the safety
+of the Republic, the safety of the country, perhaps, depends on what the
+High Court will or will not do. Your responsibility is great; bear that
+in mind. The High Court of Justice does not do its duty to-day or
+to-morrow; it does it at once, at the moment, without losing a minute,
+without an instant's hesitation."
+
+Martin (of Strasbourg) was right, Justice always belongs to To-day.
+
+Martin (of Strasbourg) added, "If you want a man for active work, I am at
+your service." M. Hardouin declined the offer; declared that he would not
+lose a moment, and begged Martin (of Strasbourg) to leave him to "confer"
+with his colleague, M. Pataille.
+
+In fact, he called together the High Court for eleven o'clock, and it was
+settled that the meeting should take place in the Hall of the Library.
+
+The Judges were punctual. At a quarter-past eleven they were all
+assembled. M. Pataille arrived the last.
+
+They sat at the end of the great green table. They were alone in the
+Library.
+
+There was no ceremonial. President Hardouin thus opened the debate:
+"Gentlemen, there is no need to explain the situation, we all know what
+it is."
+
+Article 68 of the Constitution was imperative. It was necessary that the
+High Court should meet _under penalty of high treason_. They gained time,
+they swore themselves in, they appointed as Recorder of the High Court M.
+Bernard, Recorder of the Court of Cassation, and they sent to fetch him,
+and while waiting requested the librarian, M. Denevers, to hold his pen
+in readiness. They settled the time and place for an evening meeting.
+They talked of the conduct of the Constituent Martin (of Strasbourg),
+with which they were offended, regarding it almost as a nudge of the
+elbow given by Politics to Justice. They spoke a little of Socialism, of
+the Mountain, and of the Red Republic, and a little also of the judgment
+which they had to pronounce. They chatted, they told stories, they found
+fault, they speculated, they spun out the time.
+
+What were they waiting for?
+
+We have related what the Commissary of police was doing for his part in
+his department.
+
+And, in reference to this design, when the accomplices of the _coup
+d'état_ considered that the people in order to summon the High Court to
+do its duty, could invade the Palace of Justice, and that they would
+never look for it where it was assembled, they felt that this room had
+been excellently chosen. When, however, they considered that the police
+would also doubtless come to expel the High Court, and that perhaps they
+would not succeed in finding it, each one regretted to himself the choice
+of the room. They wished to hide the High Court, they had succeeded too
+well. It was grievous to think that perhaps when the police and the armed
+force should arrive, matters would have gone too far, and the High Court
+would be too deeply compromised.
+
+They had appointed a Recorder, now they must organize a Court. A second
+step, more serious than the first.
+
+The judges delayed, hoping that fortune would end by deciding on one side
+or the other, either for the Assembly or for the President, either
+against the _coup d'état_ or for it, and that there might thus be a
+vanquished party, so that the High Court could then with all safety lay
+its hands upon somebody.
+
+They lengthily argued the question, whether they should immediately
+decree the accusation of the President, or whether they should draw up a
+simple order of inquiry. The latter course was adopted.
+
+They drew up a judgment, not the honest and outspoken judgment which
+was placarded by the efforts of the Representatives of the Left and
+published, in which are found these words of bad taste, _Crime_ and
+_High Treason_; this judgment, a weapon of war, has never existed
+otherwise than as a projectile. Wisdom in a judge sometimes consists in
+drawing up a judgment which is not one, one of those judgments which has
+no binding force, in which everything is conditional; in which no one is
+incriminated, and nothing, is called by its right name. There are species
+of intermediate courses which allow of waiting and seeing; in delicate
+crises men who are in earnest must not inconsiderately mingle with
+possible events that bluntness which is called Justice. The High Court
+took advantage of this, it drew up a prudent judgment; this judgment is
+not known; it is published here for the first time. Here it is. It is a
+masterpiece of equivocal style:--
+
+  EXTRACT FROM THE REGISTRY OF THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE.
+
+  "The High Court of Justice.
+
+  "According to Article 68 of the Constitution, considering that
+  printed placards beginning with these words, 'The President of the
+  Republic' and ending with the signatures, 'Louis Napoléon Bonaparte'
+  and 'De Morny, Minister of the Interior,' the said placards ordaining
+  amongst other measures the dissolution of the National Assembly, have
+  been posted to-day on the walls of Paris, that this fact of the
+  dissolution of the National Assembly by the President of the Republic
+  would be of the nature to constitute the case provided for by Article
+  68 of the Constitution, and renders, in the terms of the aforesaid
+  article, the meeting of the High Court indispensable.
+
+  "It is declared that the High Court of Justice is organized, that it
+  appoints[4] ... to fulfil with it the functions of the Public
+  Ministry; that M. Bernard, the Recorder of the Court of Cassation,
+  should fulfil the duties of Recorder, and in order to proceed
+  further, according to the terms of the aforesaid Article 68 of the
+  Constitution, the Court will adjourn until to-morrow, the 3d of
+  December, at noon.
+
+  "Drawn up and discussed in the Council Chamber, where were sitting
+  MM. Hardouin, president, Pataille, Moreau, Delapalme, and Cauchy,
+  judges, December 2, 1851."
+
+The two Assistants, MM. Grandet and Quesnault, offered to sign the
+decree, but the President ruled that it would be more correct only to
+accept the signatures of the titular judges, the Assistants not being
+qualified when the Court was complete.
+
+In the meantime it was one o'clock, the news began to spread through the
+palace that a decree of deposition against Louis Bonaparte had been drawn
+up by a part of the Assembly; one of the judges who had gone out during
+the debate, brought back this rumor to his colleagues. This coincided
+with an outburst of energy. The President observed that it would be to
+the purpose to appoint a Procureur-General.
+
+There was a difficulty. Whom should they appoint? In all preceding trials
+they had always chosen for a Procureur-General at the High Court the
+Procureur-General at the Court of Appeal of Paris. Why should they
+introduce an innovation? They determined upon this Procureur-General of
+the Court of Appeal. This Procureur-General was at the time M. de Royer,
+who had been keeper of the Seals for M. Bonaparte. Thence a new
+difficulty and a long debate.
+
+Would M. de Royer consent? M. Hardouin undertook to go and make the offer
+to him. He had only to cross the Mercière Gallery.
+
+M. de Royer was in his study. The proposal greatly embarrassed him. He
+remained speechless from the shock. To accept was serious, to refuse was
+still more serious.
+
+There was risk of treason. On the 2d December, an hour after noon, the
+_coup d'état_ was still a crime. M. de Royer, not knowing whether the
+high treason would succeed, ventured to stigmatize the deed as such in
+private, and cast down his eyes with a noble shame before this violation
+of the laws which, three months later, numerous purple robes, including
+his own, endorsed with their oaths. But his indignation did not go to
+the extent of supporting the indictment. An indictment speaks aloud. M.
+de Royer as yet only murmured. He was perplexed.
+
+M. Hardouin understood this state of conscience. Persistence would have
+been unreasonable. He withdrew.
+
+He returned to the room where his colleagues were awaiting him.
+
+In the meantime the Commissary of the Arsenal Police had come back.
+
+He had ended by succeeding in "unearthing"--such was his expression--the
+High Court. He penetrated as far as the Council Chamber of the Civil
+Chamber; at that moment he had still no other escort than the few police
+agents of the morning. A boy was passing by. The Commissary asked him
+the whereabouts of the High Court. "The High Court?" answered the boy;
+"what is that?" Nevertheless the boy told the Librarian, who came up. A
+few words were exchanged between M. Denevers and the Commissary.
+
+"What are you asking for?"
+
+"The High Court."
+
+"Who are you?"
+
+"I want the high Court."
+
+"It is in session."
+
+"Where is it sitting?"
+
+"Here."
+
+And the Librarian pointed to the door.
+
+"Very well," said the Commissary.
+
+He did not add another word, and returned into the Mercière Gallery.
+
+We have just said that he was only accompanied at that time by a few
+police agents.
+
+The High Court was, in truth, in session. The President was relating to
+the judges his visit to the Procureur General. Suddenly a tumultuous
+sound of footsteps is heard in the lobby which leads from the Council
+Chamber to the room where they were deliberating. The door opens
+abruptly. Bayonets appear, and in the midst of the bayonets a man in a
+buttoned-up overcoat, with a tricolored sash upon his coat.
+
+The magistrates stare, stupefied.
+
+"Gentlemen," said the man, "dissolve your meeting immediately."
+
+President Hardouin rises.
+
+"What does this mean? Who are you? Are you aware to whom you are
+speaking?"
+
+"I am aware. You are the High Court, and I am the Commissary of the
+Police."
+
+"Well, then?"
+
+"Be off."
+
+There were there thirty-five municipal guards, commanded by a lieutenant,
+and with a drum at their head.
+
+"But----" said the President.
+
+The Commissary interrupted him with these words, which are literally
+given,--
+
+"Mr. President, I am not going to enter upon an oratorical combat with
+you. I have my orders, and I transmit them to you. Obey."
+
+"Whom?"
+
+"The Prefect of Police."
+
+The President asked this strange question, which implied the acceptance
+of an order,--
+
+"Have you a warrant?"
+
+The Commissary answered,--
+
+"Yes."
+
+And he handed a paper to the President.
+
+The judges turned pale.
+
+The President unfolded the paper; M. Cauchy put his head over M.
+Hardouin's shoulder. The President read but,--
+
+"You are ordered to dissolve the High Court, and, in case of refusal, to
+arrest MM. Béranger, Rocher, De Boissieux, Pataille, and Hello."
+
+And, turning towards the judges, the President added,--
+
+"Signed, Maupas."
+
+Then, addressing himself to the Commissary, he resumed,--
+
+"There is some mistake, these are not our names. MM. Béranger, Rocher,
+and De Boissieux have served their time and are no longer judges of the
+High Court; as for M. Hello, he is dead."
+
+The High Court, in reality, was temporary and renewable; the _coup
+d'état_ overthrew the Constitution, but did not understand it. The
+warrant signed "Maupas" was applicable to the preceding High Court. The
+_coup d'état_ had been misled by an old list. Such is the heedlessness of
+assassins.
+
+"Mr. Commissary of Police," continued the President, "you see that these
+names are not ours."
+
+"That does not matter to me," replied the Commissary. "Whether this
+warrant does or does not apply to you, disperse, or I shall arrest all of
+you."
+
+And he added,--
+
+"At once."
+
+The judges were silenced; one of them picked up from the table a loose
+sheet of paper, which was the judgment they had drawn up, and put the
+paper in his pocket.
+
+Then they went away.
+
+The Commissary pointed to the door where the bayonets were, and said,--
+
+"That way."
+
+They went out by the lobby between two ranks of soldiers. The detachment
+of Republican Guards escorted them as far as the St. Louis Gallery.
+
+There they set them free; their heads bowed down.
+
+It was about three o'clock.
+
+While these events were taking place in the Library, close by, in the
+former great Chamber of the Parliament, the Court of Cassation was
+sitting in judgment as usual, without noticing what was happening so near
+at hand. It would appear, then, that the police exhaled no odor.
+
+Let us at once have done with this High Court.
+
+In the evening at half-past seven the seven judges met together at the
+house of one of their number, he who had taken away the decree; they
+framed an official report, drew up a protest, and recognizing the
+necessity of filling in the line left blank in their decree, on the
+proposition of M. Quesnault, appointed as Procureur-General M. Renouard,
+their colleague at the Court of Cessation. M. Renouard, who was
+immediately informed, consented.
+
+They met together for the last time on the next day, the 3d, at eleven
+o'clock in the morning, an hour before the time mentioned in the judgment
+which we have read above,--again in the Library of the Court of
+Cassation. M. Renouard was present. An official minute was given to him,
+recording his appointment, as well as certain details with which he asked
+to be supplied. The judgment which had been drawn up was taken by M.
+Quesnault to the Recorder's Office, and immediately entered upon the
+Register of the Secret Deliberations of the Court of Cassation, the High
+Court not having a Special Register, and having decided, from its
+creation, to use the Register of the Court of Cassation. After the decree
+they also transcribed the two documents described as follows on the
+Register:--
+
+I. An official report recording the interference of the police during the
+discussion upon the preceding decree.
+
+II. A minute of the appointment of M. Renouard to the office of
+Procureur-General.
+
+In addition seven copies of these different documents drawn up by the
+hands of the judges themselves, and signed by them all, were put in a
+place of safety, as also, it is said, a note-book, in which were written
+five other secret decisions relating to the _coup d'état_.
+
+Does this page of the Register of the Court of Cassation exist at the
+present time? Is it true, as has been stated, that the prefect Maupas
+sent for the Register and tore out the leaf containing the decree? We
+have not been able to clear up this point. The Register now is shown to
+no one, and those employed at the Recorder's Office are dumb.
+
+Such are the facts, let us summarize them. If this Court so called
+"High," had been of a character to conceive such an idea as that of doing
+its duty--when it had once met together the mere organization of itself
+was a matter of a few minutes--it would have proceeded resolutely and
+rapidly, it would have appointed as Procureur-General some energetic man
+belonging to the Court of Cassation, either from the body of magistrates,
+such as Freslon, or from the bar, like Martin (of Strasbourg). By virtue
+of Article 68, and without waiting the initiative of the Assembly, it
+would have drawn up a judgment stigmatizing the crime, it would have
+launched an order of arrest against the President and his accomplices and
+have ordered the removal of the person of Louis Bonaparte to jail. As for
+the Procureur-General he would have issued a warrant of arrest. All this
+could have been done by half-past eleven, and at that time no attempt had
+been made to dissolve the High Court. These preliminary proceedings
+concluded, the High Court, by going out through a nailed-up door leading
+into the Salle des Pas Perdus, could have descended into the street, and
+there have proclaimed its judgment to the people. At this time it would
+have met with no hindrance. Finally, and this in any case, it should have
+sat robed on the Judges' Bench, with all magisterial state, and when the
+police agent and his soldiers appeared should have ordered the soldiers,
+who perhaps would have obeyed them, to arrest the agent, and if the
+soldiers had disobeyed, should have allowed themselves to be formally
+dragged to prison, so that the people could see, under their own eyes,
+out in the open street, the filthy hoof of the _coup d'état_ trampling
+upon the robe of Justice.
+
+Instead of this, what steps did the High Court take? We have just seen.
+
+"Be off with you!"
+
+"We are going."
+
+We can imagine, after a very different fashion, the dialogue between
+Mathieu Molé and Vidocq.
+
+
+[4] This line was left blank. It was filled in later on with the name of
+M. Renouard, Councillor of the Court of Cassation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+
+THE MAIRIE OF THE TENTH ARRONDISSEMENT
+
+The Representatives, having come out from M. Daru, rejoined each other
+and assembled in the street. There they consulted briefly, from group to
+group. There were a large number of them. In less than an hour, by
+sending notices to the houses on the left bank of the Seine alone, on
+account of the extreme urgency, more than three hundred members could be
+called together. But where should they meet? At Lemardelay's? The Rue
+Richelieu was guarded. At the Salle Martel? It was a long way off. They
+relied upon the Tenth Legion, of which General Lauriston was colonel.
+They showed a preference for the Mairie of the Tenth Arrondissement.
+Besides, the distance was short, and there was no need to cross any
+bridges.
+
+They formed themselves into column, and set forth.
+
+M. Daru, as we have said, lived in the Rue de Lille, close by the
+Assembly. The section of the Rue de Lille lying between his house and
+the Palais Bourbon was occupied by infantry. The last detachment
+barred his door, but it only barred it on the right, not on the left.
+The Representatives, on quitting M. Daru, bent their steps on the side
+of the Rue des Saints-Pères, and left the soldiers behind them. At
+that moment the soldiers had only been instructed to prevent their
+meeting in the Palace of the Assembly; they could quietly form
+themselves into a column in the street, and set forth. If they had
+turned to the right instead of to the left, they would have been
+opposed. But there were no orders for the other alternative; they
+passed through a gap in the instructions.
+
+An hour afterwards this threw St. Arnaud into a fit of fury.
+
+On their way fresh Representatives came up and swelled the column. As the
+members of the Right lived for the most part in the Faubourg St. Germain,
+the column was composed almost entirely of men belonging to the majority.
+
+At the corner of the Quai d'Orsay they met a group of members of the
+Left, who had reunited after their exit from the Palace of the Assembly,
+and who were consulting together. There were the Representatives
+Esquiros, Marc Dufraisse, Victor Hennequin, Colfavru, and Chamiot.
+
+Those who were marching at the head of the column left their places, went
+up to the group, and said, "Come with us."
+
+"Where are you going?" asked Marc Dufraisse.
+
+To the Mairie of the Tenth Arrondissement."
+
+"What do you intend to do there?"
+
+"To decree the deposition of Louis Bonaparte."
+
+"And afterwards?"
+
+"Afterwards we shall go in a body to the Palace of the Assembly; we will
+force our way in spite of all resistance, and from the top of the steps
+we will read out the decree of deposition to the soldiers."
+
+"Very good, we will join you," said Mare Dufraisse.
+
+The five members of the Left marched at some distance from the column.
+Several of their friends who were mingled with the members of the Right
+rejoined them; and we may here mention a fact without giving it more
+importance than it possesses, namely, that the two fractions of the
+Assembly represented in this unpremeditated gathering marched towards the
+Mairie without being mingled together; one on each side of the street. It
+chanced that the men of the majority kept on the right side of the
+street, and the men of the minority on the left.
+
+No one had a scarf of office. No outward token caused them to be
+recognized. The passers-by stared at them with surprise, and did not
+understand what was the meaning of this procession of silent men through
+the solitary streets of the Faubourg St. Germain. One district of Paris
+was as yet unaware of the _coup d'état_.
+
+Strategically speaking, from a defensive point of view, the Mairie of
+the tenth Arrondissement was badly chosen. Situated in a narrow street
+in that short section of the Rue de Grenelle-St.-Germain which lies
+between the Rue des Saints-Pères and the Rue du Sépulcre, close by the
+cross-roads of the Croix-Rouge, where the troops could arrive from so
+many different points, the Mairie of the Tenth Arrondissement, confined,
+commanded, and blockaded on every side, was a pitiful citadel for the
+assailed National Representation. It is true that they no longer had the
+choice of a citadel, any more than later on they had the choice of a
+general.
+
+Their arrival at the Mairie might have seemed a good omen. The great
+gate which leads into a square courtyard was shut; it opened. The post
+of the National Guards, composed of some twenty men, took up their arms
+and rendered military honors to the Assembly. The Representatives
+entered, a Deputy Mayor received them with respect on the threshold of
+the Mairie. "The Palace of the Assembly is closed by the troops," said
+the Representatives, "we have come to deliberate here." The Deputy Mayor
+led them to the first story, and admitted them to the Great Municipal
+Hall. The National Guard cried, "Long live the National Assembly!"
+
+The Representatives having entered, the door was shut. A crowd began to
+gather in the street and shouted "Long live the Assembly!" A certain
+number of strangers to the Assembly entered the Mairie at the same time
+as the Representatives. Overcrowding was feared, and two sentries were
+placed at a little side-door, which was left open, with orders only to
+allow members of the Assembly who might come afterwards to enter. M.
+Howyn Tranchère stationed himself at this door, and undertook to identify
+them.
+
+On their arrival at the Mairie, the Representatives numbered somewhat
+under three hundred. They exceeded this number later on. It was about
+eleven o'clock in the morning. All did not go up at once into the hall
+where the meeting was to take place. Several, those of the Left in
+particular, remained in the courtyard, mingling with the National Guards
+and citizens.
+
+They talked of what they were going to do.
+
+This was the first difficulty.
+
+The Father of the meeting was M. de Kératry.
+
+Was he going to preside?
+
+The Representatives who were assembled in the Great Hall were in his
+favor.
+
+The Representatives remaining in the courtyard hesitated.
+
+Marc Dufraisse went up to MM. Jules de Lasteyrie and Léon de Maleville,
+who had stayed behind with the Representatives of the Left, and said to
+them, "What are they thinking of upstairs? To make Kératry President? The
+name of Kératry would frighten the people as thoroughly as mine would
+frighten the middle classes."
+
+A member of the Right, M. de Keranflech, came up, and intending to
+support the objection, added, "And then, think of Kératry's age. It is
+madness to pit a man of eighty against this hour of danger."
+
+But Esquiros exclaimed,--
+
+"That is a bad reason! Eighty years! They constitute a force."
+
+"Yes; where they are well borne," said Colfavru. "Kératry bears them
+badly."
+
+"Nothing is greater," resumed Esquiros, "than great octogenarians."
+
+"It is glorious," added Chamiot, "to be presided over by Nestor."
+
+"No, by Gerontes,"[5] said Victor Hennequin.
+
+These words put an end to the debate. Kératry was thrown out. MM. Léon
+de Maleville and Jules de Lasteyrie, two men respected by all parties,
+undertook to make the members of the Right listen to reason. It was
+decided that the "bureau"[6] should preside. Five members of the "bureau"
+were present; two Vice-Presidents, MM. Benoist d'Azy and Vitet, and three
+Secretaries, MM. Griumult, Chapot, and Moulin. Of the two other
+Vice-Presidents, one, General Bedrau, was at Mazas; the other, M. Daru,
+was under guard in his own house. Of the three other Secretaries, two,
+MM. Peapin and Lacaze, men of the Elysée, were absentees; the other, M.
+Yvan, a member of the Left, was at the meeting of the Left, in the Rue
+Blanche, which was taking place almost at the same moment.
+
+In the meantime an usher appeared on the steps of the Mairie, and cried
+out, as on the most peaceful days of the Assembly, "Representatives, to
+the sitting!"
+
+This usher, who belonged to the Assembly, and who had followed it, shared
+its fortunes throughout this day, the sequestration on the Quai d'Orsay
+included.
+
+At the summons of the usher all the Representatives in the courtyard, and
+amongst whom was one of the Vice-Presidents, M. Vitei, went upstairs to
+the Hall, and the sitting was opened.
+
+This sitting was the last which the Assembly held under regular
+conditions. The Left, which, as we have seen, had on its side boldly
+recaptured the Legislative power, and had added to it that which
+circumstances required--as was the duty of Revolutionists; the Left,
+without a "bureau," without an usher, and without secretaries, held
+sittings in which the accurate and passionless record of shorthand was
+wanting, but which live in our memories and which History will gather up.
+
+Two shorthand writers of the Assembly, MM. Grosselet and Lagache, were
+present at the sitting at the Mairie of the Tenth Arrondissement. They
+have been able to record it. The censorship of the victorious _coup
+d'état_ has mutilated their report and has published through its
+historians this mangled version as the true version. One lie more. That
+does not matter. This shorthand recital belongs to the brief of the 2d
+December, it is one of the leading documents in the trial which the
+future will institute. In the notes of this book will be found this
+document complete. The passages in inverted commas are those which the
+censorship of M. Bonaparte has suppressed. This suppression is a proof of
+their significance and importance.
+
+Shorthand reproduces everything except life. Stenography is an ear. It
+hears and sees not. It is therefore necessary to fill in here the
+inevitable blanks of the shorthand account.
+
+In order to obtain a complete idea of this sitting of the Tenth
+Arrondissement, we must picture the great Hall of the Mairie, a sort of
+parallelogram, lighted on the right by four or five windows overlooking
+the courtyard; on the left, along the wall, furnished with several rows
+of benches which had been hastily brought thither, on which were piled up
+the three hundred Representatives, assembled together by chance. No one
+was sitting down, those in front were standing, those behind were mounted
+on the benches. Here and there were a few small tables. In the centre
+people walked to and fro. At the bottom, at the end opposite the door,
+was a long table furnished with benches, which occupied the whole width
+of the wall, behind which sat the "bureau." "Sitting" is merely the
+conventional term. The "bureau" did not "sit;" like the rest of the
+Assembly it was on its feet. The secretaries, M.M. Chapot, Moulin, and
+Grimault wrote standing. At certain moments the two Vice-Presidents
+mounted on the benches so as to be better seen from all points of the
+room. The table was covered by an old green tablecloth, stained with ink,
+three or four inkstands had been brought in, and a quire of paper was
+scattered about. There the decrees were written as soon as they were
+drawn up. They multiplied the copies, some Representatives became
+secretaries on the spur of the moment, and helped the official
+secretaries.
+
+This great hall was on a level with the landing. It was situated, as we
+have said, on the first floor; it was reached by a very narrow staircase.
+
+We must recollect that nearly the whole of the members present were
+members of the Right.
+
+The first moment was a serious one. Berryer came out to advantage.
+Berryer, like all those extemporizers without style, will only be
+remembered as a name, and a much disputed name, Berryer having been
+rather a special pleader than an orator who believed what he said. On
+that day Berryer was to the point, logical and earnest. They began by
+this cry, "What shall we do?" "Draw up a declaration," said M. de
+Falloux. "A protest," said M. de Flavigny. "A decree," said Berryer.
+
+In truth a declaration was empty air, a protest was noise, a decree was
+action. They cried out, "What decree?" "Deposition," said Berryer.
+Deposition was the extreme limit of the energy of the Right. Beyond
+deposition, there was outlawry; deposition was practicable for the Right,
+outlawry was only possible for the Left. In fact it was the Left who
+outlawed Louis Bonaparte. They did it at their first meeting in the Rue
+Blanche. We shall see this later on. At deposition, Legality came to an
+end; at outlawry, the Revolution began. The recurrence of Revolutions are
+the logical consequences of _coups d'état_. The deposition having been
+voted, a man who later on turned traitor, Quentin Bauchart, exclaimed,
+"Let us all sign it." All signed it. Odilon Barrot came in and signed it.
+Antony Thouret came in and signed it. Suddenly M. Piscatory announced
+that the Mayor was refusing to allow Representatives who had arrived to
+enter the Hall. "Order him to do so by decree," said Berryer. And the
+decree was voted. Thanks to this decree, MM. Favreau and Monet entered;
+they came from the Legislative Palace; they related the cowardice of
+Dupin. M. Dahirel, one of the leaders of the Right, was exasperated, and
+said, "We have received bayonet thrusts." Voices were raised, "Let us
+summon the Tenth Legion. Let the call to arms be beaten. Lauriston
+hesitates. Let us order him to protect the Assembly." "Let us order him
+by decree," said Berryer. This decree was drawn up, which, however, did
+not prevent Lauriston from refusing. Another decree, again proposed by
+Berryer, pronounced any one who had outraged the Parliamentary
+inviolability to be a traitor, and ordered the immediate release of those
+Representatives who had been wrongfully made prisoners. All this was
+voted at once without debate, in a sort of great unanimous confusion, and
+in the midst of a storm of fierce conversations. From time to time
+Berryer imposed silence. Then the angry outcries broke forth again. "The
+_coup d'état_ will not dare to come here." "We are masters here." "We are
+at home." "It would be impossible to attack us here." "These wretches
+will not dare to do so." If the uproar had been less violent, the
+Representatives might have heard through the open windows close at hand,
+the sound of soldiers loading their guns.
+
+A regiment of Chasseurs of Vincennes had just entered silently into the
+garden of the Mairie, and, while waiting for orders, were loading their
+guns.
+
+Little by little the sitting, at first disorderly and tumultuous, had
+assumed an ordinary aspect. The uproar had relapsed into a murmur. The
+voice of the usher, crying "Silence, gentlemen," had succeeded in
+overcoming the hubbub. Every moment fresh Representatives came in, and
+hastened to sign the decree of deposition at the "bureau." As there was
+a great crowd round the "bureau" waiting to sign, a dozen loose sheets
+of paper to which the Representatives affixed their signatures were
+circulated in the great Hall and the two adjoining rooms.
+
+The first to sign the decree of deposition was M. Dufaure, the last was
+M. Betting de Lancastel. Of the two Presidents, one, M. Benoist d'Azy,
+was addressing the Assembly; the other, M. Vitet, pale, but calm and
+resolute, distributed instructions and orders. M. Benoist d'Azy
+maintained a decorous countenance, but a certain hesitation in his
+speech revealed an inner agitation. Divisions, even in the Right, had not
+disappeared at this critical moment. A Legitimist member was overheard
+saying in a low voice, while speaking of one of the Vice-Presidents,
+"This great Vitet looks like a whited sepulchre." Vitet was an Orleanist.
+
+Given this adventurer with whom they had to deal, this Louis Bonaparte,
+capable of everything, the hour and the man being wrapt in mystery, some
+Legitimist personages of a candid mind were seriously but comically
+frightened. The Marquis of ----, who acted the fly on the coach-wheel
+to the Right, went hither and thither, harangued, shouted, declaimed,
+remonstrated, proclaimed, and trembled. Another, M. A---- N----,
+perspiring, red-faced, out of breath, rushed about distractedly. "Where
+is the guard? How many men are there? Who commands them? The officer!
+send me the officer! Long live the Republic! National Guard, stand firm!
+Long live the Republic!" All the Right shouted this cry. "You wish then
+to kill it," said Esquiros. Some of them were dejected; Bourbousson
+maintained the silence of a vanquished placeman. Another, the Viscount of
+----, a relative of the Duke of Escars, was so alarmed that every moment
+he adjourned to a corner of the courtyard. In the crowd which filled the
+courtyard there was a _gamin_ of Paris, a child of Athens, who has since
+become am elegant and charming poet, Albert Glatigny. Albert Glatigny
+cried out to this frightened Viscount, "Hulloa there! Do you think that
+_coups d'état_ are extinguished in the way Gulliver put out the fire?"
+
+Oh, Laughter, how gloomy you are when attended with Tragedy!
+
+The Orleanists were quieter, and maintained a more becoming attitude.
+This arose from the fact that they ran greater danger.
+
+Pascal Duprat replaced at the top of the decrees the words, "République
+Française," which had been forgotten.
+
+From time to time men who were not speaking on the subject of the moment
+mentioned this strange word, "Dupin," open which there ensued shouts of
+derision and bursts of laughter. "Utter the name of that coward no more,"
+cried Antony Thouret.
+
+There were motions and counter-motions; it was a continual uproar
+interrupted by deep and solemn silences. Alarmist phrases circulated from
+group to group. "We are in a blind alley." "We are caught here as in a
+rat trap;" and then on each motion voices were raised: "That is it!" "It
+is right!" "It is settled!" They agreed in a low voice upon a rendezvous
+at No. 19, Rue de la Chaussée-d'Antin, in case they should be expelled
+from the Mairie. M. Bixio carried off the decree of deposition to get it
+printed. Esquiros, Marc Dufraisse, Pascal Duprat, Rigal, Lherbette,
+Chamiot, Latrade, Colfavru, Antony Thouret, threw in here and there
+energetic words of advice. M. Dufaure, resolute and indignant, protested
+with authority. M. Odilon Barrot, motionless in a corner, maintained the
+silence of stupefied silliness.
+
+MM. Passy and de Tocqueville, in the midst of the groups, described that
+when they were Ministers they had always entertained an uneasy suspicion
+of a _coup d'état_, and that they clearly perceived this fixed idea in
+the brain of Louis Bonaparte. M. de Tocqueville added, "I said to myself
+every night, 'I lie down to sleep a Minister; what if I should awake a
+prisoner?'" Some of those men who were termed "men of order," muttered
+while signing the degree of deposition, "Beware of the Red Republic!" and
+seemed to entertain an equal fear of failure and of success. M. de
+Vatimesnil pressed the hands of the men of the Left, and thanked them for
+their presence. "You make us popular," said he. And Antony Thouret
+answered him, "I know neither Right nor Left to-day; I only see the
+Assembly."
+
+The younger of the two shorthand writers handed their written sheets
+to the Representatives who had spoken, and, asked them to revise them at
+once, saying, "We shall not have the time to read them over." Some
+Representatives went down into the street, and showed the people copies
+of the decree of deposition, signed by the members of the "bureau." One
+of the populace took one of these copies, and cried out, "Citizens! the
+ink is still quite wet! Long live the Republic!"
+
+The Deputy-Mayor stood at the door of the Hall; the staircase was crowded
+with National Guards and spectators. In the Assembly several had
+penetrated into the Hall, and amongst them the ex-Constituent Beslay, a
+man of uncommon courage. It was at first wished to turn them out, but
+they resisted, crying, "This is our business. You are the Assembly, but
+we are the People." "They are right," said M. Berryer.
+
+M. de Falloux, accompanied by M. de Kéranflech, came up the Constituent
+Beslay, and leaned by his side on the stove, saying to him, "Good-day,
+colleague;" and reminded him that they both had formed part of the
+Committee of the National Workshops, and that they had together visited
+the Workmen at the Parc Monceaux. The Right felt themselves falling; they
+became affectionate towards Republicans. The Republic is called
+To-morrow.
+
+Each spoke from his place; this member upon a bench, that member on a
+chair, a few on the tables. All contradictory opinions burst forth at
+once. In a corner some ex-leaders of "order" were scared at the possible
+triumph of the "Reds." In another the men of the Right surrounded the men
+of the Left, and asked them: "Are not the faubourgs going to rise?"
+
+The narrator has but one duty, to tell his story; he relates everything,
+the bad as well as the good. Whatever may have taken place, however, and
+notwithstanding all these details of which it was our duty to speak,
+apart from the exceptions which we had mentioned, the attitude of the
+men of the Right who composed the large majority of this meeting was in
+many respects honorable and worthy. Some of them, as we have just
+mentioned, even prided themselves upon their resolution and their energy,
+almost as though they had wished to rival the members of the Left.
+
+We may here remark--for in the course of this narrative we shall more
+than once see the gaze of some members of the Right turned towards the
+people, and in this no mistake should be made--that these monarchical men
+who talked of popular insurrection and who invoked the faubourgs were a
+minority in the majority,--an imperceptible minority. Antony Thouret
+proposed to those who were leaders there to go in a body through the
+working-class neighborhoods with the decree of deposition in their
+hands. Brought to bay, they refused. They declared that they would only
+protect themselves by organized powers, not by the people. It is a
+strange thing to say, but it must be noted, that with their habits of
+political shortsightedness, the popular armed resistance, even in the
+name of the Law, seemed sedition to them. The utmost appearance of
+revolution which they could endure was a regiment of the National Guard,
+with their drums at their head; they shrank from the barricade; Right in
+a blouse was no longer Right, Truth armed with a pike was no longer
+Truth, Law unpaving a street gave them the impression of a Fury. In the
+main, however, and taking them for what they were, and considering their
+position as politicians, these members of the Right were well-advised.
+What would they have done with the people? And what would the people have
+done with them? How would they have proceeded to set fire to the masses?
+Imagine Falloux as a tribune, fanning the Faubourg St. Antoine into a
+flame!
+
+Alas! in the midst of this dense gloom, in these fatal complications of
+circumstances by which the _coup d'état_ profited so odiously and so
+perfidiously, in that mighty misunderstanding which comprised the whole
+situation, for kindling the revolutionary spark in the heart of the
+people, Danton himself would not have sufficed.
+
+The _coup d'état_ entered into this meeting impudently, with its
+convict's cap on its head. It possessed an infamous assurance there, as
+well as everywhere else. There were in this majority three hundred
+Representatives of the People. Louis Napoleon sent a sergeant to drive
+them away. The Assembly, having resisted the sergeant, he sent an
+officer, the temporary commander of the sixth battalion of the Chasseurs
+de Vincennes. This officer, young, fair-haired, a scoffer, half laughing,
+half threatening, pointed with his finger to the stairs filled with
+bayonets, and defied the Assembly. "Who is this young spark?" asked a
+member of the Right. A National Guard who was there said, "Throw him out
+of the window!" "Kick him downstairs!" cried one of the people.
+
+This Assembly, grievous as were its offences against the principles of
+the Revolution--and with these wrongs Democracy alone had the right to
+reproach it--this Assembly, I repeat, was the National Assembly, that is
+to say, the Republic incarnate, the living Universal Suffrage, the
+Majesty of the Nation, upright and visible. Louis Bonaparte assassinated
+this Assembly, and moreover insulted it. A slap on the face is worse than
+a poniard thrust.
+
+The gardens of the neighborhood occupied by the troops were full of
+broken bottles. They had plied the soldiers with drink. They obeyed the
+"epaulettes" unconditionally, and according to the expression of
+eyewitnesses, appeared "dazed-drunk." The Representatives appealed to
+them, and said to them, "It is a crime!" They answered, "We are not aware
+of it."
+
+One soldier was heard to say to another, "What have you done with your
+ten francs of this morning?"
+
+The sergeants hustled the officers. With the exception of the commander,
+who probably earned his cross of honor, the officers were respectful, the
+sergeants brutal.
+
+A lieutenant showing signs of flinching, a sergeant cried out to him,
+"You are not the only one who commands here! Come, therefore, march!"
+
+M. de Vatimesnil asked a soldier, "Will you dare to arrest us--us, the
+Representatives of the People?"
+
+"Assuredly!" said the soldier.
+
+Several soldiers hearing some Representatives say that they had eaten
+nothing since the morning, offered them their ration bread. Some
+Representatives accepted. M. de Tocqueville, who was unwell, and who was
+noticed to be pale and leaning on the sill of a window, received from a
+soldier a piece of this bread, which he shared with M. Chambolle.
+
+Two Commissaries of Police appeared in "full dress," in black coats
+girded with their sash-girdles and their black corded hats. One was an
+old man, the other a young man. The first was named Lemoine-Tacherat, and
+not Bacherel, as has been wrongly printed: the second was named Barlet.
+These names should be noted. The unprecedented assurance of this Barlet
+was remarked. Nothing was wanting in him,--cynical speech, provoking
+gesture, sardonic intonation. It was with an inexpressible air of
+insolence that Barlet, when summoning the meeting to dissolve itself,
+added, "Rightly or Wrongly." They murmured on the benches of the
+Assembly, "Who is this scoundrel?" The other, compared to him, seemed
+moderate and inoffensive. Emile Péan exclaimed, "The old man is simply
+working in his profession, but the young man is working out his
+promotion."
+
+Before this Tacherat and this Barlet entered, before the butts of the
+muskets had been heard ringing on the stones of the staircase, this
+Assembly had talked of resistance. Of what kind of resistance? We have
+just stated. The majority could only listen to a regular organized
+resistance, a military resistance in uniform and in epaulets. Such a
+resistance was easy to decree, but it was difficult to organize. The
+Generals on whom the Assembly were accustomed to rely having been
+arrested, there only remained two possible Generals, Oudinot and
+Lauriston. General Marquis de Lauriston, ex-peer of France, and at the
+same time Colonel of the Tenth Legion and Representative of the People,
+drew a distinction between his duty as Representative and his duty as
+Colonel. Summoned by some of his friends of the Right to beat to arms and
+call together the Tenth Legion, he answered, "As Representative of the
+People I ought to indict the Executive Power, but as Colonel I ought to
+obey it." It appears that he obstinately shut himself up in this singular
+reasoning, and that it was impossible to draw him out of it.
+
+"How stupid he is!" said Piscatory.
+
+"How sharp he is!" said Falloux.
+
+The first officer of the National Guard who appeared in uniform, seemed
+to be recognized by two members of the Right, who said, "It is M. de
+Perigord!" They made a mistake, it was M. Guilbot, major of the third
+battalion of the Tenth Legion. He declared that he was ready to march on
+the first order from his Colonel, General Lauriston. General Lauriston
+went down into the courtyard, and came up a moment afterwards, saying,
+"They do not recognize my authority. I have just resigned," Moreover, the
+name of Lauriston was not familiar to the soldiers. Oudinot was better
+known in the army. But how?
+
+At the moment when the name of Oudinot was pronounced, a shudder ran
+through this meeting, almost exclusively composed of members of the
+Right. In fact at this critical time, at this fatal name of Oudinot,
+reflections crowded upon each other in every mind.
+
+What was the _coup d'état_?
+
+It was the "Roman expedition at home." Which was undertaken against whom?
+Against those who had undertaken the "Roman expedition abroad." The
+National Assembly of France, dissolved by violence, could find only one
+single General to defend it in its dying hour. And whom? Precisely he,
+who in the name of the National Assembly of France had dissolved by
+violence the National Assembly of Rome. What power could Oudinot, the
+strangler of a Republic, possess to save a Republic? Was it not evident
+that his own soldiers would answer him, "What do you want with us? That
+which we have done at Rome we now do at Paris." What a story is this
+story of treason! The French Legislature had written the first chapter
+with the blood of the Roman Constituent Assembly: Providence wrote the
+second chapter with the blood of the French Legislature, Louis Bonaparte
+holding the pen.
+
+In 1849, Louis Bonaparte had assassinated the sovereignty of the People
+in the person of its Roman Representatives; in 1851 he assassinated it in
+the person of its French Representatives. It was logical, and although it
+was infamous, it was just. The Legislative Assembly bore at the same time
+the weight of two crimes; it was the accomplice of the first, the victim
+of the second. All these men of the majority felt this, and were humbled.
+Or rather it was the same crime, the crime of the Second of July, 1849,
+ever erect, ever alive, which had only changed its name, which now called
+itself the Second of December, and which, the offspring of this Assembly,
+stabbed it to the heart. Nearly all crimes are parricidal. On a certain
+day they recoil upon those who have committed them, and slay them.
+
+At this moment, so full of anxiety, M. de Falloux must have glanced round
+for M. de Montalembert. M. de Montalembert was at the Elysée.
+
+When Tamisier rose and pronounced this terrifying word, "The Roman
+Question?" distracted M. de Dampierre shouted to him, "Silence! You kill
+us!"
+
+It was not Tamisier who was killing them--it was Oudinot.
+
+M. de Dampierre did not perceive that he cried "Silence!" to history.
+
+And then without even reckoning the fatal remembrance which at such a
+moment would have crushed a man endowed in the highest degree with great
+military qualities, General Oudinot, in other respects an excellent
+officer, and a worthy son of his brave father, possessed none of those
+striking qualities which in the critical hour of revolution stir the
+soldier and carry with them the people. At that instant to win back an
+army of a hundred thousand men, to withdraw the balls from the cannons'
+mouths, to find beneath the wine poured out to the Praetorians the true
+soul of the French soldier half drowned and nearly dead, to tear the flag
+from the _coup d'état_ and restore it to the Law, to surround the
+Assembly with thunders and lightnings, it would have needed one of those
+men who exist no longer; it would have needed the firm hand, the calm
+oratory, the cold and searching glance of Desaix, that French Phocion; it
+would have needed the huge shoulders, the commanding stature, the
+thundering voice, the abusive, insolent, cynical, gay, and sublime
+eloquence of Kléber, that military Mirabeau. Desaix, the countenance of a
+just man, or Kléber, the face of the lion! General Oudinot, little,
+awkward, embarrassed, with an indecisive and dull gaze, red cheeks, low
+forehead, with grizzled and lank hair, polite tone of voice, a humble
+smile, without oratory, without gesture, without power, brave before the
+enemy, timid before the first comer, having assuredly the bearing of a
+soldier, but having also the bearing of a priest; he caused the mind to
+hesitate between the sword and the taper; he had in his eyes a sort of
+"Amen!"
+
+He had the best intentions in the world, but what could he do? Alone,
+without prestige, without true glory, without personal authority, and
+dragging Rome after him! He felt all this himself, and he was as it were
+paralyzed by it. As soon as they had appointed him he got upon a chair
+and thanked the Assembly, doubtless with a firm heart, but with
+hesitating speech. When the little fair-haired officer dared to look him
+in the face and insult him, he, holding the sword of the people, he,
+General of the sovereign Assembly, he only knew how to stammer out such
+wretched phrases as these, "I have just declared to you that we are
+unable, 'unless compelled and constrained,' to obey the order which
+prohibits us from remaining assembled together." He spoke of obeying, he
+who ought to command. They had girded him with his scarf, and it seemed
+to make him uncomfortable. He inclined his head alternately first to one
+shoulder and then to the other; he held his hat and cane in his hand, he
+had a benevolent aspect. A Legitimist member muttered in a low voice to
+his neighbor, "One might imagine he was a bailiff speechifying at a
+wedding." And his neighbor, a Legitimist also, replied, "He reminds me of
+the Duc d'Angoulême."
+
+What a contrast to Tamisier! Tamisier, frank, earnest confident, although
+a mere Captain of Artillery, had the bearing of a General. Had Tamisier,
+with his grave and gentle countenance, high intelligence, and dauntless
+heart, a species of soldier-philosopher, been better known, he could have
+rendered decisive services. No one can tell what would have happened if
+Providence had given the soul of Tamisier to Oudinot, or the epaulets of
+Oudinot to Tamisier.
+
+In this bloody enterprise of December we failed to find a General's
+uniform becomingly worn. A book might be written on the part which gold
+lace plays in the destiny of nations.
+
+Tamisier, appointed Chief of the Staff some instants before the invasion
+of the hall, placed himself at the disposal of the Assembly. He was
+standing on a table. He spoke with a resonant and hearty voice. The most
+downcast became reassured by this modest, honest, devoted attitude.
+Suddenly he drew himself up, and looking all that Royalist majority in
+the face, exclaimed, "Yes, I accept the charge you offer me. I accept the
+charge of defending the Republic! Nothing but the Republic! Do you
+perfectly understand?"
+
+A unanimous shout answered him. "Long live the Republic!"
+
+"Ah!" said Beslay, "the voice comes back to you as on the Fourth of May."
+
+"Long live the Republic! Nothing but the Republic!" repeated the men of
+the Right, Oudinot louder than the others. All arms were stretched
+towards Tamisier, every hand pressed his. Oh Danger! irresistible
+converter! In his last hour the Atheist invokes God, and the Royalist the
+Republic. They cling to that which they have repudiated.
+
+The official historians of the _coup d'état_ have stated that at the
+beginning of the sitting two Representatives had been sent by the
+Assembly to the Ministry of the Interior to "negotiate." What is certain
+is that these two Representatives had no authority. They presented
+themselves, not on behalf of the Assembly, but in their own name. They
+offered themselves as intermediaries to procure a peaceable termination
+of the catastrophe which had begun. With an honesty which bordered on
+simplicity they summoned Morny to yield himself a prisoner, and to return
+within the law, declaring that in case of refusal the Assembly would do
+its duty, and call the people to the defence of the Constitution and of
+the Republic. Marny answered them with a smile, accompanied by these
+plain words, "If you appeal to arms, and if I find any Representatives on
+the barricades, I will have them all shot to the last man."
+
+The meeting in the Tenth Arrondissement yielded to force. President Vitet
+insisted that they should forcibly arrest him. A police agent who seized
+him turned pale and trembled. In certain circumstances, to lay violent
+hands upon a man is to lay them upon Right, and those who dare to do so
+are made to tremble by outraged Law. The exodus from the Mairie was long
+and beset with obstructions. Half-an-hour elapsed while the soldiers were
+forming a line, and while the Commissaries of Police, all the time
+appearing solely occupied with the care of driving back the crowd in the
+street, sent for orders to the Ministry of the Interior. During that time
+some of the Representatives, seated round a table in the great Hall,
+wrote to their families, to their wives, to their friends. They snatched
+up the last leaves of paper; the pens failed; M. de Luynes wrote to his
+wife a letter in pencil. There were no wafers; they were forced to send
+the letters unsealed; some soldiers offered to post them. M. Chambolle's
+son, who had accompanied his father thus far, undertook to take the
+letters addressed to Mesdames de Luynes, de Lasteyrie, and Duvergier de
+Hauranne. General Forey--the same who had refused a battalion to the
+President of the Constituent Assembly, Marrast, who had promoted him from
+a colonel to a general--General Forey, in the centre of the courtyard of
+the Mairie, his face inflamed, half drunk, coming out, they said, from
+breakfast at the Elysée, superintended the outrage. A member, whose name
+we regret we do not know, dipped his boot into the gutter and wiped it
+along the gold stripe of the regimental trousers of General Forey.
+Representative Lherbette came up to General Forey, and said to him,
+"General, you are a coward." Then turning to his colleagues, he
+exclaimed, "Do you hear? I tell this general that he is a coward."
+General Forey did not stir. He kept the mud on his uniform and the
+epithet on his cheek.
+
+The meeting did not call the people to arms. We have just explained that
+it was not strong enough to do so; nevertheless, at the last moment, a
+member of the Left, Latrade, made a fresh effort. He took M. Berryer
+aside, and said to him, "Our official measures of resistance have come to
+an end; let us not allow ourselves now to be arrested. Let us disperse
+throughout the streets crying, 'To arms!'" M. Berryer consulted a few
+seconds on the matter with the Vice-President, M. Benoist d'Azy, who
+refused.
+
+The Deputy Mayor, hat in hand, reconducted the members of the Assembly as
+far as the gate of the Mairie. As soon as they appeared in the courtyard
+ready to go out between two lines of soldiers, the post of National
+Guards presented arms, acid shouted, "Long live the Assembly! Long live
+the Representatives of the People!" The National Guards were at once
+disarmed, almost forcibly, by the Chasseurs de Vincennes.
+
+There was a wine-shop opposite the Mairie. As soon as the great folding
+gates of the Mairie opened, and the Assembly appeared in the street, led
+by General Forey on horseback, and having at its head the Vice-President
+Vitet, grasped by the necktie by a police agent, a few men in white
+blouses, gathered at the windows of this wine-shop, clapped their hands
+and shouted, "Well done! down with the 'twenty-five francs!'"[7]
+
+They set forth.
+
+The Chasseurs de Vincennes, who marched in a double line on each side of
+the prisoners, cast at them looks of hatred. General Oudinot said in a
+whisper, "These little infantry soldiers are terrible fellows. At the
+siege of Rome they flung themselves at the assault like madmen. These
+lads are very devils." The officers avoided the gaze of the
+Representatives. On leaving the Mairie, M. de Coislin passed by an
+officer and exclaimed, "What a disgrace for the uniform!" the officer
+retaliated with angry words, and incensed M. de Coislin. Shortly
+afterwards, during the march, he came up to M. de Coislin and said to
+him, "Sir, I have reflected; it is I who am wrong."
+
+They proceeded on the way slowly. At a few steps from the Mairie the
+precession met M. Chegaray. The Representatives called out to him,
+"Come!" He answered, while making an expressive gesture with his hands
+and his shoulders, "Oh! I dare say! As they have not arrested me...." and
+he feigned as though he would pass on. He was ashamed, however, and went
+with them. His name is found in the list of the roll-call at the
+barracks.
+
+A little further on M. de Lespérut passed them. They cried out to him.
+"Lespérut! Lespérut!" "I am with you," answered he. The soldiers pushed
+him back. He seized the butt-ends of the muskets, and forced his way into
+the column.
+
+In one of the streets through which they went a window was opened.
+Suddenly a woman appeared with a child; the child, recognizing its father
+amongst the prisoners, held out its arms and called to him, the mother
+wept in the background.
+
+It was at first intended to take the Assembly in a body straight to
+Mazas, but this was counter-ordered by the Ministry of the Interior. It
+was feared that this long walk, in broad daylight, through populous and
+easily aroused streets, might prove dangerous; the D'Orsay barracks were
+close at hand. They selected these as a temporary prison.
+
+One of the commanders insolently pointed out with his sword the arrested
+Representatives to the passers-by, and said in a fond voice, "These are
+the Whites, we have orders to spare them. Now it is the turn of the Red
+Representatives, let them look out for themselves!"
+
+Wherever the procession passed, the populace shouted from the pavements,
+at the doors, at the windows, "Long live the National Assembly!" When
+they perceived a few Representatives of the Left sprinkled in the column
+they cried, "Vive la République!" "Vive la Constitution!" and "Vive la
+Loi!" The shops were not shut, and passers-by went to and fro. Some
+people said, "Wait until the evening; this is not the end of it."
+
+A staff-officer on horseback, in full uniform, met the procession,
+recognized M. de Vatimesnil, and came up to greet him. In the Rue de
+Beaune, as they passed the house of the _Démocratic Pacifique_ a group
+shouted, "Down with the Traitor of the Elysée!"
+
+On the Quai d'Orsay, the shouting was redoubled. There was a great crowd
+there. On either side of the quay a file of soldiers of the Line, elbow
+to elbow, kept back the spectators. In the middle of the space left
+vacant, the members of the Assembly slowly advanced between a double file
+of soldiers, the one stationary, which threatened the people, the other
+on the march, which threatened tire Representatives.
+
+Serious reflections arise in the presence of all the details of the great
+crime which this book is designed to relate. Every honest man who sets
+himself face to face with the _coup d'état_ of Louis Bonaparte hears
+nothing but a tumult of indignant thoughts in his conscience. Whoever
+reads our work to the end will assuredly not credit us with the intention
+of extenuating this monstrous deed. Nevertheless, as the deep logic of
+actions ought always to be italicized by the historian, it is necessary
+here to call to mind and to repeat, even to satiety, that apart from the
+members of the Left, of whom a very small number were present, and whom
+we have mentioned by name, the three hundred Representatives who thus
+defiled before the eyes of the crowd, constituted the old Royalists and
+reactionary majority of the Assembly. If it were possible to forget,
+that--whatever were their errors, whatever were their faults, and, we
+venture to add, whatever were their illusions--these persons thus treated
+were the Representatives of the leading civilized nation, were sovereign
+Legislators, senators of the people, inviolable Deputies, and sacred by
+the great law of Democracy, and that in the same manner as each man bears
+in himself something of the mind of God, so each of these nominees of
+universal suffrage bore something of the soul of France; if it were
+possible to forget this for a moment, it assuredly would be a spectacle
+perhaps more laughable than sad, and certainly more philosophical than
+lamentable to see, on this December morning, after so many laws of
+repression, after so many exceptional measures, after so many votes of
+censure and of the state of siege, after so many refusals of amnesty,
+after so many affronts to equity, to justice, to the human conscience, to
+the public good faith, to right, after so many favors to the police,
+after so many smiles bestowed on absolution, the entire Party of Order
+arrested in a body and taken to prison by the _sergents de ville_!
+
+One day, or rather, one night, the moment having come to save society,
+the _coup d'état_ abruptly seizes the Demagogues, and finds that it holds
+by the collar, Whom? the Royalists.
+
+They arrived at the barracks, formerly the barracks of the Royal Guard,
+and on the pediment of which is a carved escutcheon, whereon are still
+visible the traces of the three _fleurs de lis_ effaced in 1830. They
+halted. The door was opened. "Why!" said M. de Broglie, "here we are."
+
+At that moment a great placard posted on the barrack wall by the side of
+the door bore in big letters--
+
+  "REVISION OF THE CONSTITUTION."
+
+It was the advertisement of a pamphlet, published two or three days
+previous to the _coup d'état_, without any author's name, demanding the
+Empire, and was attributed to the President of the Republic.
+
+The Representatives entered and the doors were closed upon them. The
+shouts ceased; the crowd, which occasionally has its meditative moments,
+remained for some time on the quay, dumb, motionless, gazing alternately
+at the closed gate of the Barracks, and at the silent front of the
+Palace of the Assembly, dimly visible in the misty December twilight,
+two hundred paces distant.
+
+The two Commissaries of Police went to report their "success" to M. de
+Morny. M. de Morny said, "Now the struggle has begun. Excellent! These
+are the last Representatives who will be made prisoners."
+
+
+[5] The Gerontes, or Gerontia, were the Elders of Sparta, who constituted
+the Senate.
+
+[6] The "bureau" of the Assembly consists of the President, for the time
+being of the Assembly, assisted by six secretaries, whose duties mainly
+lie in deciding in what sense the Deputies have voted. The "bureau" of
+the Assembly should not be confounded with the fifteen "bureaux" of the
+Deputies, which answer to our Select Committees of the House of Commons,
+and are presided over by self-chosen Presidents.
+
+[7] An allusion to the twenty-five francs a day officially payable to the
+members of the Assembly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+
+LOUIS BONAPARTE'S SIDE-FACE
+
+The minds of all these men, we repeat, were very differently affected.
+
+The extreme Legitimist party, which represents the White of the flag, was
+not, it must be said, highly exasperated at the _coup d'état_. Upon many
+faces might be read the saying of M. de Falloux: "I am so satisfied that
+I have considerable difficulty in affecting to be only resigned." The
+ingenuous spirits cast down their eyes--that is becoming to purity; more
+daring spirits raised their heads. They felt an impartial indignation
+which permitted a little admiration. How cleverly these generals have
+been ensnared! The Country assassinated,--it is a horrible crime; but
+they were enraptured at the jugglery blended with the parricide. One of
+the leaders said, with a sigh of envy and regret, "We do not possess a
+man of such talent." Another muttered, "It is Order." And he added,
+"Alas!" Another exclaimed, "It is a frightful crime, but well carried
+out." Some wavered, attracted on one side by the lawful power which
+rested in the Assembly, and on the other by the abomination which was in
+Bonaparte; honest souls poised between duty and infamy. There was a M.
+Thomines Desmazures who went as far as the door of the Great Hall of the
+Mairie, halted, looked inside, looked outside, and did not enter. It
+would be unjust not to record that others amongst the pure Royalists, and
+above all M. de Vatimesnil, had the sincere intonation and the upright
+wrath of justice.
+
+Be it as it may, the Legitimist party, taken as a whole, entertained no
+horror of the _coup d'état_. It feared nothing. In truth, should the
+Royalists fear Louis Bonaparte? Why?
+
+Indifference does not inspire fear. Louis Bonaparte was indifferent. He
+only recognized one thing, his object. To break through the road in order
+to reach it, that was quite plain; the rest might be left alone. There
+lay the whole of his policy, to crush the Republicans, to disdain the
+Royalists.
+
+Louis Bonaparte had no passion. He who writes these lines, talking one
+day about Louis Bonaparte with the ex-king of Westphalia, remarked, "In
+him the Dutchman tones down the Corsican."--"If there be any Corsican,"
+answered Jérome.
+
+Louis Bonaparte has never been other than a man who has lain wait for
+fortune, a spy trying to dupe God. He had that livid dreaminess of the
+gambler who cheats. Cheating admits audacity, but excludes anger. In his
+prison at Ham he only read one book, "The Prince." He belonged to no
+family, as he could hesitate between Bonaparte and Verhuell; he had no
+country, as he could hesitate between France and Holland.
+
+This Napoleon had taken St. Helena in good part. He admired England.
+Resentment! To what purpose? For him on earth there only existed his
+interests. He pardoned, because he speculated; he forgot everything,
+because he calculated upon everything. What did his uncle matter to him?
+He did not serve him; he made use of him. He rested his shabby enterprise
+upon Austerlitz. He stuffed the eagle.
+
+Malice is an unproductive outlay. Louis Bonaparte only possessed as much
+memory as is useful. Hudson Lowe did not prevent him from smiling upon
+Englishmen; the Marquis of Montchenu did not prevent him from smiling
+upon the Royalists.
+
+He was a man of earnest politics, of good company, wrapped in his own
+scheming, not impulsive, doing nothing beyond that which he intended,
+without abruptness, without hard words, discreet, accurate, learned,
+talking smoothly of a necessary massacre, a slaughterer, because it
+served his purpose.
+
+All this, we repeat, without passion, and without anger. Louis Bonaparte
+was one of those men who had been influenced by the profound iciness of
+Machiavelli.
+
+It was through being a man of that nature that he succeeded in submerging
+the name of Napoleon by superadding December upon Brumaire.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+
+THE D'ORSAY BARRACKS
+
+It was half-past three.
+
+The arrested Representatives entered into the courtyard of the barracks,
+a huge parallelogram closed in and commanded by high walls. These walls
+are pierced by three tiers of windows, and posses that dismal appearance
+which distinguishes barracks, schools, and prisons.
+
+This courtyard is entered by an arched portal which extends through all
+the breadth of the front of the main building. This archway, under which
+the guard-house has been made, is close on the side of the quay by large
+solid folding doors, and on one side of the courtyard by an iron grated
+gateway. They closed the door and the grated gateway upon the
+Representatives. They "set them at liberty" in the bolted and guarded
+courtyard.
+
+"Let them stroll about," said an officer.
+
+The air was cold, the sky was gray. Some soldiers, in their shirt-sleeves
+and wearing foraging caps, busy with fatigue duty, went hither and
+thither amongst the prisoners.
+
+First M. Grimault and then M. Antony Thouret instituted a roll-call. The
+Representatives made a ring around them. Lherbette said laughingly, "This
+just suits the barracks. We look like sergeant-majors who have come to
+report." They called over the seven hundred and fifty names of the
+Representatives. To each name they answered "Absent" or "Present," and
+the secretary jotted down with a pencil those who were present. When the
+name of Morny was reached, some one cried out, "At Clichy!" At the name
+of Persigny, the same voice exclaimed, "At Poissy!" The inventor of these
+two jokes, which by the way are very poor, has since allied himself to
+the Second of December, to Morny and Persigny; he has covered his
+cowardice with the embroidery of a senator.
+
+The roll-call verified the presence of two hundred and twenty
+Representatives, whose names were as follows:--
+
+Le Duc de Luynes, d'Andigné de la Chasse, Antony Thouret, Arène, Audren
+de Kerdrel (Ille-et-Vilaine), Audren de Kerdrel (Morbihan), de Balzac,
+Barchou de Penhoen, Barillon, O. Barrot, Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire,
+Quentin Bauchard, G. deBeaumont, Béchard, Behaghel, de Belèvze,
+Benoist-d'Azy, de Benardy, Berryer, de Berset, Basse, Betting de
+Lancastel, Blavoyer, Bocher, Boissié, de Botmillan, Bouvatier, le Duc de
+Broglie, de la Broise, de Bryas, Buffet, Caillet du Tertre, Callet, Camus
+de la Guibourgère, Canet, de Castillon, de Cazalis, Admiral Cécile,
+Chambolle, Chamiot, Champannet, Chaper, Chapot, de Charencey, Chasseigne,
+Chauvin, Chazant, de Chazelles, Chegaray, Comte de Coislin, Colfavru,
+Colas de la Motte, Coquerel, de Corcelles, Cordier, Corne, Creton,
+Daguilhon, Pujol, Dahirel, Vicomte Dambray, Marquis de Dampierre, de
+Brotonne, de Fontaine, de Fontenay, Vicomte de Sèze, Desmars, de la
+Devansaye, Didier, Dieuleveult, Druet-Desvaux, A. Dubois, Dufaure,
+Dufougerais, Dufour, Dufournel, Marc Dufraisse, P. Duprat, Duvergier de
+Hauranne, Étienne, Vicomte de Falloux, de Faultrier, Faure (Rhône),
+Favreau, Ferre, des Ferrès, Vicomte de Flavigny, de Foblant, Frichon,
+Gain, Gasselin, Germonière, de Gicquiau, de Goulard, de Gouyon, de
+Grandville, de Grasset, Grelier-Dufougerais, Grévy, Grillon, Grimault,
+Gros, Guislier de la Tousche, Harscouët de Saint-Georges, Marquis
+d'Havrincourt, Hennequin, d'Hespel, Houel, Hovyn-Tranchère, Huot, Joret,
+Jouannet, de Kéranflech, de Kératry, de Kéridec, de Kermazec, de
+Kersauron Penendreff, Lèo de Laborde, Laboulie, Lacave, Oscar Lafayette,
+Lafosse, Lagarde, Lagrenée Laimé, Lainé, Comte Lanjuinais, Larabit, de
+Larcy, J. de Lasteyrie, Latrade, Laureau, Laurenceau, General Marquis de
+Lauriston, de Laussat, Lefebvre de Grosriez, Legrand, Legros-Desvaux,
+Lemaire, Emile Leroux, Lespérut, de l'Espinoy, Lherbette, de Linsaval, de
+Luppé, Maréchal, Martin de Villers, Maze-Saunay, Mèze, Arnauld de Melun,
+Anatole de Melun, Merentié, Michaud, Mispoulet, Monet, Duc de Montebello,
+de Montigny, Moulin, Murat-Sistrière, Alfred Nettement, d'Olivier,
+General Oudinot, Duc de Reggio, Paillat, Duparc, Passy, Emile Péan,
+Pécoul, Casimir Perier, Pidoux, Pigeon, de Piogé, Piscatory, Proa,
+Prudhomme, Querhoent, Randoing, Raudot, Raulin, de Ravinel, de Rémusat,
+Renaud, Rezal, Comte de Rességuier, Henri de Riancey, Rigal, de la
+Rochette, Rodat, de Roquefeuille des Rotours de Chaulieu, Rouget-Lafosse,
+Rouillé, Roux-Carbonel, Saint-Beuve, de Saint-Germain, General Comte de
+Saint-Priest, Salmon (Meuse), Marquis Sauvaire-Barthélemy, de Serré,
+Comte de Sesmaisons, Simonot, de Staplande, de Surville, Marquis de
+Talhouet, Talon, Tamisier, Thuriot de la Rosière, de Tinguy, Comte de
+Tocqueville, de la Tourette, Comte de Tréveneue, Mortimer-Ternaux, de
+Vatimesnil, Baron de Vandoeuvre, Vernhette (Hérault), Vernhette
+(Aveyron), Vézin, Vitet, Comte de Vogué.
+
+After this list of names may be read as follows in the shorthand report:--
+
+"The roll-call having been completed, General Oudinot asked the
+Representatives who were scattered about in the courtyard to come round
+him, and made the following announcement to them,--
+
+"'The Captain-Adjutant-Major, who has remained here to command the
+barracks, has just received an order to have rooms prepared for us, where
+we are to withdraw, as we are considered to be in custody. (Hear! hear!)
+Do you wish me to bring the Adjutant-Major here! (No, no; it is useless.)
+I will tell him that he had better execute his orders.' (Yes, yes, that
+is right.)"
+
+The Representatives remained "penned" and "strolling" about in this yard
+for two long hours. They walked about arm in arm. They walked quickly, so
+as to warm themselves. The men of the Right said to the men of the Left,
+"Ah! if you had only voted the proposals of the Questors!" They also
+exclaimed: "Well, how about the _invisible sentry_!"[8] And they laughed.
+Then Marc Dufraisse answered, "Deputies of the People! deliberate in
+peace!" It was then the turn of the Left to laugh. Nevertheless, there
+was no bitterness. The cordiality of a common misfortune reigned amongst
+them.
+
+They questioned his ex-ministers about Louis Bonaparte. They asked
+Admiral Cécile, "Now, really, what does this mean?" The Admiral answered
+by this definition: "It is a small matter." M. Vézin added, "He wishes
+History to call him 'Sire.'" "Poor Sire, then," said M. de Camas de la
+Guibourgère. M. Odilon Barrot exclaimed, "What a fatality, that we should
+have been condemned to employ this man!"
+
+This said, these heights attained, political philosophy was exhausted,
+and they ceased talking.
+
+On the right, by the side of the door, there was a canteen elevated a few
+steps above the courtyard. "Let us promote this canteen to the dignity of
+a refreshment room," said the ex-ambassador to China, M. de Lagrenée.
+They entered, some went up to the stove, others asked for a basin of
+soup. MM. Favreau, Piscatory, Larabit, and Vatimesnil took refuge in a
+corner. In the opposite corner drunken soldiers chatted with the maids of
+the barracks. M. de Kératry, bent with his eighty years, was seated near
+the stove on an old worm-eaten chair; the chair tottered; the old man
+shivered.
+
+Towards four o'clock a regiment of Chasseurs de Vincennes arrived in the
+courtyard with their platters, and began to eat, singing, with loud
+bursts of merriment. M. de Broglie looked at them and said to M.
+Piscatory, "It is a strange spectacle to see the porringers of the
+Janissaries vanished from Constantinople reappearing at Paris!"
+
+Almost at the same moment a staff officer informed the Representatives on
+behalf of General Forey that the apartments assigned to them were ready,
+and requested them to follow him. They were taken into the eastern
+building, which is the wing of the barracks farthest from the Palace of
+the Council of State; they were conducted to the third floor. They
+expected chambers and beds. They found long rooms, vast garrets with
+filthy walls and low ceilings, furnished with wooden tables and benches.
+These were the "apartments." These garrets, which adjoin each other, all
+open on the same corridor, a narrow passage, which runs the length of the
+main building. In one of these rooms they saw, thrown into a corner,
+side-drums, a big drum, and various instruments of military music. The
+Representatives scattered themselves about in these rooms. M. de
+Tocqueville, who was ill, threw his overcoat on the floor in the recess
+of a window, and lay down. He remained thus stretched upon the ground for
+several hours.
+
+These rooms were warmed very badly by cast-iron stoves, shaped like
+hives. A Representative wishing to poke the fire, upset one, and nearly
+set fire to the wooden flooring.
+
+The last of these rooms looked out on the quay. Antony Thouret opened a
+window and leaned out. Several Representatives joined him. The soldiers
+who were bivouacking below on the pavement, caught sight of them and
+began to shout, "Ah! there they are, those rascals at 'twenty-five francs
+a day,' who wish to cut down our pay!" In fact, on the preceding evening,
+the police had spread this calumny through the barracks that a
+proposition had been placed on the Tribune to lessen the pay of the
+troops. They had even gone so far as to name the author of this
+proposition. Antony Thouret attempted to undeceive the soldiers. An
+officer cried out to him, "It is one of your party who made the proposal.
+It is Lamennais!"
+
+In about an hour and a half there were ushered into these rooms MM.
+Vallette, Bixio, and Victor Lefranc, who had come to join their
+colleagues and constitute themselves prisoners.
+
+Night came. They were hungry. Several had not eaten since the morning. M.
+Howyn de Tranchère, a man of considerable kindness and devotion, who had
+acted as porter at the Mairie, acted as forager at the barracks. He
+collected five francs from each Representative, and they sent and ordered
+a dinner for two hundred and twenty from the Café d'Orsay, at the corner
+of the Quay, and the Rue du Bac. They dined badly, but merrily. Cookshop
+mutton, bad wine, and cheese. There was no bread. They ate as they best
+could, one standing, another on a chair, one at a table, another astride
+on his bench, with his plate before him, "as at a ball-room supper," a
+dandy of the Right said laughingly, Thuriot de la Rosière, son of the
+regicide Thuriot. M. de Rémusat buried his head in his hands. Emile Péan
+said to him, "We shall get over it." And Gustave de Beaumont cried out,
+addressing himself to the Republicans, "And your friends of the Left!
+Will they preserve their honor? Will there be an insurrection at least?"
+They passed each other the dishes and plates, the Right showing marked
+attention to the Left. "Here is the opportunity to bring about a fusion,"
+said a young Legitimist. Troopers and canteen men waited upon them. Two
+or three tallow candles burnt and smoked on each table. There were few
+glasses. Right and Left drank from the same. "Equality, fraternity,"
+exclaimed the Marquis Sauvaire-Barthélemy, of the Right. And Victor
+Hannequin answered him, "But not Liberty."
+
+Colonel Feray, the son-in-law of Marshal Bugeaud, was in command at the
+barracks; he offered the use of his drawing-room to M. de Broglie and to
+M. Odilon Barrot, who accepted it. The barrack doors were opened to M. de
+Kératry, on account of his great age, to M. Dufaure, as his wife had just
+been confined, and to M. Etienne, on account of the wound which he had
+received that morning in the Rue de Bourgogne. At the same time there
+were added to the two hundred and twenty MM. Eugène Sue, Benoist (du
+Rhône), Fayolle, Chanay, Toupet des Vignes, Radoubt-Lafosse, Arbey, and
+Teillard-Latérisse, who up to that time had been detained in the new
+Palace of Foreign Affairs.
+
+Towards eight o'clock in the evening, when dinner was over, the
+restrictions were a little relaxed, and the intermediate space between
+the door and the barred gate of the barracks began to be littered with
+carpet bags and articles of toilet sent by the families of the imprisoned
+Representatives.
+
+The Representatives were summoned by their names. Each went down in turn,
+and briskly remounted with his cloak, his coverlet, or his foot-warmer. A
+few ladies succeeded in making their way to their husbands. M.M. Chambolle
+was able to press his son's hand through the bars.
+
+Suddenly a voice called out, "Oho! We are going to spend the night here."
+Mattresses were brought in, which were thrown on the tables, on the
+floor, anywhere.
+
+Fifty or sixty Representatives found resting-places on them. The greater
+number remained on their benches. Marc Dufraisse settled himself to pass
+the night on a footstool, leaning on a table. Happy was the man who had a
+chair.
+
+Nevertheless, cordiality and gaiety did not cease to prevail. "Make room
+for the 'Burgraves!'" said smilingly a venerable veteran of the Right. A
+young Republican Representative rose, and offered him his mattress. They
+pressed on each offers of overcoats, cloaks, and coverlets.
+
+"Reconciliation," said Chamiot, while offering the half of his mattress
+to the Duc de Luynes. The Duc de Luynes, who had 80,000 francs a year,
+smiled, and replied to Chamiot, "You are St. Martin, and I am the beggar."
+
+M. Paillet, the well-known barrister, who belonged to the "Third Estate,"
+used to say, "I passed the night on a Bonapartist straw mattress, wrapped
+in a burnouse of the Mountain, my feet in a Democratic and Socialist
+sheepskin, and my head in a Legitimist cotton nightcap." The
+Representatives, although prisoners in the barracks, could stroll about
+freely. They were allowed to go down into the courtyard. M. Cordier (of
+Calvados) came upstairs again, saying, "I have just spoken to the
+soldiers. They did not know that their generals had been arrested. They
+appeared surprised and discontented." This incident raised the prisoners'
+hopes.
+
+Representative Michel Renaud of the Basses-Pyrénees, found several of his
+compatriots of the Basque country amongst the Chasseurs de Vincennes who
+occupied the courtyard. Some had voted for him, and reminded him of the
+fact. They added, "Ah! We would again vote for the 'Red' list." One of
+them, quite a young man, took him aside, and said to him. "Do you want
+any money, sir? I have a forty-sous piece in my pocket."
+
+Towards ten o'clock in the evening a great hubbub arose in the courtyard.
+The doors and the barred gate turned noisily upon their hinges. Something
+entered which rumbled like thunder. They leaned out of window, and saw at
+the foot of the steps a sort of big, oblong chest, painted black, yellow,
+red, and green, on four wheels, drawn by post-horses, and surrounded by
+men in long overcoats, and with fierce-looking faces, holding torches. In
+the gloom, and with the help of imagination, this vehicle appeared
+completely black. A door could be seen, but no other opening. It
+resembled a great coffin on wheels. "What is that? Is it a hearse?" "No,
+it is a police-van." "And those people, are they undertakers?" "No, they
+are jailers." "And for whom has this come?"
+
+"For you, gentlemen!" cried out a voice.
+
+It was the voice of an officer; and the vehicle which had just entered
+was in truth a police-van.
+
+At the same time a word of command was heard: "First squadron to horse."
+And five minutes afterwards the Lancers who were to escort the vehicle
+formed in line in the courtyard.
+
+Then arose in the barracks the buzz of a hive of angry bees. The
+Representatives ran up and down the stairs, and went to look at the
+police-van close at hand. Some of them touched it, and could not believe
+their eyes. M. Piscatory met M. Chambolle, and cried out to him, "I am
+leaving in it!" M. Berryer met Eugène Sue, and they exchanged these
+words: "Where are you going?" "To Mount Valérien. And you?" "I do not
+know."
+
+At half-past ten the roll-call of those who were to leave began. Police
+agents stationed themselves at a table between two candles in a parlor at
+the foot of the stairs, and the Representatives were summoned two by two.
+The Representatives agreed not to answer to their names, and to reply to
+each name which should be called out, "He is not here." But those
+"Burgraves" who had accepted the hospitality of Colonel Feray considered
+such petty resistance unworthy of them, and answered to the calling out
+of their names. This drew the others after them. Everybody answered.
+Amongst the Legitimists some serio-comic scenes were enacted. They who
+alone were not threatened insisted on believing that they were in danger.
+They would not let one of their orators go. They embraced him, and held
+him back, almost with tears, crying out, "Do not go away! Do you know
+where they are taking you? Think of the trenches of Vincennes!"
+
+The Representatives, having been summoned two by two, as we have just
+said, filed in the parlor before the police agents, and then they were
+ordered to get into the "robbers' box." The stowage was apparently made
+at haphazard and promiscuously; nevertheless, later, by the difference
+of the treatment accorded to the Representatives in the various prisons,
+it was apparent that this promiscuous loading had perhaps been somewhat
+prearranged. When the first vehicle was full, a second, of a similar
+construction drew up. The police agents, pencil and pocket-book in
+hand, noted down the contents of each vehicle. These men knew the
+Representatives. When Marc Dufraisse, called in his turn, entered the
+parlor, he was accompanied by Benoist (du Rhône). "Ah! here is Marc
+Dufraisse," said the attendant who held the pencil. When asked for his
+name, Benoist replied "Benoist." "Du Rhône," added the police agent; and
+he continued, "for there are also Benoist d'Azy and Benoist-Champy."
+
+The loading of each vehicle occupied nearly half an hour. The successive
+arrivals had raised the number of imprisoned Representatives to two
+hundred and thirty-two Their embarkation, or, to use the expression of M.
+de Vatimesnil, their "barrelling up," which began a little after ten in
+the evening, was not finished until nearly seven o'clock in the morning.
+When there were no more police-vans available omnibuses were brought in.
+These various vehicles were portioned off into three detachments, each
+escorted by Lancers. The first detachment left towards one o'clock in the
+morning, and was driven to Mont Valérien; the second towards five
+o'clock, and was driven to Mazas; the third towards half-past six, to
+Vincennes.
+
+As this business occupied a long time, those who had not yet been called
+benefited by the mattresses and tried to sleep. Thus, from time to time,
+silence reigned in the upper rooms. In the midst of one of these pauses
+M. Bixio sat upright, and raising his voice, cried out, "Gentlemen, what
+do you think of 'passive obedience'?" An unanimous burst of laughter was
+the reply. Again, during one of these pauses another voice exclaimed,--
+
+"Romieu will be a senator."
+
+Emile Péan asked,--
+
+"What will become of the Red Spectre?"
+
+"He will enter the priesthood," answered Antony Thouret, "and will turn
+into the Black Spectre."
+
+Other exclamations which the historians of the Second of December have
+spread abroad were not uttered. Thus, Marc Dufraisse never made the
+remark with which the men of Louis Bonaparte have wished to excuse their
+crimes: "If the President does not shoot all those among us who resist,
+he does not understand his business."
+
+For the _coup d'état_ such a remark might be convenient; but for History
+it is false.
+
+The interior of the police-vans was lighted while the Representatives
+were entering. The air-holes of each compartment were not closed. In this
+manner Marc Dufraisse through the aperture could see M. du Rémusat in the
+opposite cell to his own. M. du Rémusat had entered the van coupled with
+M. Duvergier de Hauranne.
+
+"Upon my word, Monsieur Marc Dufraisse," exclaimed Duvergier de Hauranne
+when they jostled each other in the gangway of the vehicle, "upon my
+word, if any one had said to me, 'You will go to Marzas in a police-van,'
+I should have said, 'It is improbable;' but if they had added, 'You will
+go with Marc Dufraisse,' I should have said, 'It is impossible!'"
+
+As soon as the vehicle was full, five or six policemen entered and stood
+in the gangway. The door was shut, the steps were thrown up, and they
+drove off.
+
+When all the police-vans had been filled, there were still some
+Representatives left. As we have said, omnibuses were brought into
+requisition. Into these Representatives were thrust, one upon the other,
+rudely, without deference for either age or name. Colonel Feray, on
+horseback, superintended and directed operations. As he mounted the steps
+of the last vehicle but one, the Duc de Montebello cried out to him,
+"To-day is the anniversary of the battle of Austerlitz, and the
+son-in-law of Marshal Bugeaud compels the son of Marshal Lannes to enter
+a convict's van."
+
+When the last omnibus was reached, there were only seventeen places for
+eighteen Representatives. The most active mounted first. Antony Thouret,
+who himself alone equalled the whole of the Right, for he had as much
+mind as Thiers and as much stomach as Murat; Antony Thouret, corpulent
+and lethargic, was the last. When he appeared on the threshold of the
+omnibus in all his hugeness, a cry of alarm arose;--Where was he going to
+sit?
+
+Antony Thouret, noticing Berryer at the bottom of the omnibus, went
+straight up to him, sat down on his knees, and quietly said to him, "You
+wanted 'compression,' Monsieur Berryer. Now you have it."
+
+
+[8] Michel de Bourges had thus characterized Louis Bonaparte as the
+guardian of the Republic against the Monarchical parties.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+
+MAZAS
+
+The police-vans, escorted as far as Mazas by Lancers, found another
+squadron of Lancers ready to receive them at Mazas. The Representatives
+descended from the vehicle one by one. The officer commanding the Lancers
+stood by the door, and watched them pass with a dull curiosity.
+
+Mazas, which had taken the place of the prison of La Force, now pulled
+down, is a lofty reddish building, close to the terminus of the Lyons
+Railway, and stands on the waste land of the Faubourg St. Antoine. From a
+distance the building appears as though built of bricks, but on closer
+examination it is seen to be constructed of flints set in cement. Six
+large detached buildings, three stories high, all radiating from a
+rotunda which serves as the common centre, and touching each other at the
+starting-point, separated by courtyards which grow broader in proportion
+as the buildings spread out, pierced with a thousand little dormer
+windows which give light to the cells, surrounded by a high wall, and
+presenting from a bird's-eye point of view the drape of a fan--such is
+Mazas. From the rotunda which forms the centre, springs a sort of
+minaret, which is the alarm-tower. The ground floor is a round room,
+which serves as the registrar's office. On the first story is a chapel
+where a single priest says mass for all; and the observatory, where a
+single attendant keeps watch over all the doors of all the galleries at
+the same time. Each building is termed a "division." The courtyards are
+intersected by high walls into a multitude of little oblong walks.
+
+As each Representative descended from the vehicle he was conducted into
+the rotunda where the registry office was situated. There his name was
+taken down, and in exchange for his name he was assigned a number.
+Whether the prisoner be a thief or a legislator, such is always the rule
+in this prison; the _coup d'état_ reduced all to a footing of equality.
+As soon as a Representative was registered and numbered, he was ordered
+to "file off." They said to him, "Go upstairs," or "Go on;" and they
+announced him at the end of the corridor to which he was allotted by
+calling out, "Receive number So-and-So." The jailer in that particular
+corridor answered, "Send him on." The prisoner mounted alone, went
+straight on, and on his arrival found the jailer standing near an open
+door. The jailer said, "Here it is, sir." The prisoner entered, the
+jailer shut the door, and they passed on to another.
+
+The _coup d'état_ acted in a very different manner towards the various
+Representatives. Those whom it desired to conciliate, the men of the
+Bight, were placed in Vincennes; those whom it detested, the men of the
+Left, were placed in Mazas. Those at Vincennes had the quarters of M.
+Montpensier, which were expressly reopened for them; an excellent dinner,
+eaten in company; wax candles, fire, and the smiles and bows of the
+governor, General Courtigis.
+
+This is how it treated those at Mazas.
+
+A police-van deposited them at the prison. They were transferred from one
+box to another. At Mazas a clerk registered them, weighed them, measured
+them, and entered them into the jail book as convicts. Having passed
+through the office, each of them was conducted along a gallery shrouded
+in darkness, through a long damp vault to a narrow door which was
+suddenly opened. This reached, a jailer pushed the Representative in by
+the shoulders, and the door was shut.
+
+The Representative, thus immured, found himself in a little, long,
+narrow, dark room. It is this which the prudent language of modern
+legislation terms a "cell." Here the full daylight of a December noon
+only produced a dusky twilight. At one end there was a door, with a
+little grating; at the other, close to the ceiling, at a height of ten or
+twelve feet, there was a loophole with a fluted glass window. This window
+dimmed the eye, and prevented it from seeing the blue or gray of the sky,
+or from distinguishing the cloud from the sun's ray, and invested the wan
+daylight of winter with an indescribable uncertainty. It was even less
+than a dim light, it was a turbid light. The inventors of this fluted
+window succeeded in making the heavens squint.
+
+After a few moments the prisoner began to distinguish objects confusedly,
+and this is what he found: White-washed walls here and there turned green
+by various exhalations; in one corner a round hole guarded by iron bars,
+and exhaling a disgusting smell; in another corner a slab turning upon a
+hinge like the bracket seat of a _fiacre_, and thus capable of being used
+as a table; no bed; a straw-bottomed chair; under foot a brick floor.
+Gloom was the first impression; cold was the second. There, then, the
+prisoner found himself, alone, chilled, in this semi-darkness, being able
+to walk up and down the space of eight square feet like a caged wolf, or
+to remain seated on his chair like an idiot at Bicêtre.
+
+In this situation an ex-Republican of the Eve, who had become a member of
+the majority, and on occasions sided somewhat with the Bonapartists, M.
+Emile Leroux, who had, moreover, been thrown into Mazas by mistake,
+having doubtless been taken for some other Leroux, began to weep with
+rage. Three, four, five hours thus passed away. In the meanwhile they had
+not eaten since the morning; some of them, in the excitement caused by
+the _coup d'état_ had not even breakfasted. Hunger came upon them. Were
+they to be forgotten there? No; a bell rang in the prison, the grating of
+the door opened, and an arm held out to the prisoner a pewter porringer
+and a piece of bread.
+
+The prisoner greedily seized the bread and the porringer. The bread was
+black and sticky; the porringer contained a sort of thick water, warm and
+reddish. Nothing can be compared to the smell of this "soup." As for the
+bread, it only smelt of mouldiness.
+
+However great their hunger, most of the prisoners during the first moment
+threw down their bread on the floor, and emptied the porringer down the
+hole with the iron bars.
+
+Nevertheless the stomach craved, the hours passed by, they picked up the
+bread, and ended by eating it. One prisoner went so far as to pick up the
+porringer and to attempt to wipe out the bottom with his bread, which he
+afterwards devoured. Subsequently, this prisoner, a Representative set at
+liberty in exile, described to me this dietary, and said to me, "A hungry
+stomach has no nose."
+
+Meanwhile there was absolute solitude and profound silence. However, in
+the course of a few hours, M. Emile Leroux--he himself has told the fact
+to M. Versigny--heard on the other side of the wall on his right a sort
+of curious knocking, spaced out and intermittent at irregular intervals.
+He listened, and almost at the same moment on the other side of the wall
+to his left a similar rapping responded. M. Emile Leroux,
+enraptured--what a pleasure it was to hear a noise of some kind!--thought
+of his colleagues, prisoners like himself, and cried out in a tremendous
+voice, "Oh, oh! you are there also, you fellows!" He had scarcely uttered
+this sentence when the door of his cell was opened with a creaking of
+hinges and bolts; a man--the jailer--appeared in a great rage, and said
+to him,--
+
+"Hold your tongue!"
+
+The Representative of the People, somewhat bewildered, asked for an
+explanation.
+
+"Hold your tongue," replied the jailer, "or I will pitch you into a
+dungeon."
+
+This jailer spoke to the prisoner as the _coup d'état_ spoke to the
+nation.
+
+M. Emile Leroux, with his persistent parliamentary habits, nevertheless
+attempted to insist.
+
+"What!" said he, "can I not answer the signals which two of my colleagues
+are making to me?"
+
+"Two of your colleagues, indeed," answered the jailer, "they are two
+thieves." And he shut the door, shouting with laughter.
+
+They were, in fact, two thieves, between whom M. Emile Leroux was, not
+crucified, but locked up.
+
+The Mazas prison is so ingeniously built that the least word can be
+heard from one cell to another. Consequently there is no isolation,
+notwithstanding the cellular system. Thence this rigorous silence imposed
+by the perfect and cruel logic of the rules. What do the thieves do? They
+have invented a telegraphic system of raps, and the rules gain nothing by
+their stringency. M. Emile Leroux had simply interrupted a conversation
+which had been begun.
+
+"Don't interfere with our friendly patter," cried out his thief neighbor,
+who for this exclamation was thrown into the dungeon.
+
+Such was the life of the Representatives at Mazas. Moreover, as they were
+in secret confinement, not a book, not a sheet of paper, not a pen, not
+even an hour's exercise in the courtyard was allowed to them.
+
+The thieves also go to Mazas, as we have seen.
+
+But those who know a trade are permitted to work; those who know how to
+read are supplied with books; those who know how to write are granted a
+desk and paper; all are permitted the hour's exercise required by the
+laws of health and authorized by the rules.
+
+The Representatives were allowed nothing whatever. Isolation, close
+confinement, silence, darkness, cold, "the amount of _ennui_ which
+engenders madness," as Linguet has said when speaking of the Bastille.
+
+To remain seated on a chair all day long, with arms and legs crossed:
+such was the situation. But the bed! Could they lie down?
+
+No.
+
+There was no bed.
+
+At eight o'clock in the evening the jailer came into the cell, and
+reached down, and removed something which was rolled up on a plank near
+the ceiling. This "something" was a hammock.
+
+The hammock having been fixed, hooked up, and spread out, the jailer
+wished his prisoner "Good-night."
+
+There was a blanket on the hammock, sometimes a mattress some two inches
+thick. The prisoner, wrapt in this covering, tried to sleep, and only
+succeeded in shivering.
+
+But on the morrow he could at least remain lying down all day in his
+hammock?
+
+Not at all.
+
+At seven o'clock in the morning the jailer came in, wished the
+Representative "Good-morning," made him get up, and rolled up the hammock
+on its shelf near the ceiling.
+
+But in this case could not the prisoner take down the authorized hammock,
+unroll it, hook it up, and lie down again?
+
+Yes, he could. But then there was the dungeon.
+
+This was the routine. The hammock for the night, the chair for the day.
+
+Let us be just, however. Some obtained beds, amongst others MM. Thiers
+and Roger (du Nord). M. Grévy did not have one.
+
+Mazas is a model prison of progress; it is certain that Mazas is
+preferable to the _piombi_ of Venice, and to the under-water dungeon of
+the Châtelet. Theoretical philanthropy has built Mazas. Nevertheless, as
+has been seen, Mazas leaves plenty to be desired. Let us acknowledge that
+from a certain point of view the temporary solitary confinement of the
+law-makers at Mazas does not displease us. There was perhaps something of
+Providence in the _coup d'état_. Providence, in placing the Legislators
+at Mazas, has performed an act of good education. Eat of your own
+cooking; it is not a bad thing that those who own prisons should try them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+
+THE EPISODE OF THE BOULEVARD ST. MARTIN
+
+When Charamaule and I reached No. 70, Rue Blanche, a steep lonely street,
+a man in a sort of naval sub-officer's uniform, was walking up and down
+before the door. The portress, who recognized us, called our attention to
+him. "Nonsense," said Charamaule, "a man walking about in that manner,
+and dressed after that fashion, is assuredly not a police spy."
+
+"My dear colleague," said I, "Bedeau has proved that the police are
+blockheads."
+
+We went upstairs. The drawing-room and a little ante-chamber which led to
+it were full of Representatives, with whom were mingled a good many
+persons who did not belong to the Assembly. Some ex-members of the
+Constituent Assembly were there, amongst others, Bastide and several
+Democratic journalists. The _Nationale_ was represented by Alexander Rey
+and Léopold Duras, the _Révolution_ by Xavier Durrieu, Vasbenter, and
+Watripon, the _Avénement du Peuple_ by H. Coste, nearly all the other
+editors of the _Avénement_ being in prison. About sixty members of the
+Left were there, and among others Edgar Quinet, Schoelcher, Madier de
+Montjau, Carnot, Noël Parfait, Pierre Lefranc, Bancel, de Flotte,
+Bruckner, Chaix, Cassal, Esquiros, Durand-Savoyat, Yvan, Carlos Forel,
+Etchegoyen, Labrousse, Barthélemy (Eure-et-Loire), Huguenin, Aubrey (du
+Nord), Malardier, Victor Chauffour, Belin, Renaud, Bac, Versigny, Sain,
+Joigneaux, Brives, Guilgot, Pelletier, Doutre, Gindrier, Arnauld (de
+l'Ariége), Raymond (de l'Isère), Brillier, Maigne, Sartin, Raynaud, Léon
+Vidal, Lafon, Lamargue, Bourzat, and General Rey.
+
+All were standing. They were talking without order. Léopold Duras had
+just described the investment of the Café Bonvalet. Jules Favre and
+Baudin, seated at a little table between the two windows, were writing.
+Baudin had a copy of the Constitution open before him, and was copying
+Article 68.
+
+When we entered there was silence, and they asked us, "Well, what news?"
+
+Charamaule told them what had just taken place on the Boulevard du
+Temple, and the advice which he had thought right to give me. They
+approved his action.
+
+"What is to be done?" was asked on every side. I began to speak.
+
+"Let us go straight to the fact and to the point," said I. "Louis
+Bonaparte is gaining ground, and we are losing ground, or rather, we
+should say, he has as yet everything, and we have as yet nothing.
+Charamaule and I have been obliged to separate ourselves from Colonel
+Forestier. I doubt if he will succeed. Louis Bonaparte is doing all he
+can to suppress us, we must no longer keep in the background. We must
+make our presence felt. We must fan this beginning of the flame of which
+we have seen the spark on the Boulevard du Temple. A proclamation must be
+made, no matter by whom it is printed, or how it is placarded, but it is
+absolutely necessary, and that immediately. Something brief, rapid, and
+energetic. No set phrases. Ten lines--an appeal to arms! We are the Law,
+and there are occasions when the Law should utter a war-cry. The Law,
+outlawing the traitor, is a great and terrible thing. Let us do it."
+
+They interrupted me with "Yes, that is right, a proclamation!"
+
+"Dictate! dictate!"
+
+"Dictate," said Baudin to me, "I will write."
+
+I dictated:-
+
+  "TO THE PEOPLE.
+
+  "Louis Napoléon Bonaparte is a traitor.
+
+  "He has violated the Constitution.
+
+  "He is forsworn.
+
+  "He is an outlaw--"
+
+They cried out to me on every side,--
+
+"That is right! Outlaw him."
+
+"Go on."
+
+I resumed the dictation. Baudin wrote,--
+
+  "The Republican Representatives refer the People and the Army to Article
+  68--"
+
+They interrupted me: "Quote it in full."
+
+"No," said I, "it would be too long. Something is needed which can be
+placarded on a card, stuck with a wafer, and which can be read in a
+minute. I will quote Article 110. It is short and contains the appeal to
+arms."
+
+I resumed,--
+
+  "The Republican Representatives refer the People and the Army to Article
+  68 and to Article 110, which runs thus--'The Constituent Assembly
+  confides the existing Constitution and the Laws which it consecrates to
+  the keeping and the patriotism of all Frenchmen.'
+
+  "The People henceforward and for ever in possession of universal
+  suffrages and who need no Prince for its restitution, will know how to
+  chastise the rebel.
+
+  "Let the People do its duty. The Republican Representatives are marching
+  at its head.
+
+  "Vive la République! To Arms!"
+
+They applauded.
+
+"Let us all sign," said Pelletier.
+
+"Let us try to find a printing-office without delay," said Schoelcher,
+"and let the proclamation be posted up immediately."
+
+"Before nightfall--the days are short," added Joigneaux.
+
+"Immediately, immediately, several copies!" called out the
+Representatives.
+
+Baudin, silent and rapid, had already made a second copy of the
+proclamation.
+
+A young man, editor of the provincial Republican journal, came out of the
+crowd, and declared that, if they would give him a copy at once, before
+two hours should elapse the Proclamation should be posted at all the
+street corners in Paris.
+
+I asked him,--
+
+"What is your name?"
+
+He answered me,--
+
+"Millière."
+
+Millière. It is in this manner that this name made its first appearance
+in the gloomy days of our History. I can still see that pale young man,
+that eye at the same time piercing and half closed, that gentle and
+forbidding profile. Assassination and the Pantheon awaited him. He was
+too obscure to enter into the Temple, he was sufficiently deserving to
+die on its threshold. Baudin showed him the copy which he had just made.
+
+Millière went up to him.
+
+"You do not know me," said he; "my name is Millière; but I know you, you
+are Baudin."
+
+Baudin held out his hand to him.
+
+I was present at the handshaking between these two spectres.
+
+Xavier Durrieu, who was editor of the _Révolution_ made the same offer as
+Millière.
+
+A dozen Representatives took their pens and sat down, some around a
+table, others with a sheet of paper on their knees, and called out to
+me,--
+
+"Dictate the Proclamation to us."
+
+I had dictated to Baudin, "Louis Napoléon Bonaparte is a traitor." Jules
+Favre requested the erasure of the word Napoléon, that name of glory
+fatally powerful with the People and with the Army, and that there should
+be written, "Louis Bonaparte is a traitor."
+
+"You are right," said I to him.
+
+A discussion followed. Some wished to strike out the word "Prince." But
+the Assembly was impatient. "Quick! quick!" they cried out. "We are in
+December, the days are short," repeated Joigneaux.
+
+Twelve copies were made at the same time in a few minutes. Schoelcher,
+Rey, Xavier Durrieu, and Millière each took one, and set out in search of
+a printing office.
+
+As they went out a man whom I did not know, but who was greeted by
+several Representatives, entered and said, "Citizens, this house is
+marked. Troops are on the way to surround you. You have not a second to
+lose."
+
+Numerous voices were raised,--
+
+"Very well! Let them arrest us!"
+
+"What does it matter to us?"
+
+"Let them complete their crime."
+
+"Colleagues," said I, "let us not allow ourselves to be arrested. After
+the struggle, as God pleases; but before the combat,--No! It is from us
+that the people are awaiting the initiative. If we are taken, all is at
+an end. Our duty is to bring on the battle, our right is to cross swords
+with the _coup d'état_. It must not be allowed to capture us, it must
+seek us and not find us. We must deceive the arm which it stretches out
+against us, we must remain concealed from Bonaparte, we must harass him,
+weary him, astonish him, exhaust him, disappear and reappear unceasingly,
+change our hiding-place, and always fight him, be always before him, and
+never beneath his hand. Let us not leave the field. We have not numbers,
+let us have daring."
+
+They approved of this. "It is right," said they, "but where shall we go?"
+
+Labrousse said,--
+
+"Our former colleague of the Constituent Assembly, Beslay, offers us his
+house."
+
+"Where does he live?"
+
+"No. 33, Rue de la Cérisaie, in the Marais."
+
+"Very well," answered I, "let us separate. We will meet again in two
+hours at Beslay's, No. 33, Rue de la Cérisaie."
+
+All left; one after another, and in different directions. I begged
+Charamaule to go to my house and wait for me there, and I walked out with
+Noël Parfait and Lafon.
+
+We reached the then still uninhabited district which skirts the ramparts.
+As we came to the corner of the Rue Pigalle, we saw at a hundred paces
+from us, in the deserted streets which cross it, soldiers gliding all
+along the houses, bending their steps towards the Rue Blanche.
+
+At three o'clock the members of the Left rejoined each other in the Rue
+de la Cérisaie. But the alarm had been given, and the inhabitants of
+these lonely streets stationed themselves at the windows to see the
+Representatives pass. The place of meeting, situated and hemmed in at the
+bottom of a back yard, was badly chosen in the event of being surrounded:
+all these disadvantages were at once perceived, and the meeting only
+lasted a few seconds. It was presided over by Joly; Xavier Durrieu and
+Jules Gouache, who were editors of the _Révolution_, also took part, as
+well as several Italian exiles, amongst others Colonel Carini and
+Montanelli, ex-Minister of the Grand Duke of Tuscany. I liked Montanelli,
+a gentle and dauntless spirit.
+
+Madier de Montjau brought news from the outskirts. Colonel Forestier,
+without losing and without taking away hope, told them of the obstacles
+which he had encountered in his attempts to call together the 6th Legion.
+He pressed me to sign his appointment as Colonel, as well as Michel de
+Bourges; but Michel de Bourges was absent, and besides, neither Michel de
+Bourges nor I had yet at drat time the authority from the Left.
+Nevertheless, under this reservation I signed his appointment. The
+perplexities were becoming more and more numerous. The Proclamation was
+not yet printed, and the evening was closing in. Schoelcher explained the
+difficulties: all the printing offices closed and guarded; an order
+placarded that whoever should print an appeal to arms world be
+immediately shot; the workmen terrified; no money. A hat was sent round,
+and each threw into it what money he had about him. They collected in
+this manner a few hundred francs.
+
+Xavier Durrieu, whose fiery courage never flagged for a single moment,
+reiterated that he would undertake the printing, and promised that by
+eight o'clock that evening there should be 40,000 copies of the
+Proclamation. Time pressed. They separated, after fixing as a rendezvous
+the premises of the Society of Cabinet-makers in the Rue de Charonne, at
+eight o'clock in the evening, so as to allow time for the situation to
+reveal itself. As we went out and crossed the Rue Beautreillis I saw
+Pierre Leroux coming up to me. He had taken no part in our meetings. He
+said to me,--
+
+"I believe this struggle to be useless. Although my point of view is
+different from yours, I am your friend. Beware. There is yet time to
+stop. You are entering into the catacombs. The catacombs are Death."
+
+"They are also Life," answered I.
+
+All the same, I thought with joy that my two sons were in prison, and
+that this gloomy duty of street fighting was imposed upon me alone.
+
+There yet remained five hours until the time fixed for the rendezvous. I
+wished to go home, and once more embrace my wife and daughter before
+precipitating myself into that abyss of the "unknown" which was there,
+yawning and gloomy, and which several of us were about to enter, never to
+return.
+
+Arnauld (de l'Ariége) gave me his arm. The two Italian exiles, Carini
+aril Montanelli, accompanied me.
+
+Montanelli took my hands and said to me, "Right will conquer. You will
+conquer. Oh! that this time France may not be selfish as in 1848, and
+that she may deliver Italy." I answered him, "She will deliver Europe."
+
+Those were our illusions at that moment, but this, however, does not
+prevent them from being our hopes to-day. Faith is thus constituted;
+shadows demonstrate to it the light.
+
+There is a cabstand before the front gate of St. Paul. We went there. The
+Rue St. Antoine was alive with that indescribable uneasy swarming which
+precedes those strange battles of ideas against deeds which are called
+Revolutions. I seemed to catch, in this great working-class district, a
+glimpse of a gleam of light which, alas, died out speedily. The cabstand
+before St. Paul was deserted. The drivers had foreseen the possibility of
+barricades, and had fled.
+
+Three miles separated Arnauld and myself from our houses. It was
+impossible to walk there through the middle of Paris, without being
+recognized at each step. Two passers-by extricated us from our
+difficulty. One of them said to the other, "The omnibuses are still
+running on the Boulevards."
+
+We profited by this information, and went to look for a Bastille omnibus.
+All four of us got in.
+
+I entertained at heart, I repeat, wrongly or rightly, a bitter reproach
+for the opportunity lost during the morning. I said to myself that on
+critical days such moments come, but do not return. There are two
+theories of Revolution: to arouse the people, or to let them come of
+themselves. The first theory was mine, but, through force of discipline,
+I had obeyed the second. I reproached myself with this. I said to myself,
+"The People offered themselves, and we did not accept them. It is for us
+now not to offer ourselves, but to do more, to give ourselves."
+
+Meanwhile the omnibus had started. It was full. I had taken my place at
+the bottom on the left; Arnauld (de l'Ariége) sat next to me, Carini
+opposite, Montanelli next to Arnauld. We did not speak; Arnauld and
+myself silently exchanged that pressure of hands which is a means of
+exchanging thoughts.
+
+As the omnibus proceeded towards the centre of Paris the crowd became
+denser on the Boulevard. As the omnibus entered into the cutting of the
+Porte St. Martin a regiment of heavy cavalry arrived in the opposite
+direction. In a few seconds this regiment passed by the side of us. They
+were cuirassiers. They filed by at a sharp trot and with drawn swords.
+The people leaned over from the height of the pavements to see them pass.
+Not a single cry. On the one side the people dejected, on the other the
+soldiers triumphant. All this stirred me.
+
+Suddenly the regiment halted. I do not know what obstruction momentarily
+impeded its advance in this narrow cutting of the Boulevard in which we
+were hemmed in. By its halt it stopped the omnibus. There were the
+soldiers. We had them under our eyes, before us, at two paces distance,
+their horses touching the horses of our vehicle, these Frenchmen who had
+become Mamelukes, these citizen soldiers of the Great Republic
+transformed into supporters of the degraded Empire. From the place where
+I sat I almost touched them; I could no longer restrain myself.
+
+I lowered the window of the omnibus. I put out my head, and, looking
+fixedly at the dense line of soldiers which faced me, I called out, "Down
+with Louis Bonaparte. Those who serve traitors are traitors!"
+
+Those nearest to me turned their heads towards me and looked at me with a
+tipsy air; the others did not stir, and remained at "shoulder arms," the
+peaks of their helmets over their eyes, their eyes fixed upon the ears of
+their horses.
+
+In great affairs there is the immobility of statues; in petty mean
+affairs there is the immobility of puppets.
+
+At the shout which I raised Arnauld turned sharply round. He also had
+lowered his window, and he was leaning half out of the omnibus, with his
+arms extended towards the soldiers, and he shouted, "Down with the
+traitors!"
+
+To see him thus with his dauntless gesture, his handsome head, pale and
+calm, his fervent expression, his beard and his long chestnut hair, one
+seemed to behold the radiant and fulminating face of an angry Christ.
+
+The example was contagious and electrical.
+
+"Down with the traitors!" shouted Carini and Montanelli.
+
+"Down with the Dictator! Down with the traitors!" repeated a gallant
+young man with whom we were not acquainted, and who was sitting next to
+Carini.
+
+With the exception of this young man, the whole omnibus seemed seized
+with terror!
+
+"Hold your tongues!" exclaimed these poor frightened people; "you will
+cause us all to be massacred." One, still more terrified, lowered the
+window, and began to shout to the soldiers, "Long live Prince Napoléon!
+Long live the Emperor!"
+
+There were five of us, and we overpowered this cry by our persistent
+protest, "Down with Louis Bonaparte! Down with the traitors!"
+
+The soldiers listened in gloomy silence. A corporal turned with a
+threatening air towards us, and shook his sword. The crowd looked on in
+bewilderment.
+
+What passed within me at that moment? I cannot tell! I was in a
+whirlwind. I had at the same time yielded to a calculation, finding the
+opportunity good, and to a burst of rage, finding the encounter insolent.
+
+A woman cried out to us from the pavement, "You will get yourselves cut
+to pieces." I vaguely imagined that some collision was about to ensue,
+and that, either from the crowd or from the Army, the spark would fly
+out. I hoped for a sword-cut from the soldiers or a shout of anger from
+the people. In short I had obeyed rather an instinct than an idea.
+
+But nothing came of it, neither the sword-cut nor the shout of anger. The
+soldiers did not bestir themselves and the people maintained silence. Was
+it too late? Was it too soon?
+
+The mysterious man of the Elysée had not foreseen the event of an insult
+to his name being thrown in the very face of the soldiers. The soldiers
+had no orders. They received them that evening. This was seen on the
+morrow.
+
+In another moment the regiment broke into a gallop, and the omnibus
+resumed its journey. As the cuirassiers filed past us Arnauld (de
+l'Ariége), still leaning out of the vehicle, continued to shout in their
+ears, for as I have just said, their horses touched us, "Down with the
+Dictator! Down with the traitors!"
+
+We alighted in the Rue Lafitte. Carini, Montanelli, and Arnauld left me,
+and I went on alone towards the Rue de la Tour d'Auvergne. Night was
+coming on. As I turned the corner of the street a man passed close by me.
+By the light of a street lamp I recognized a workman at a neighboring
+tannery, and he said to me in a low tone, and quickly, "Do not return
+home. The police surround your house."
+
+I went back again towards the Boulevard, through the streets laid out,
+but not then built, which make a Y under my windows behind my house. Not
+being able to embrace my wife and daughter, I thought over what I could
+do during the moments which remained to me. A remembrance came into my
+mind.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+
+THE REBOUND OF THE 24TH JUNE, 1848, ON THE 2D DECEMBER, 1851
+
+On Sunday, 26th June, 1848, that four days' combat, that gigantic combat
+so formidable and so heroic on both sides, still continued, but the
+insurrection had been overcome nearly everywhere, and was restricted to
+the Faubourg St. Antoine. Four men who had been amongst the most
+dauntless defenders of the barricades of the Rue Pont-aux-Choux, of the
+Rue St. Claude, and of the Rue St. Louis in the Marais, escaped after the
+barricades had been taken, and found safe refuge in a house, No. 12, Rue
+St. Anastase. They were concealed in an attic. The National Guards and
+the Mobile Guards were hunting for them, in order to shoot them. I was
+told of this. I was one of the sixty Representatives sent by the
+Constituent Assembly into the middle of the conflict, charged with the
+task of everywhere preceding the attacking column, of carrying, even at
+the peril of their lives, words of peace to the barricades, to prevent
+the shedding of blood, and to stop the civil war. I went into the Rue St.
+Anastase, and I saved the lives of those four men.
+
+Amongst those men there was a poor workman of the Rue de Charonne, whose
+wife was being confined at that very moment, and who was weeping. One
+could understand, when hearing his sobs and seeing his rags, how he had
+cleared with a single bound these three steps--poverty, despair,
+rebellion. Their chief was a young man, pale and fair, with high cheek
+bones, intelligent brow, and an earnest and resolute countenance. As soon
+as I set him free, and told him my name, he also wept. He said to me,
+"When I think that an hour ago I knew that you were facing us, and that I
+wished that the barrel of my gun had eyes to see and kill you!" He added,
+"In the times in which we live we do not know what may happen. If ever
+you need me, for whatever purpose, come." His name was Auguste, and he
+was a wine-seller in the Rue de la Roquette.
+
+Since that time I had only seen him once, on the 26th August, 1819, on
+the day when I held the corner of Balzac's pall. The funeral possession
+was going to Père la Chaise. Auguste's shop was on the way. All the
+streets through which the procession passed were crowded. Auguste was at
+his door with his young wife and two or three workmen. As I passed he
+greeted me.
+
+It was this remembrance which came back to my mind as I descended the
+lonely streets behind my house; in the presence of the 2d of December I
+thought of him. I thought that he might give me information about the
+Faubourg St. Antoine, and help us in rousing the people. This young man
+had at once given me the impression of a soldier and a leader. I
+remembered the words which he had spoken to me, and I considered it might
+be useful to see him. I began by going to find in the Rue St. Anastase
+the courageous woman who had hidden Auguste and his three companions, to
+whom she had several times since rendered assistance. I begged her to
+accompany me. She consented.
+
+On the way I dined upon a cake of chocolate which Charamaule had given
+me.
+
+The aspects of the boulevards, in coming down the Italiens towards the
+Marais, had impressed rue. The shops were open everywhere as usual. There
+was little military display. In the wealthy quarters there was much
+agitation and concentration of troops; but on advancing towards the
+working-class neighborhoods solitude reigned paramount. Before the Café
+Turc a regiment was drawn up. A band of young men in blouses passed
+before the regiment singing the "Marseillaise." I answered them by crying
+out "To Arms!" The regiment did not stir. The light shone upon the
+playbills on an adjacent wall; the theatres were open. I looked at the
+trees as I passed. They were playing _Hernani_ at the Theatre des
+Italiens, with a new tenor named Guasco.
+
+The Place de la Bastille was frequented, as usual, by goers and comers,
+the most peaceable folk in the world. A few workmen grouped round the
+July Column, and, chatting in a low voice, were scarcely noticeable.
+Through the windows of a wine shop could be seen two men who were
+disputing for and against the _coup d'état_. He who favored it wore a
+blouse, he who attacked it wore a cloth coat. A few steps further on a
+juggler had placed between four candles his X-shaped table, and was
+displaying his conjuring tricks in the midst of a crowd, who were
+evidently thinking only of the juggler. On looking towards the gloomy
+loneliness of the Quai Mazas several harnessed artillery batteries were
+dimly visible in the darkness. Some lighted torches here and there showed
+up the black outline of the cannons.
+
+I had some trouble in finding Auguste's door in the Rue de la Roquette.
+Nearly all the shops were shut, thus making the street very dark. At
+length, through a glass shop-front I noticed a light which gleamed on a
+pewter counter. Beyond the counter, through a partition also of glass and
+ornamented with white curtains, another light, and the shadows of two or
+three men at table could be vaguely distinguished. This was the place.
+
+I entered. The door on opening rang a bell. At the sound, the door of the
+glazed partition which separated the shop from the parlor opened, and
+Auguste appeared.
+
+He knew me at once, and came up to me.
+
+"Ah, Sir," said he, "it is you!"
+
+"Do you know what is going on?" I asked him.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+This "Yes, sir," uttered with calmness, and even with a certain
+embarrassment, told me all. Where I expected an indignant outcry I found
+this peaceable answer. It seemed to me that I was speaking to the
+Faubourg St. Antoine itself. I understood that all was at an end in this
+district, and that we had nothing to expect from it. The people, this
+wonderful people, had resigned themselves. Nevertheless, I made an
+effort.
+
+"Louis Bonaparte betrays the Republic," said I, without noticing that I
+raised my voice.
+
+He touched my arm, and pointing with his finger to the shadows which were
+pictured on the glazed partition of the parlor, "Take care, sir; do not
+talk so loudly."
+
+"What!" I exclaimed, "you have come to this--you dare not speak, you dare
+not utter the name of 'Bonaparte' aloud; you barely mumble a few words in
+a whisper here, in this street, in the Faubourg St. Antoine, where, from
+all the doors, from all the windows, from all the pavements, from all the
+very stones, ought to be heard the cry, 'To arms.'"
+
+Auguste demonstrated to me what I already saw too clearly, and what
+Girard had shadowed forth in the morning--the moral situation of the
+Faubourg--that the people were "dazed"--that it seemed to all of them
+that universal suffrage was restored; that the downfall of the law of the
+31st of May was a good thing.
+
+Here I interrupted him.
+
+"But this law of the 31st of May, it was Louis Bonaparte who instigated
+it, it was Rouher who made it, it was Baroche who proposed it, and the
+Bonapartists who voted it. You are dazzled by a thief who has taken your
+purse, and who restores it to you!"
+
+"Not I," said Auguste, "but the others."
+
+And he continued, "To tell the whole truth, people did not care much for
+the Constitution, they liked the Republic, but the Republic was
+maintained too much by force for their taste. In all this they could only
+see one thing clearly, the cannons ready to slaughter them--they
+remembered June, 1848--there were some poor people who had suffered
+greatly--Cavaignac had done much evil--women clung to the men's blouses
+to prevent them from going to the barricades--nevertheless, with all
+this, when seeing men like ourselves at their head, they would perhaps
+fight, but this hindered them, they did not know for what." He concluded
+by saying, "The upper part of the Faubourg is doing nothing, the lower
+end will do better. Round about here they will fight. The Rue de la
+Roquette is good, the Rue de Charonne is good; but on the side of Père la
+Chaise they ask, 'What good will that do us?' They only recognize the
+forty sous of their day's work. They will not bestir themselves; do not
+reckon upon the masons." He added, with a smile, "Here we do not say
+'cold as a stone,' but 'cold as a mason'"--and he resumed, "As for me, if
+I am alive, it is to you that I owe my life. Dispose of me. I will lay
+down my life, and will do what you wish."
+
+While he was speaking I saw the white curtain of the glazed partition
+behind him move a little. His young wife, uneasy, was peeping through at
+us.
+
+"Ah! my God," said I to him, "what we want is not the life of one man but
+the efforts of all."
+
+He was silent. I continued,--
+
+"Listen to me, Auguste, you who are good and intelligent. So, then, the
+Faubourgs of Paris--which are heroes even when they err--the Faubourgs
+of Paris, for a misunderstanding, for a question of salary wrongly
+construed, for a bad definition of socialism, rose in June, 1848, against
+the Assembly elected by themselves, against universal suffrage, against
+their own vote; and yet they will not rise in December, 1851, for Right,
+for the Law, for the People, for Liberty, for the Republic. You say that
+there is perplexity, and that you do not understand; but, on the
+contrary, it was in June that all was obscure, and it is to-day that
+everything is clear!"
+
+While I was saying these last words the door of the parlor was softly
+opened, and some one came in. It was a young man, fair as Auguste, in an
+overcoat, and wearing a workman's cap. I started. Auguste turned round
+and said to me, "You can trust him."
+
+The young man took off his cap, came close up to me, carefully turning
+his back on the glazed partition, and said to me in a low voice, "I know
+you well. I was on the Boulevard du Temple to-day. We asked you what we
+were to do; you said, 'We must take up arms.' Well, here they are!"
+
+He thrust his hands into the pockets of his overcoat and drew out two
+pistols.
+
+Almost at the same moment the bell of the street door sounded. He
+hurriedly put his pistols back into his pockets. A man in a blouse came
+in, a workman of some fifty years. This man, without looking at any one,
+without saying anything, threw down a piece of money on the counter.
+Auguste took a small glass and filled it with brandy, the man drank it
+off, put down the glass upon the counter and went away.
+
+When the door was shut: "You see," said Auguste to me, "they drink, they
+eat, they sleep, they think of nothing. Such are they all!"
+
+The other interrupted him impetuously: "One man is not the People!"
+
+And turning towards me,--
+
+"Citizen Victor Hugo, they will march forward. If all do not march, some
+will march. To tell the truth, it is perhaps not here that a beginning
+should be made, it is on the other side of the water."
+
+And suddenly checking himself,--"After all, you probably do not know my
+name."
+
+He took a little pocket-book from his pocket, tore out a piece of paper,
+wrote on it his name, and gave it to me. I regret having forgotten that
+name. He was a working engineer. In order not to compromise him, I burnt
+this paper with many others on the Saturday morning, when I was on the
+point of being arrested.
+
+"It is true, sir," said Auguste, "you must not judge badly of the
+Faubourg. As my friend has said, it will perhaps not be the first to
+begin; but if there is a rising it will rise."
+
+I exclaimed, "And who would you have erect if the Faubourg St. Antoine be
+prostrate! Who will be alive if the people be dead!"
+
+The engineer went to the street door, made certain that it was well shut,
+then came back, and said,--
+
+"There are many men ready and willing. It is the leaders who are wanting.
+Listen, Citizen Victor Hugo, I can say this to you, and," he added,
+lowering his voice, "I hope for a movement to-night."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"On the Faubourg St. Marceau."
+
+"At what time?"
+
+"At one o'clock."
+
+"How do you know it?"
+
+"Because I shall be there."
+
+He continued: "Now, Citizen Victor Hugo, if a movement takes place
+to-night in the Faubourg St. Marceau, will you head it? Do you consent?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Have you your scarf of office?"
+
+I half drew it out of my pocket. His eyes glistened with joy.
+
+"Excellent," said he. "The Citizen has his pistols, the Representative
+his scarf. All are armed."
+
+I questioned him. "Are you sure of your movement for to-night?"
+
+He answered me, "We have prepared it, and we reckon to be there."
+
+"In that case," said I, "as soon as the first barricade is constructed I
+will be behind it. Come and fetch me."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"Wherever I may be."
+
+He assured me that if the movement should take place during the night he
+would know it at half-past ten that evening at the latest, and that I
+should be informed of it before eleven o'clock. We settled that in
+whatever place I might be at that hour I would send word to Auguste, who
+undertook to let him know.
+
+The young woman continued to peep out at us. The conversation was growing
+prolonged, and might seem singular to the people in the parlor. "I am
+going," said I to Auguste.
+
+I had opened the door, he took my hand, pressed it as a woman might have
+done, and said to me in a deeply-moved tone, "You are going: will you
+come back?"
+
+"I do not know."
+
+"It is true," said he. "No one knows what is going to happen. Well, you
+are perhaps going to be hunted and sought for as I have been. It will
+perhaps be your turn to be shot, and mine to save you. You know the mouse
+may sometimes prove useful to the lion. Monsieur Victor Hugo, if you need
+a refuge, this house is yours. Come here. You will find a bed where you
+can sleep, and a man who will lay down his life for you."
+
+I thanked him by a hearty shake of the hand, and I left. Eight o'clock
+struck. I hastened towards the Rue de Charonne.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+
+THE REPRESENTATIVES HUNTED DOWN
+
+At the corner of the Rue de Faubourg St. Antoine before the shop of the
+grocer Pepin, on the same spot where the immense barricade of June,
+1848, was erected as high as the second story, the decrees of the
+morning had been placarded. Some men were inspecting them, although it
+was pitch dark, and they could not read them, and an old woman said,
+"The 'Twenty-five francs' are crushed--so much the better!"
+
+A few steps further I heard my name pronounced. I turned round. It was
+Jules Favre, Bourzat, Lafon, Madier de Montjau, and Michel de Bourges,
+who were passing by. I took leave of the brave and devoted woman who had
+insisted upon accompanying me. A _fiacre_ was passing. I put her in it,
+and then rejoined the five Representatives. They had come from the Rue
+de Charonne. They had found the premises of the Society of Cabinet
+Makers closed. "There was no one there," said Madier de Montjau. "These
+worthy people are beginning to get together a little capital, they do
+not wish to compromise it, they are afraid of us. They say, '_coups
+d'état_ are nothing to us, we shall leave them alone!'"
+
+"That does not surprise me," answered I, "a society is shopkeeper."
+
+"Where are we going?" asked Jules Favre.
+
+Lafon lived two steps from there, at No. 2, Quai Jemmapes. He offered us
+the use of his rooms. We accepted, and took the necessary measures to
+inform the members of the Left that we had gone there.
+
+A few minutes afterwards we were installed in Lafon's rooms, on the
+fourth floor of an old and lofty house. This house had seen the taking
+of the Bastille.
+
+This house was entered by a side-door opening from the Quai Jemmapes
+upon a narrow courtyard a few steps lower than the Quai itself. Bourzat
+remained at this door to warn us in case of any accident, and to point
+out the house to those Representatives who might come up.
+
+In a few moments a large number of us had assembled, and we again
+met--all those of the morning, with a few added. Lafon gave up his
+drawing-room to us, the windows of which overlooked the back yard. We
+organized a sort of "bureau," and we took our places, Jules Favre,
+Carnot, Michel, and myself, at a large table, lighted by two candles,
+and placed before the fire. The Representatives and the other people
+present sat around on chairs and sofas. A group stood before the door.
+
+Michel de Bourges, on entering, exclaimed, "We have come to seek out the
+people of the Faubourg St. Antoine. Here we are. Here we must remain."
+
+These words were applauded.
+
+They set forth the situation--the torpor of the Faubourgs, no one at the
+Society of Cabinet Makers, the doors closed nearly everywhere. I told
+them what I had seen and heard in the Rue de la Roquette, the remarks of
+the wine-seller, Auguste, on the indifference of the people, the hopes
+of the engineer, and the possibility of a movement during the night in
+the Faubourg St. Marceau. It was settled that on the first notice that
+might be given I should go there.
+
+Nevertheless nothing was yet known of what had taken place during the
+day. It was announced that M. Havin, Lieutenant-Colonel of the 5th
+Legion of the National Guard, had ordered the officers of his Legion to
+attend a meeting.
+
+Some Democratic writers came in, amongst whom were Alexander Rey and
+Xavier Durrieu, with Kesler, Villiers, and Amable Lemaître of the
+_Révolution_; one of these writers was Millière.
+
+Millière had a large bleeding wound above his eye-brow; that same
+morning on leaving us, as he was carrying away one of the copies of the
+Proclamation which I had dictated, a man had thrown himself upon him to
+snatch it from him. The police had evidently already been informed of
+the Proclamation, and lay in wait for it; Millière had a hand-to-hand
+struggle with the police agent, and had overthrown him, not without
+bearing away this gash. However, the Proclamation was not yet printed.
+It was nearly nine o'clock in the evening and nothing had come. Xavier
+Durrieu asserted that before another hour elapsed they should have the
+promised forty thousand copies. It was hoped to cover the walls of Paris
+with them during the night. Each of those present was to serve as a
+bill-poster.
+
+There were amongst us--an inevitable circumstance in the stormy
+confusion of the first moments--a good many men whom we did not know.
+One of these men brought in ten or twelve copies of the appeal to arms.
+He asked me to sign them with my own hand, in order, he said, that he
+might be able to show my signature to the people--"Or to the police,"
+whispered Baudin to me smiling. We were not in a position to take such
+precautions as these. I gave this man all the signatures that he wanted.
+
+Madier de Montjau began to speak. It was of consequence to organize the
+action of the Left, to impress the unity of impulse upon the movement
+which was being prepared; to create a centre for it, to give a pivot to
+the insurrection, to the Left a direction, and to the People a
+support. He proposed the immediate formation of a committee representing
+the entire Left in all its shades, and charged with organizing and
+directing the insurrection.
+
+All the Representatives cheered this eloquent and courageous man. Seven
+members were proposed. They named at once Carnot, De Flotte, Jules
+Favre, Madier de Montjau, Michel de Bourges, and myself; and thus was
+unanimously formed this Committee of Insurrection, which at my request
+was called a Committee of Resistance; for it was Louis Bonaparte who was
+tire insurgent. For ourselves, the were the Republic. It was desired
+that one workman-Representative should be admitted into the committee.
+Faure (du Rhône) was nominated. But Faure, we learned later on, had been
+arrested that morning. The committee then was, it fact, composed of six
+members.
+
+The committee organized itself during the sitting. A Committee of
+Permanency was formed from amongst it, and invested with the authority
+of decreeing "urgency" in the name of all the Left, of concentrating all
+news, information, directions, instructions, resources, orders. This
+Committee of Permanency was composed of four members, who were Carnot,
+Michel de Bourges, Jules Favre, and myself. De Flotte and Madier de
+Montjau were specially delegated, De Flotte for the left bank of the
+river and the district of the schools, Madier for the Boulevards and the
+outskirts.
+
+These preliminary operations being terminated, Lafon took aside Michel
+de Bourges and myself, and told us that the ex-Constituent Proudhon had
+inquired for one of us two, that he had remained downstairs nearly a
+quarter of an hour, and that he had gone away, saying that he would wait
+for us in the Place de la Bastille.
+
+Proudhon, who was at that time undergoing a term of three years'
+imprisonment at St. Pélagie for an offence against Louis Bonaparte, was
+granted leave of absence from tine to time. Chance willed it that one of
+these liberty days had fallen on the 2d of December.
+
+This is an incident which one cannot help noting. On the 2d of December
+Proudhon was a prisoner by virtue of a lawful sentence, and at the same
+moment at which they illegally imprisoned the inviolable
+Representatives, Proudhon, whom they could have legitimately detained,
+was allowed to go out. Proudhon had profited by his liberty to come and
+find us.
+
+I knew Proudhon from having seen him at the Concièrgerie, where my two
+sons were shut up, and my two illustrious friends, Auguste Vacquérie and
+Paul Meurice, and those gallant writers, Louis Jourdan, Erdan, and
+Suchet. I could not help thinking that on that day they would assuredly
+not have given leave of absence to these men.
+
+Meanwhile Xavier Durrieu whispered to me, "I have just left Proudhon. He
+wishes to see you. He is waiting for you down below, close by, at the
+entrance to the Place. You will find him leaning on the parapet of the
+canal."
+
+"I am going," said I.
+
+I went downstairs.
+
+I found in truth, at the spot mentioned, Proudhon, thoughtful, leaning
+with his two elbows on the parapet. He wore that broad-brimmed hat in
+which I had often seen him striding alone up and down the courtyard of
+the Concièrgerie.
+
+I went up to him.
+
+"You wish to speak to me."
+
+"Yes," and he shook me by the hand.
+
+The corner where we were standing was lonely. On the left there was the
+Place de la Bastille, dark and gloomy; one could see nothing there, but
+one could feel a crowd; regiments were there in battle array; they did
+not bivouac, they were ready to march; the muffled sound of breathing
+could be heard; the square was full of that glistening shower of pale
+sparks which bayonets give forth at night time. Above this abyss of
+shadows rose up black and stark the Column of July.
+
+Proudhon resumed,--
+
+"Listen. I come to give you a friendly warning. You are entertaining
+illusions. The People are ensnared in this affair. They will not stir.
+Bonaparte will carry them with him. This rubbish, the restitution of
+universal suffrage, entraps the simpletons. Bonaparte passes for a
+Socialist. He has said, 'I will be the Emperor of the Rabble.' It is a
+piece of insolence. But insolence has a chance of success when it has
+this at its service."
+
+And Proudhon pointed with his finger to the sinister gleam of the
+bayonets. He continued,--
+
+"Bonaparte has an object in view. The Republic has made the People. He
+wishes to restore the Populace. He will succeed and you will fail. He
+has on his side force, cannons, the mistake of the people, and the folly
+of the Assembly. The few of the Left to which you belong will not
+succeed in overthrowing the _coup d'état_. You are honest, and he has
+this advantage over you--that he is a rogue. You have scruples, and he
+has this advantage over you--that he has none. Believe me. Resist no
+longer. The situation is without resources. We must wait; but at this
+moment fighting would be madness. What do you hope for?"
+
+"Nothing," said I.
+
+"And what are you going to do?"
+
+"Everything."
+
+By the tone of my voice he understood that further persistence was
+useless.
+
+"Good-bye," he said.
+
+We parted. He disappeared in the darkness. I have never seen him since.
+
+I went up again to Lafon's rooms.
+
+In the meantime the copies of the appeal to arms did not come to hand.
+The Representatives, becoming uneasy, went up and downstairs. Some of
+them went out on the Quai Jemmapes, to wait there and gain information
+about them. In the room there was a sound of confused talking the
+members of the Committee, Madier de Montjau, Jules Favre, and Carnot,
+withdrew, and sent word to me by Charamaule that they were going to No.
+10, Rue des Moulins, to the house of the ex-Constituent Landrin, in the
+division of the 5th Legion, to deliberate more at their ease, and they
+begged me to join them. But I thought I should do better to remain. I
+had placed myself at the disposal of the probable movement of the
+Faubourg St. Marceau. I awaited the notice of it through Auguste. It was
+most important that I should not go too far away; besides, it was
+possible that if I went away, the Representatives of the Left, no
+longing seeing a member of the committee amongst them, would disperse
+without taking any resolution, and I saw in this more than one
+disadvantage.
+
+Time passed, no Proclamations. We learned the next day that the packages
+had been seized by the police. Cournet, an ex-Republican naval officer
+who was present, began to speak. We shall see presently what sort of a
+man Cournet was, and of what an energetic and determined nature he was
+composed. He represented to us that as we had been there nearly two
+hours the police would certainly end by being informed of our
+whereabouts, that the members of the Left had an imperative duty--to
+keep themselves at all costs at the head of the People, that the
+necessity itself of their situation imposed upon them the precaution of
+frequently changing their place of retreat, and he ended by offering us,
+for our deliberation, his house and his workshops, No. 82, Rue
+Popincourt, at the bottom of a blind alley, and also in the neighborhood
+of the Faubourg St. Antoine.
+
+This offer was accepted. I sent to inform Auguste of our change of
+abode, and of Cournet's address. Lafon remained on the Quai Jemmapes in
+order to forward on the Proclamations as soon as they arrived, and we
+set out at once.
+
+Charamaule undertook to send to the Rue des Moulins to tell the other
+members of the committee that we would wait for them at No. 82, Rue
+Popincourt.
+
+We walked, as in the morning, in little separate groups. The Quai
+Jemmapes skirts the left bank of the St. Martin Canal; we went up it. We
+only met a few solitary workmen, who looked back when we had passed, and
+stopped behind us with an air of astonishment. The night was dark. A few
+drops of rain were falling.
+
+A little beyond the Rue de Chemin Vert we turned to the right and
+reached the Rue Popincourt. There all was deserted, extinguished,
+closed, and silent, as in the Faubourg St. Antoine. This street is of
+great length. We walked for a long time; we passed by the barracks.
+Cournet was no longer with us; he had remained behind to inform some of
+his friends, and we were told to take defensive measures in case his
+house was attacked. We looked for No. 82. The darkness was such that we
+could not distinguish the numbers on the houses. At length, at the end
+of the street, on the right, we saw a light; it was a grocer's shop, the
+only one open throughout the street. One of us entered, and asked the
+grocer, who was sitting behind his counter, to show us M. Cournet's
+house. "Opposite," said the grocer, pointing to an old and low carriage
+entrance which could be seen on the other side of the street, almost
+facing his shop.
+
+We knocked at this door. It was opened. Baudin entered first, tapped at
+the window of the porter's lodge, and asked "Monsieur Cournet?"--An old
+woman's voice answered, "Here."
+
+The portress was in bed; all in the house sleeping. We went in.
+
+Having entered, and the gate being shut behind us, we found ourselves in
+a little square courtyard which formed the centre of a sort of a
+two-storied ruin; the silence of a convent prevailed, not a light was to
+be seen at the windows; near a shed was seen a low entrance to a narrow,
+dark, and winding staircase. "We have made some mistake," said
+Charamaule; "it is impossible that it can be here."
+
+Meanwhile the portress, hearing all these trampling steps beneath her
+doorway, had become wide awake, had lighted her lamp, and we could see
+her in her lodge, her face pressed against the window, gazing with alarm
+at sixty dark phantoms, motionless, and standing in her courtyard.
+
+Esquiros addressed her: "Is this really M. Cournet's house?" said he.
+
+"M. Cornet, without doubt," answered the good woman.
+
+All was explained. We had asked for Cournet, the grocer had understood
+Cornet, the portress had understood Cornet. It chanced that M. Cornet
+lived there.
+
+We shall see by and by what an extraordinary service chance had rendered
+us.
+
+We went out, to the great relief of the poor portress, and we resumed
+our search. Xavier Durrieu succeeded in ascertaining our whereabouts,
+and extricated us from our difficulty.
+
+A few moments afterwards we turned to the left, and we entered into a
+blind alley of considerable length and dimly lighted by an old oil
+lamp--one of those with which Paris was formerly lighted--then again to
+the left, and we entered through a narrow passage into a large courtyard
+encumbered with sheds and building materials. This time we had reached
+Cournet's.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+
+ONE FOOT IN THE TOMB
+
+Cournet was waiting for us. He received us on the ground floor, in a
+parlor where there was a fire, a table, and some chairs; but the room
+was so small that a quarter of us filled it to overflowing, and the
+others remained in the courtyard. "It is impossible to deliberate here,"
+said Bancel. "I have a larger room on the first floor," answered
+Cournet, "but it is a building in course of construction, which is not
+yet furnished, and where there is no fire."--"What does it matter?" they
+answered him. "Let us go up to the first floor."
+
+We went up to the first floor by a steep and narrow wooden staircase,
+and we took possession of two rooms with very low ceilings, but of which
+one was sufficiently large. The walls were whitewashed, and a few
+straw-covered stools formed the whole of its furniture.
+
+They called out to me, "Preside."
+
+I sat down on one of the stools in the corner of the first room, with
+the fire place on my right and on my left the door opening upon the
+staircase. Baudin said to me, "I have a pencil and paper. I will act as
+secretary to you." He sat down on a stool next to me.
+
+The Representatives and those present, amongst whom were several men in
+blouses, remained standing, forming in front of Baudin and myself a sort
+of square, backed by the two walls of the room opposite to us. This
+crowd extended as far as the staircase. A lighted candle was placed on
+the chimney-piece.
+
+A common spirit animated this meeting. The faces were pale, but in every
+eye could be seen the same firm resolution. In all these shadows
+glistened the same flame. Several simultaneously asked permission to
+speak. I requested them to give their names to Baudin, who wrote them
+down, and then passed me the list.
+
+The
+first speaker was a workman. He began by apologizing for mingling with
+the Representatives, he a stranger to the Assembly. The Representatives
+interrupted him. "No, no," they said, "the People and Representatives
+are all one! Speak--!" He declared that if he spoke it was in order to
+clear from all suspicion the honor of his brethren, the workmen of
+Paris; that he had heard some Representatives express doubt about them.
+He asserted that this was unjust, that the workmen realized the whole
+crime of M. Bonaparte and the whole duty of the People, that they would
+not be deaf to the appeal of the Republican Representatives, and that
+this would be clearly shown. He said all this, simply, with a sort of
+proud shyness and of honest bluntness. He kept his word. I found him the
+next day fighting on the Rambuteau barricade.
+
+Mathieu (de la Drôme) came in as the workman concluded. "I bring news,"
+he exclaimed. A profound silence ensued.
+
+As I have already said, we vaguely knew since the morning that the Right
+were to have assembled, and that a certain number of our friends had
+probably taken part in the meeting, and that was all. Mathieu (de la
+Drôme) brought us the events of the day, the details of the arrests at
+their own houses carried out without any obstacle, of the meeting which
+had taken place at M. Daru's house and its rough treatment in the Rue
+de Bourgogne, of the Representatives expelled from the Hall of the
+Assembly, of the meanness of President Dupin, of the melting away of the
+High Court, of the total inaction of the Council of State, of the sad
+sitting held at the Mairie of the Tenth Arrondissement, of the Oudinot,
+_fiasco_, of the decree of the deposition of the President, and of the
+two hundred and twenty forcibly arrested and taken to the Quai d'Orsay.
+He concluded in a manly style: "The duty of the Left was increasing
+hourly. The morrow would probably prove decisive." He implored the
+meeting to take this into consideration.
+
+A workman added a fact. He had happened in the morning to be in the Rue
+de Grenelle during the passage of the arrested members of the Assembly;
+he was there at the moment when one of the commanders of the Chasseurs
+de Vincennes had uttered these words, "Now it is the turn of those
+gentlemen--the Red Representatives. Let them look out for themselves!"
+
+One of the editors of the _Révolution_, Hennett de Kesler, who
+afterwards became an intrepid exile, completed the information of
+Mathieu (de la Drôme). He recounted the action taken by two members of
+the Assembly with regard to the so-called Minister of the Interior,
+Morny, and the answer of the said Morny: "If I find any of the
+Representatives behind the barricades, I will have them shot to the last
+man," and that other saying of the same witty vagabond respecting the
+members taken to the Quai d'Orsay, "These are the last Representatives
+who will be made prisoners." He told us that a placard was at that very
+moment being printed which declared that "Any one who should be found at
+a secret meeting would be immediately shot." The placard, in truth,
+appeared the next morning.
+
+Baudin rose up. "The _coup d'état_ redoubles its rage," exclaimed he.
+"Citizens, let us redouble our energy!"
+
+Suddenly a man in a blouse entered. He was out of breath. He had run
+hard. He told us that he had just seen, and he repeated, had seen with
+"his own eyes," in the Rue Popincourt, a regiment marching in silence,
+and wending its way towards the blind alley of No. 82, that we were
+surrounded, and that we were about to be attacked. He begged us to
+disperse immediately.
+
+"Citizen Representatives," called out Cournet, "I have placed scouts in
+the blind alley who will fall back and warn us if the regiment penetrates
+thither. The door is narrow and will be barricaded in the twinkling of
+an eye. We are here, with you, fifty armed and resolute men, and at the
+first shot we shall be two hundred. We are provided with ammunition. You
+can deliberate calmly."
+
+And as he concluded he raised his right arm, and from his sleeve fell
+a large poniard, which he had concealed, and with the other hand he
+rattled in his pocket the butts of a pair of pistols.
+
+"Very well," said I, "let us continue."
+
+Three of the youngest and most eloquent orators of the Left, Bancel,
+Arnauld (de l'Ariége) and Victor Chauffour delivered their opinions in
+succession. All three were imbued with this notion, that our appeal to
+arms not having yet been placarded, the different incidents of the
+Boulevarde du Temple and of the Café Bonvalet having brought about no
+results, none of our decrees, owing to the repressive measures of
+Bonaparte, having yet succeeded in appearing, while the events at the
+Mairie of the Tenth Arrondissement began to be spread abroad through
+Paris, it seemed as though the Right had commenced active resistance
+before the Left. A generous rivalry for the public safety spurred them
+on. It was delightful to them to know that a regiment ready to attack was
+close by, within a few steps, and that perhaps in a few moments their
+blood would flow.
+
+Moreover, advice abounded, and with advice, uncertainty. Some illusions
+were still entertained. A workman, leaning close to me against the
+fireplace, said in a low voice to one of his comrades that the People
+must not be reckoned upon, and that if we fought "We should perpetrate a
+madness."
+
+The incidents and events of the day had in some degree modified my
+opinion as to the course to be followed in this grave crisis. The
+silence of the crowd at the moment when Arnauld (de l'Ariége) and I had
+apostrophized the troops, had destroyed the impression which a few hours
+before the enthusiasm of the people on the Boulevard du Temple had left
+with me. The hesitation of Auguste had impressed me, the Society of
+Cabinet Makers appeared to shun us, the torpor of the Faubourg St.
+Antoine was manifest, the inertness of the Faubourg St. Marceau was not
+less so. I ought to have received notice from the engineer before eleven
+o'clock, and eleven o'clock was past. Our hopes died away one after
+another. Nevertheless, all the more reason, in my opinion, to astonish
+and awaken Paris by an extraordinary spectacle, by a daring act of life
+and collective power on the part of the Representatives of the Left, by
+the daring of an immense devotion.
+
+It will be seen later on what a combination of accidental circumstances
+prevented this idea from being realized as I then purposed. The
+Representatives have done their whole duty. Providence perhaps has not
+done all on its side. Be it as it may, supposing that we were not at
+once carried off by some nocturnal and immediate combat, and that at the
+hour at which I was speaking we had still a "to-morrow," I felt the
+necessity of fixing every eye upon the course which should be adopted
+on the day which was about to follow.--I spoke.
+
+I began by completely unveiling the situation. I painted the picture in
+four words: the Constitution thrown into the gutter; the Assembly driven
+to prison with the butt-end of a musket, the Council of State dispersed;
+the High Court expelled by a galley-sergeant, a manifest beginning of
+victory for Louis Bonaparte, Paris ensnared in the army as though in a
+net; bewilderment everywhere, all authority overthrown; all compacts
+annulled; two things only remained standing, the _coup d'état_ and
+ourselves.
+
+"Ourselves! and who are we?"
+
+"We are," said I, "we are Truth and Justice! We are the supreme and
+sovereign power, the People incarnate--Right!"
+
+I continued,--
+
+"Louis Bonaparte at every minute which elapses advances a step further
+in his crime. For him nothing is inviolable, nothing is sacred; this
+morning he violated the Palace of the Representatives of the Nation, a
+few hours later he laid violent hands on their persons; to-morrow,
+perhaps in a few moments, he will shed their blood. Well then! he
+marches upon us, let us march upon him. The danger grows greater, let us
+grow greater with the danger."
+
+A movement of assent passed through the Assembly. I continued,--
+
+"I repeat and insist. Let us show no mercy to this wretched Bonaparte
+for any of the enormities which his outrage contains. As he has drawn
+the wine--I should say the blood--he must drink it up. We are not
+individuals, we are the Nation. Each of us walks forth clothed with the
+Sovereignty of the people. He cannot strike our persons without rending
+that. Let us compel his volleys to pierce our sashes as well as our
+breasts. This man is on a road where logic grasps him and leads him to
+parricide. What he is killing in this moment is the country! Well, then!
+when the ball of Executive Power pierces the sash of Legislative Power,
+it is visible parricide! It is this that must be understood!"
+
+"We are
+quite ready!" they cried out. "What measures would you advise us to
+adopt?"
+
+"No half measures," answered I; "a deed of grandeur! To-morrow--if we
+leave here this night--let us all meet in the Faubourg St. Antoine."
+
+They interposed, "Why the Faubourg St. Antoine?"
+
+"Yes," resumed I, "the Faubourg St. Antoine! I cannot believe that the
+heart of the People has ceased to beat there. Let us all meet to-morrow
+in the Faubourg St. Antoine. Opposite the Lenoir Market there is a hall
+which was used by a club in 1848."
+
+They cried out to me, "The Salle Roysin."
+
+"That is it," said I, "The Salle Roysin. We who remain free number a
+hundred and twenty Republican Representatives. Let us install ourselves
+in this hall. Let us install ourselves in the fulness and majesty of the
+Legislative Power. Henceforward we are the Assembly, the whole of the
+Assembly! Let us sit there, deliberate there, in our official sashes,
+in the midst of the People. Let us summon the Faubourg St. Antoine to
+its duty, let us shelter there the National Representation, let us
+shelter there the popular sovereignty. Let us intrust the People to the
+keeping of the People. Let us adjure them to protect themselves. If
+necessary, let us order them!"
+
+A voice interrupted me: "You cannot give orders to the People!"
+
+"Yes!" I cried, "When it is a question of public safety, of the universal
+safety, when it is a question of the future of every European
+nationality, when it is a question of defending the Republic, Liberty,
+Civilization, the Revolution, we have the right--we, the Representatives
+of the entire nation--to give, in the name of the French people, orders
+to the people of Paris! Let us, therefore, meet to-morrow at this Salle
+Roysin; but at what time? Not too early in the morning. In broad day. It
+is necessary that the shops should be open, that people should be coming
+and going, that the population should be moving about, that there should
+be plenty of people in the streets, that they should see us, that they
+should recognize us, that the grandeur of our example should strike every
+eye and stir every heart. Let us all be there between nine and ten
+o'clock in the morning. If we cannot obtain the Salle Roysin we will take
+the first church at hand, a stable, a shed, some enclosure where we can
+deliberate; at need, as Michel de Bourges has said, we will hold our
+sittings in a square bounded by four barricades. But provisionally I
+suggest the Salle Roysin. Do not forget that in such a crisis there must
+be no vacuum before the nation. That alarms it. There must be a
+government somewhere, and it must be known. The rebellion at the Elysée,
+the Government at the Faubourg St. Antoine; the Left the Government, the
+Faubourg St. Antoine the citadel; such are the ideas which from to-morrow
+we must impress upon the mind of Paris. To the Salle Roysin, then! Thence
+in the midst of the dauntless throng of workmen of that great district of
+Paris, enclosed in the Faubourg as in a fortress, being both Legislators
+and Generals, multiplying and inventing means of defence and of attack,
+launching Proclamations and unearthing the pavements, employing the women
+in writing out placards while the men are fighting, we will issue a
+warrant against Louis Bonaparte, we will issue warrants against his
+accomplices, we will declare the military chiefs traitors, we will outlaw
+in a body all the crime and all the criminals, we will summon the
+citizens to arms, we will recall the army to duty, we will rise up before
+Louis Bonaparte, terrible as the living Republic, we will fight on the
+one hand with the power of the Law, and on the other with the power of
+the People, we will overwhelm this miserable rebel, and will rise up
+above his head both as a great Lawful Power and a great Revolutionary
+Power!"
+
+While speaking I became intoxicated with my own ideas. My enthusiasm
+communicated itself to the meeting. They cheered me. I saw that I was
+becoming somewhat too hopeful, that I allowed myself to be carried away,
+and that I carried them away, that I presented to them success as
+possible, as even easy, at a moment when it was important that no one
+should entertain an illusion. The truth was gloomy, and it was my duty
+to tell it. I let silence be re-established, and I signed with my hand
+that I had a last word to say. I then resumed, lowering my voice,--
+
+"Listen, calculate carefully what you are doing. On one side a hundred
+thousand men, seventeen harnessed batteries, six thousand cannon-mouths
+in the forts, magazines, arsenals, ammunition sufficient to carry out a
+Russian campaign; on the other a hundred and twenty Representatives, a
+thousand or twelve hundred patriots, six hundred muskets, two cartridges
+per man, not a drum to beat to arms, not a bell to sound the tocsin, not
+a printing office to print a Proclamation; barely here and there a
+lithographic press, and a cellar where a hand-bill can be hurriedly and
+furtively printed with the brush; the penalty of death against any one
+who unearths a paving stone, penalty of death against any one who would
+enlist in our ranks, penalty of death against any one who is found in a
+secret meeting, penalty of death against any one who shall post up an
+appeal to arms; if you are taken during the combat, death; if you are
+taken after the combat, transportation or exile; on the one side an army
+and a Crime; on the other a handful of men and Right. Such is this
+struggle. Do you accept it?"
+
+A unanimous shout answered me, "Yes! yes!"
+
+This shout did not come from the mouths, it came from the souls. Baudin,
+still seated next to me, pressed my hand in silence.
+
+It was settled therefore at once that they should meet again on the next
+day, Wednesday, between nine and ten in the morning, at the Salle Roysin,
+that they should arrive singly or by little separate groups, and that
+they should let those who were absent know of this rendezvous. This
+done, there remained nothing more but to separate. It was about
+midnight.
+
+One of Cournet's scouts entered. "Citizen Representatives," he said,
+"the regiment is no longer there. The street is free."
+
+The regiment, which had probably come from the Popincourt barracks close
+at hand, had occupied the street opposite the blind alley for more than
+half an hour, and then had returned to the barracks. Had they judged the
+attack inopportune or dangerous at night in that narrow blind alley, and
+in the centre of this formidable Popincourt district, where the
+insurrection had so long held its own in June, 1848? It appeared certain
+that the soldiers had searched several houses in the neighborhood.
+According to details which we learned subsequently, we were followed
+after leaving No. 2, Quai Jemmapes, by an agent of police, who saw us
+enter the house where a M. Cornet was lodging, and who at once proceeded
+to the Prefecture to denounce our place of refuge to his chiefs. The
+regiment sent to arrest us surrounded the house, ransacked it from attic
+to cellar, found nothing, and went away.
+
+This quasi-synonym of Cornet and Cournet lead misled the bloodhounds of
+the _coup d'état_. Chance, we see, had interposed usefully in our
+affairs.
+
+I was talking at the door with Baudin, and we were making some last
+arrangements, when a young man with a chestnut beard, dressed like a man
+of fashion, and possessing all the manners of one, and whom I had
+noticed while speaking, came up to me.
+
+"Monsieur Victor Hugo," said he, "where are you going to sleep?"
+
+Up to that moment I had not thought of this.
+
+It was far from prudent to go home.
+
+"In truth," I answered, "I have not the least idea."
+
+"Will you come to my house?"
+
+"I shall be very happy."
+
+He told me his mane. It was M. de la R----. He knew my brother Abel's
+wife and family, the Montferriers, relations of the Chambacères, and he
+lived in the Rue Caumartin. He had been a Prefect under the Provisional
+Government. There was a carriage in waiting. We got in, and as Baudin
+told me that he would pass the night at Cournet's, I gave him the
+address of M. do la R----, so that he could send for me if any notice of
+the movement came from the Faubourg St. Marceau or elsewhere. But I
+hoped for nothing more that night, and I was right.
+
+About a quarter of an hour after the separation of the Representatives,
+and after we had left the Rue Popincourt, Jules Favre, Madier de
+Montajau, de Flotte, and Carnot, to whom we had sent word to the Rue des
+Moulins, arrived at Cournet's, accompanied by Schoelcher, by Charamaule,
+by Aubry (du Nord), and by Bastide. Some Representatives were still
+remaining at Cournet's. Several, like Baudin, were going to pass the
+night there. They told our colleagues what had been settled respecting
+my proposition, and of the rendezvous at the Salle Roysin; only it
+appears that there was some doubt regarding the hour agreed upon, and
+that Baudin in particular did not exactly remember it, and that our
+colleagues believed that the rendezvous, which had been fixed for nine
+o'clock in the morning, was fixed for eight.
+
+This alteration in the hour, due to the treachery of memory for which no
+one can be blamed, prevented the realization of the plan which I had
+conceived of an Assembly holding its sittings in the Faubourg, and
+giving battle to Louis Bonaparte, but gave us as a compensation the
+heroic exploits of the Ste. Marguerite barricade.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+
+THE BURIAL OF A GREAT ANNIVERSARY
+
+Such was the first day. Let us look at it steadfastly. It deserves it.
+It is the anniversary of Austerlitz; the Nephew commemorates the Uncle.
+Austerlitz is the most brilliant battle of history; the Nephew set
+himself this problem--how to commit a baseness equal to this
+magnificence. He succeeded.
+
+This first day, which will be followed by others, is already complete.
+Everything is there. It is the most terrible attempt at a thrust
+backwards that has ever been essayed. Never has such a crumbling of
+civilization been seen. All that formed the edifice is now in ruin; the
+soil is strewn with the fragments. In one night the inviolability of the
+Law, the Right of the Citizen, the Dignity of the Judge, and the Honor
+of the Soldier have disappeared. Terrible substitutions have taken
+place; there was the oath, there is pergury; there was the flag, there
+is a rag; there was the Army, there is a band of brigands; there was
+Justice, there is treason; there was a code of laws, there is the sabre;
+there was a Government, there is a crew of swindlers; there was France,
+there is a den of thieves. This called itself Society Saved.
+
+It is the rescue of the traveller by the highwayman.
+
+France was passing by, Bonaparte cried, "Stand and deliver!"
+
+The hypocrisy which has preceded the Crime, equals in deformity the
+impudence which has followed it. The nation was trustful and calm. There
+was a sudden and cynical shock. History has recorded nothing equal to the
+Second of December. Here there was no glory, nothing but meanness. No
+deceptive picture. He could have declared himself honest; He declares
+himself infamous; nothing more simple. This day, almost unintelligible in
+its success, has proved that Politics possess their obscene side. Louis
+Bonaparte has shown himself unmasked.
+
+Yesterday President of the Republic, to-day a scavenger. He has sworn,
+he still swears: but the tone has changed. The oath has become an
+imprecation. Yesterday he called himself a maiden, to-day he becomes a
+brazen woman, and laughs at his dupes. Picture to yourself Joan of Arc
+confessing herself to be Messalina. Such is the Second of December.
+
+Women are mixed up in this treason. It is an outrage which savors both
+of the boudoir and of the galleys. There wafts across the fetidness of
+blood an undefined scent of patchouli. The accomplices of this act of
+brigandage are most agreeable men--Romieu, Morny. Getting into debt
+leads one to commit crimes.
+
+Europe was astounded. It was a thunder bolt from a thief. It must be
+acknowledged that thunder can fall into bad hands, Palmerston, that
+traitor, approved of it. Old Metternich, a dreamer in his villa at
+Rennweg, shook his head. As to Soult, the man of Austerlitz after
+Napoleon, he did what he ought to do, on the very day of the Crime he
+died, Alas! and Austerlitz also.
+
+
+
+
+THE SECOND DAY--THE STRUGGLE.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+THEY COME TO ARREST ME
+
+In order to reach the Rue Caumartin from the Rue Popincourt, all Paris
+has to be crossed. We found a great apparent calm everywhere. It was one
+o'clock in the morning when we reached M. de la R----'s house. The
+_fiacre_ stopped near a grated door, which M. de la R---- opened with a
+latch-key; on the right, under the archway, a staircase ascended to the
+first floor of a solitary detached building which M. de la R----
+inhabited, and into which he led me.
+
+We entered a little drawing-room very richly furnished, lighted with a
+night-lamp, and separated from the bedroom by a tapestry curtain
+two-thirds drown. M. de la R---- went into the bedroom, and a few minutes
+afterwards came back again, accompanied by a charming woman, pale and
+fair, in a dressing-gown, her hair down, handsome, fresh, bewildered,
+gentle nevertheless, and looking at me with that alarm which in a young
+face confers an additional grace. Madame de la R---- had just been
+awakened by her husband. She remained a moment on the threshold of her
+chamber, smiling, half asleep, greatly astonished, somewhat frightened,
+looking by turns at her husband and at me, never having dreamed perhaps
+what civil war really meant, and seeing it enter abruptly into her rooms
+in the middle of the night under this disquieting form of an unknown
+person who asks for a refuge.
+
+I made Madame de la R---- a thousand apologies, which she received with
+perfect kindness, and the charming woman profited by the incident to go
+and caress a pretty little girl of two years old who was sleeping at the
+end of the room in her cot, and the child whom she kissed caused her to
+forgive the refugee who had awakened her.
+
+While chatting M. de la R---- lighted a capital fire in the grate, and
+his wife, with a pillow and cushions, a hooded cloak belonging to him,
+and a pelisse belonging to herself, improvised opposite the fire a bed
+on a sofa, somewhat short, and which we lengthened by means of an
+arm-chair.
+
+During the deliberation in the Rue Popincourt, at which I had just
+presided, Baudin had lent me his pencil to jot down some names. I still
+had this pencil with me. I made use of it to write a letter to my wife,
+which Madame de la R---- undertook to convey herself to Madame Victor
+Hugo the next day. While emptying my pockets I found a box for the
+"Italiens," which I offered to Madame de la R----. On that evening
+(Tuesday, December 2d) they were to play _Hernani_.
+
+I looked at that cot, these two handsome, happy young people, and at
+myself, my disordered hair and clothes, my boots covered with mud,
+gloomy thoughts in my mind, and I felt like an owl in a nest of
+nightingales.
+
+A few moments afterwards M. and Madame de la R---- had disappeared into
+their bedroom, and the half-opened curtain was closed. I stretched
+myself, fully dressed as I was, upon the sofa, and this gentle nest
+disturbed by me subsided into its graceful silence.
+
+One can sleep on the eve of a battle between two armies, but on the eve
+of a battle between citizens there can be no sleep. I counted each hour
+as it sounded from a neighboring church; throughout the night there
+passed down the street, which was beneath the windows of the room where I
+was lying, carriages which were fleeing from Paris. They succeeded each
+other rapidly and hurriedly, one might have imagined it was the exit from
+a ball. Not being able to sleep, I got up. I had slightly parted the
+muslin curtains of a window, and I tried to look outside; the darkness
+was complete. No stars, clouds were flying by with the turbulent violence
+of a winter night. A melancholy wind howled. This wind of clouds
+resembled the wind of events.
+
+I watched the sleeping baby. I waited for dawn. It came. M. de la R----
+had explained at my request in what manner I could go out without
+disturbing any one. I kissed the child's forehead, and left the room. I
+went downstairs, closing the doors behind me as gently as I could, so
+not to wake Madame de la R----. I opened the iron door and went out into
+the street. It was deserted, the shops were still shut, and a milkwoman,
+with her donkey by her side, was quietly arranging her cans on the
+pavement.
+
+I have not seen M. de la R---- again. I learned since that he wrote to
+me in my exile, and that his letter was intercepted. He has, I believe,
+quitted France. May this touching page convey to him my kind
+remembrances.
+
+The Rue Caumartin leads into the Rue St. Lazare. I went towards it. It
+was broad daylight. At every moment I was overtaken and passed by
+_fiacres_ laden with trunks and packages, which were hastening towards
+the Havre railway station. Passers-by began to appear. Some baggage
+trains were mounting the Rue St. Lazare at the same time as myself.
+Opposite No. 42, formerly inhabited by Mdlle. Mars, I saw a new bill
+posted on the wall. I went up to it, I recognized the type of the
+National Printing Office, and I read,
+
+  "COMPOSITION OF THE NEW MINISTRY.
+
+  "_Interior_           --M. de Morny.
+  "_War_                --The General of Division St. Arnaud.
+  "_Foreign Affairs_    --M. de Turgot.
+  "_Justice_            --M. Rouher.
+  "_Finance_            --M. Fould.
+  "_Marine_             --M. Ducos.
+  "_Public Works_       --M. Magne.
+  "_Public Instruction_ --M.H. Fortuol.
+  "_Commerce_           --M. Lefebre-Duruflé."
+
+I tore down the bill, and threw it into the gutter! The soldiers of the
+party who were leading the wagons watched me do it, and went their way.
+
+In the Rue St. Georges, near a side-door, there was another bill. It was
+the "Appeal to the People." Some persons were reading it. I tore it
+down, notwithstanding the resistance of the porter, who appeared to me
+to be entrusted with the duty of protecting it.
+
+As I passed by the Place Bréda some _fiacres_ had already arrived there.
+I took one. I was near home, the temptation was too great, I went there.
+On seeing me cross the courtyard the porter looked at me with a
+stupefied air. I rang the bell. My servant, Isidore, opened the door,
+and exclaimed with a great cry, "Ah! it is you, sir! They came during
+the night to arrest you." I went into my wife's room. She was in bed,
+but not asleep, and she told me what had happened.
+
+She had gone to bed at eleven o'clock. Towards half-past twelve, during
+that species of drowsiness which resembles sleeplessness, she heard
+men's voices. It seemed to her that Isidore was speaking to some one in
+the antechamber. At first she did not take any notice, and tried to go
+to sleep again, but the noise of voices continued. She sat up, and rang
+the bell.
+
+Isidore came in. She asked him,
+
+"Is any one there?"
+
+"Yes, madame."
+
+"Who is it?"
+
+"A man who wishes to speak to master."
+
+"Your master is out."
+
+"That is what I have told him, madame."
+
+"Well, is not the gentleman going?"
+
+"No, madame, he says that he urgently needs to speak to Monsieur Victor
+Hugo, and that he will wait for him."
+
+Isidore had stopped on the threshold of the bedroom. While he spoke a
+fat, fresh-looking man in an overcoat, under which could be seen a black
+coat, appeared at the door behind him.
+
+Madame Victor Hugo noticed this man, who was silently listening.
+
+"Is it you, sir, who wish to speak to Monsieur Victor Hugo?"
+
+"Yes, madame."
+
+"But what is it about? Is it regarding politics?"
+
+The man did not answer.
+
+"As to politics," continued my wife, "what is happening?"
+
+"I believe, madame, that all is at an end."
+
+"In what sense?"
+
+"In the sense of the President."
+
+My wife looked fixedly at the man, and said to him,--
+
+"You have come to arrest my husband, sir."
+
+"It is true, madame," answered the man, opening his overcoat, which
+revealed the sash of a Commissary of Police.
+
+He added after a pause, "I am a Commissary of Police, and I am the
+bearer of a warrant to arrest M. Victor Hugo. I must institute a search
+and look through the house."
+
+"What is your name, sir?" asked Madame Victor Hugo.
+
+"My name is Hivert."
+
+"You know the terms of the Constitution?"
+
+"Yes, madam."
+
+"You know that the Representatives of the People are inviolable!"
+
+"Yes, madame."
+
+"Very well, sir," she said coldly, "you know that you are committing a
+crime. Days like this have a to-morrow; proceed."
+
+The Sieur Hivert attempted a few words of explanation, or we should
+rather say justification; he muttered the word "conscience," he
+stammered the word "honor." Madame Victor Hugo, who had been calm until
+then, could not help interrupting him with some abruptness.
+
+"Do your business, sir, and do not argue; you know that every official
+who lays a hand on a Representative of the People commits an act of
+treason. You know that in presence of the Representatives the President
+is only an official like the others, the chief charged with carrying out
+their orders. You dare to come to arrest a Representative in his own
+home like a criminal! There is in truth a criminal here who ought to be
+arrested--yourself!"
+
+The Sieur Hivert looked sheepish and left the room, and through the
+half-open door my wife could see, behind the well-fed, well-clothed,
+and bald Commissary, seven or eight poor raw-boned devils, wearing dirty
+coats which reached to their feet, and shocking old hats jammed down over
+their eyes--wolves led by a dog. They examined the room, opened here and
+there a few cupboards, and went away--with a sorrowful air--as Isidore
+said to me.
+
+The Commissary Hivert, above all, hung his head; he raised it, however,
+for one moment. Isidore, indignant at seeing these men thus hunt for his
+master in every corner, ventured to defy them. He opened a drawer and
+said, "Look and see if he is not in here!" The Commissary of Police
+darted a furious glance at him: "Lackey, take care!" The lackey was
+himself.
+
+These men having gone, it was noticed that several of my papers were
+missing. Fragments of manuscripts had been stolen, amongst others one
+dated July, 1848, and directed against the military dictatorship of
+Cavaignac, and in which there were verses written respecting the
+Censorship, the councils of war, and the suppression of the newspapers,
+and in particular respecting the imprisonment of a great journalist--Emile
+de Girardin:--
+
+    "... O honte, un lansquenet
+    Gauche, et parodiant César dont il hérite,
+    Gouverne les esprits du fond de sa guérite!"
+
+These manuscripts are lost.
+
+The police might come back at any moment, in fact they did come back a
+few minutes after I had left. I kissed my wife; I would not wake my
+daughter, who had just fallen asleep, and I went downstairs again. Some
+affrighted neighbors were waiting for me in the courtyard. I cried out
+to them laughingly, "Not caught yet!"
+
+A quarter of an hour afterwards I reached No. 10, Rue des Moulins. It
+was not then eight o'clock in the morning, and thinking that my
+colleagues of the Committee of Insurrection had passed the night there,
+I thought it might be useful to go and fetch them, so that we might
+proceed all together to the Salle Roysin.
+
+I found only Madame Landrin in the Rue des Moulins. It was thought that
+the house was denounced and watched, and my colleagues had changed their
+quarters to No. 7, Rue Villedo, the house of the ex-Constituent Leblond,
+legal adviser to the Workmen's Association. Jules Favre had passed the
+night there. Madame Landrin was breakfasting. She offered me a place by
+her side, but time pressed. I carried off a morsel of bread, and left.
+
+At No. 7, Rue Villedo, the maid-servant who opened the door to me
+ushered me into a room where were Carnot, Michel de Bourges, Jules
+Favre, and the master of the house, our former colleague, Constituent
+Leblond.
+
+"I have a carriage downstairs," I said to them; "the rendezvous is at
+the Salle Roysin in the Faubourg St. Antoine; let us go."
+
+This, however, was not their opinion. According to them the attempts
+made on the previous evening in the Faubourg St. Antoine had revealed
+this portion of the situation; they sufficed; it was useless to persist;
+it was obvious that the working-class districts would not rise; we must
+turn to the side of the tradesmen's districts, renounce our attempt to
+rouse the extremities of the city, and agitate the centre. We were the
+Committee of Resistance, the soul of the insurrection; if we were to go
+to the Faubourg St. Antoine, which was occupied by a considerable force,
+we should give ourselves up to Louis Bonaparte. They reminded me of what
+I myself had said on the subject the previous evening in the Rue
+Blanche. We must immediately organize the insurrection against the _coup
+d'état_ and organize it in practicable districts, that is to say, in the
+old labyrinths of the streets St. Denis and St. Martin; we must draw up
+proclamations, prepare decrees, create some method of publicity; they
+were waiting for important communications from Workmen's Associations
+and Secret Societies. The great blow which I wished to strike by our
+solemn meeting at the Salle Roysin would prove a failure; they thought
+it their duty to remain where they were; and the Committee being few in
+number, and the work to be done being enormous, they begged me not to
+leave them.
+
+They were men of great hearts and great courage who spoke to me; they
+were evidently right; but for myself I could not fail to go to the
+rendezvous which I myself had fixed. All the reasons which they had
+given me were good, nevertheless I could have opposed some doubts, but
+the discussion would have taken too much time, and the hour drew nigh.
+I did not make any objections, and I went out of the room, making some
+excuse. My hat was in the antechamber, my _fiacre_ was waiting for me,
+and I drove off to the Faubourg St. Antoine.
+
+The centre of Paris seemed to have retained its everyday appearance.
+People came and went, bought and sold, chatted and laughed as usual. In
+the Rue Montorgueil I heard a street organ. Only on nearing the Faubourg
+St. Antoine the phenomenon which I had already noticed on the previous
+evening became more and more apparent; solitude reigned, and a certain
+dreary peacefulness.
+
+We reached the Place de la Bastille.
+
+My driver stopped.
+
+"Go on," I said to him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+FROM THE BASTILLE TO THE RUE DE COTTE
+
+The Place de la Bastille was at the same time empty and filled. Three
+regiments in battle array were there; not one passer-by.
+
+Four harnessed batteries were drawn up at the foot of the column. Here
+and there knots of officers talked together in a low voice,--sinister
+men.
+
+One of these groups, the principal, attracted my attention. That one
+was silent, there was no talking. There were several men on horseback;
+one in front of the others, in a general's uniform, with a hat
+surmounted with black feathers, behind this man were two colonels, and
+behind the colonels a party of _aides-de-camp_ and staff officers.
+This lace-trimmed company remained immovable, and as though pointing
+like a dog between the column and the entrance to the Faubourg. At a
+short distance from this group, spread out, and occupying the whole of
+the square, were the regiments drawn up and the cannon in their
+batteries.
+
+"My driver again stopped.
+
+"Go on," I said; "drive into the Faubourg."
+
+"But they will prevent us, sir."
+
+"We shall see."
+
+The truth was that they did not prevent us.
+
+The driver continued on his way, but hesitatingly, and at a walking
+pace. The appearance of a _fiacre_ in the square had caused some
+surprise, and the inhabitants began to come out of their houses. Several
+came up to my carriage.
+
+We passed by a group of men with huge epaulets. These men, whose tactics
+we understood later on, did not even appear to see us.
+
+The emotion which I had felt on the previous day before a regiment of
+cuirassiers again seized me. To see before me the assassins of the
+country, at a few steps, standing upright, in the insolence of a
+peaceful triumph, was beyond my strength: I could not contain myself. I
+drew out my sash. I held it in my hand, and putting my arm and head out
+of the window of the _fiacre_, and shaking the sash, I shouted,--
+
+"Soldiers! Look at this sash. It is the symbol of Law, it is the
+National Assembly visible. Where there this sash is there is Right.
+Well, then, this is what Right commands you. You are being deceived. Go
+back to your duty. It is a Representative of the People who is speaking
+to you, and he who represents the People represents the army. Soldiers,
+before becoming soldiers you have been peasants, you have been workmen,
+you have been and you are still citizens. Citizens, listen to me when I
+speak to you. The Law alone has the right to command you. Well, to-day
+the law is violated. By whom? By you. Louis Bonaparte draws you into a
+crime. Soldiers, you who are Honor, listen to me, for I am Duty.
+Soldiers, Louis Bonaparte assassinates the Republic. Defend it. Louis
+Bonaparte is a bandit; all his accomplices will follow him to the
+galleys. They are there already. He who is worthy of the galleys is in
+the galleys. To merit fetters is to wear them. Look at that man who is
+at your head, and who dares to command you. You take him for a general,
+he is a convict."
+
+The soldiers seemed petrified.
+
+Some one who was there (I thank his generous, devoted spirit) touched my
+arm, and whispered in my ear, "You will get yourself shot."
+
+But I did not heed, and I listened to nothing. I continued, still waving
+my sash,--"You, who are there, dressed up like a general, it is you to
+whom I speak, sir. You know who I am, I am a Representative of the
+People, and I know who you are. I have told you you are a criminal.
+Now, do you wish to know my name? This is it."
+
+And I called out my name to him.
+
+And I added,--
+
+"Now tell me yours."
+
+He did not answer.
+
+I continued,--
+
+"Very well, I do not want to know your name as a general, I shall know
+your number as a galley slave."
+
+The man in the general's uniform hung his head, the others were silent.
+I could read all their looks, however, although they did not raise their
+eyes. I saw them cast down, and I felt that they were furious. I had an
+overwhelming contempt for them, and I passed on.
+
+What was the name of this general? I did not know then, and I do not
+know now.
+
+One of the apologies for the _coup d'état_ in relating this incident,
+and characterizing it as "an insensate and culpable provocation," states
+that "the moderation shown by the military leaders on this occasion did
+honor to General ----:" We leave to the author of this panegyric the
+responsibility of that name and of this eulogium.
+
+I entered the Rue de Faubourg St. Antoine.
+
+My driver, who now knew my name, hesitated no longer, and whipped up his
+horse. These Paris coachmen are a brave and intelligent race.
+
+As I passed the first shops of the main street nine o'clock sounded from
+the Church St. Paul.
+
+"Good," I said to myself, "I am in time."
+
+The Faubourg presented an extraordinary aspect. The entrance was
+guarded, but not closed, by two companies of infantry. Two other
+companies were drawn up in echelons farther on, at short distances,
+occupying the street, but leaving a free passage. The shops, which were
+open at the end of the Faubourg, were half closed a hundred yards
+farther up. The inhabitants, amongst whom I noticed numerous workmen in
+blouses, were talking together at their doors, and watching the
+proceedings. I noticed at each step the placards of the _coup d'état_
+untouched.
+
+Beyond the fountain which stands at the corner of the Rue de
+Charonne the shops were closed. Two lines of soldiers extended on
+either side of the street of the Faubourg on the kerb of the pavement;
+the soldiers were stationed at every five paces, with the butts of their
+muskets resting on their hips, their chests drawn in, their right hand
+on the trigger, ready to bring to the present, keeping silence in the
+attitude of expectation. From that point a piece of cannon was stationed
+at the mouth of each of the side streets which open out of the main road
+of the Faubourg. Occasionally there was a mortar. To obtain a clear idea
+of this military arrangement one must imagine two rosaries, extending
+along the two sides of the Faubourg St. Antoine, of which the soldiers
+should form the links and the cannon the beads.
+
+Meanwhile my driver became uneasy. He turned round to me and said, "It
+looks as though we should find barricades out there, sir; shall we turn
+back?"
+
+"Keep on," I replied.
+
+He continued to drive straight on.
+
+Suddenly it became impossible to do so. A company of infantry ranged
+three deep occupied the whole of the street from one pavement to the
+other. On the right there was a small street. I said to the driver,--
+
+"Take that turning."
+
+He turned to the right and then to the left. We turned into a labyrinth
+of streets.
+
+Suddenly I heard a shot.
+
+The driver asked me,--
+
+"Which way are we to go, sir?"
+
+"In the direction in which you hear the shots."
+
+We were in a narrow street; on my left I saw the inscription above a
+door, "Grand Lavoir," and on my right a square with a central building,
+which looked like a market. The square and the street were deserted. I
+asked the driver,--
+
+"What street are we in?"
+
+"In the Rue de Cotte."
+
+"Where is the Café Roysin?"
+
+"Straight before us."
+
+"Drive there."
+
+He drove on, but slowly. There was another explosion, this time close by
+us, the end of the street became filled with smoke; at the moment we
+were passing No. 22, which has a side-door above which I
+read, "Petit Lavoir."
+
+Suddenly a voice called out to the driver, "Stop!"
+
+The driver pulled up, and the window of the _fiacre_ being down, a hand
+was stretched towards mine. I recognized Alexander Rey.
+
+This daring man was pale.
+
+"Go no further," said he; "all is at an end."
+
+"What do you mean, all at an end?"
+
+"Yes, they must have anticipated the time appointed; the barricade is
+taken: I have just come from it. It is a few steps from here straight
+before us."
+
+And he added,--
+
+"Baudin is killed."
+
+The smoke rolled away from the end of the street.
+
+"Look," said Alexander Rey to me.
+
+I saw, a hundred steps before us, at the junction of the Rue de Cotte
+and the Rue Ste. Marguerite, a low barricade which the soldiers were
+pulling down. A corpse was being borne away.
+
+It was Baudin.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+THE ST. ANTOINE BARRICADE
+
+This is what had happened.
+
+During that same night, and as early as four o'clock in the morning, De
+Flotte was in the Faubourg St. Antoine. He was anxious, in case any
+movement took place before daylight, that a Representative of the People
+should be present, and he was one of those who, when the glorious
+insurrection of Right should burst forth, wished to unearth the
+paving-stones for the first barricade.
+
+But nothing was stirring. De Flotte, alone in the midst of this deserted
+and sleeping Faubourg, wandered from street to street throughout the
+night.
+
+Day breaks late in December. Before the first streaks of dawn De Flotte
+was at the rendezvous opposite the Lenoir Market.
+
+This spot was only weakly guarded. The only troops in the neighborhood
+were the post itself of the Lenoir Market, and another post at a short
+distance which occupied the guard-house at the corner of the Faubourg and
+the Rue de Montreuil, close to the old Tree of Liberty planted in 1793 by
+Santerre. Neither of these posts were commanded by officers.
+
+De Flotte reconnoitred the position. He walked some time up and down the
+pavement, and then seeing no one coming as yet, and fearing to excite
+attention, he went away, and returned to the side-streets of the
+Faubourg.
+
+For his part Aubry (du Nord) got up at five o'clock. Having gone home in
+the middle of the night, on his return from the Rue Popincourt, he had
+only taken three hours' rest. His porter told him that some suspicious
+persons had inquired for him during the evening of the 2d, and that they
+had been to the house opposite, No. 12 of the same street, Rue Racine,
+to arrest Huguenin. This determined Aubry to leave his house before
+daylight.
+
+He walked to the Faubourg St. Antoine. As he reached the place of
+rendezvous he met Cournet and the others from the Rue Popincourt. They
+were almost immediately joined by Malardier.
+
+It was dawn. The Faubourg was solitary. They walked along wrapt in
+thought and speaking in a low voice. Suddenly an impetuous and singular
+procession passed them.
+
+They looked round. It was a detachment of Lancers which surrounded
+something which in the dim light they recognized to be a police-van. The
+vehicle rolled noiselessly along the macadamized road.
+
+They were debating what this could mean, when a second and similar group
+appeared, then a third, and then a fourth. Ten police vans passed in
+this manner, following each other very closely, and almost touching.
+
+"Those are our colleagues!" exclaimed Aubry (du Nord).
+
+In truth the last batch of the Representatives, prisoners of the Quai
+d'Orsay, the batch destined for Vincennes, was passing through the
+Faubourg. It was about seven o'clock in the morning. Some shops were
+being opened and were lighted inside, and a few passers-by came out of
+the houses.
+
+Three carriages defiled one after the other, closed, guarded, dreary,
+dumb; no voice came out, no cry, no whisper. They were carrying off in
+the midst of swords, of sabres, and of lances, with the rapidity and
+fury of the whirlwind, something which kept silence; and that something
+which they were carrying off, and which maintained this sinister
+silence, was the broken Tribune, the Sovereignty of the Assemblies, the
+supreme initiative whence all civilization is derived; it was the word
+which contains the future of the world, it was the speech of France!
+
+A last carriage arrived, which by some chance had been delayed. It was
+about two or three hundred yards behind the principal convoy, and was
+only escorted by three Lancers. It was not a police-van, it was an
+omnibus, the only one in the convoy. Behind the conductor, who was a
+police agent, there could distinctly be seen the Representatives heaped
+up in the interior. It seemed easy to rescue them.
+
+Cournet appealed to the passers-by; "Citizens," he cried, "these are
+your Representatives, who are being carried off! You have just seen
+them pass in the vans of convicts! Bonaparte arrests them contrary to
+every law. Let us rescue them! To arms!"
+
+A knot formed of men in blouses and of workmen going to work. A shout
+came from the knot, "Long live the Republic!" and some men rushed
+towards the vehicle. The carriage and the Lancers broke into a gallop.
+
+"To arms!" repeated Cournet.
+
+"To arms!" repeated the men of the people.
+
+There was a moment of impulse. Who knows what might have happened? It
+would have been a singular accident if the first barricade against the
+_coup d'état_ had been made with this omnibus, which, after having aided
+in the crime, would this have aided in the punishment. But at the moment
+when the people threw themselves on the vehicle they saw several of the
+Representative-prisoners which it contained sign to them with both hands
+to refrain. "Eh!" said a workman, "they do not wish it!"
+
+A second repeated, "They do not wish for liberty!"
+
+Another added, "They did not wish us to have it, they do not wish it for
+themselves."
+
+All was said, and the omnibus was allowed to pass on. A moment
+afterwards the rear-guard of the escort came up and passed by at a sharp
+trots and the group which surrounded Aubry (du Nord), Malardier, and
+Cournet dispersed.
+
+The Café Roysin had just opened. It may be remembered that the large
+hall of this _café_ had served for the meeting of a famous club in 1848.
+It was there, it may also be remembered, that the rendezvous had been
+settled.
+
+The Café Roysin is entered by a passage opening out upon the street, a
+lobby of some yards in length is next crossed, and then comes a large
+hall, with high windows, and looking-glasses on the walls, containing in
+the centre several billiard-tables, some small marble-topped tables,
+chairs, and velvet-covered benches. It was this hall, badly arranged,
+however, for a meeting where we could have deliberated, which had been
+the hall of the Roysin Club. Cournet, Aubry, and Malardier installed
+themselves there. On entering they did not disguise who they were; they
+were welcomed, and shown an exit through the garden in case of
+necessity.
+
+De Flotte had just joined them.
+
+Eight o'clock was striking when the Representatives began to arrive.
+Bruckner, Maigne, and Brillier first, and then successively Charamaule,
+Cassal, Dulac, Bourzat, Madier de Montjau, and Baudin. Bourzat, on
+account of the mud, as was his custom, wore wooden shoes. Whoever
+thought Bourzat a peasant would be mistaken. He rather resembled a
+Benedictine monk. Bourzat, with his southern imagination, his quick
+intelligence, keen, lettered, refined, possesses an encyclopedia in his
+head, and wooden shoes on his feet. Why not? He is Mind and People. The
+ex-Constituent Bastide came in with Madier de Montjau. Baudin shook the
+hands of all with warmth, but he did not speak. He was pensive. "What is
+the matter with you, Baudin?" asked Aubry (du Nord). "Are you mournful?"
+"I?" said Baudin, raising his head, "I have never been more happy."
+
+Did he feel himself already chosen? When we are so near death, all
+radiant with glory, which smiles upon us through the gloom, perhaps we
+are conscious of it.
+
+A certain number of men, strangers to the Assembly, all as determined as
+the Representatives themselves, accompanied them and surrounded them.
+
+Cournet was the leader. Amongst them there were workmen, but no blouses.
+In order not to alarm the middle classes the workmen had been
+requested, notably those employed by Derosne and Cail, to come in coats.
+
+Baudin had with him a copy of the Proclamation which I had dictated to
+him on the previous day. Cournet unfolded it and read it. "Let us at
+once post it up in the Faubourg," said he. "The People must know that
+Louis Bonaparte is outlawed." A lithographic workman who was there
+offered to print it without delay. All the Representatives present
+signed it, and they added my name to their signatures. Aubry (du Nord)
+headed it with these words, "National Assembly." The workman carried off
+the Proclamation, and kept his word. Some hours afterwards Aubry (du
+Nord), and later on a friend of Cournet's named Gay, met him in the
+Faubourg du Temple paste-pot in hand, posting the Proclamation at every
+street corner, even next to the Maupas placard, which threatened the
+penalty of death to any one who should be found posting an appeal to
+arms. Groups read the two bills at the same time. We may mention an
+incident which ought to be noted, a sergeant of the line, in uniform, in
+red trousers, accompanied him and protected him. He was doubtless a
+soldier who had lately left the service.
+
+The time fixed on the preceding evening for the general rendezvous was
+from nine to ten in the morning. This hour had been chosen so that there
+should be time to give notice to all the members of the Left; it was
+expedient to wait until the Representatives should arrive, so that the
+group should the more resemble an Assembly, and that its manifestation
+should have more authority on the Faubourg.
+
+Several of the Representatives who had already arrived had no sash of
+office. Some were made hastily in a neighboring house with strips of
+red, white, and blue calico, and were brought to them. Baudin and De
+Flotte were amongst those who girded on these improvised sashes.
+
+Meanwhile it was not yet nine o'clock, when impatience already began to
+be manifested around them.[9]
+
+Many shared this glorious impatience.
+
+Baudin wished to wait.
+
+"Do not anticipate the hour," said he; "let us allow our colleagues time
+to arrive."
+
+But they murmured round Baudin, "No, begin, give the signal, go outside.
+The Faubourg only waits to see your sashes to rise. You are few in
+number, but they know that your friends will rejoin you. That is
+sufficient. Begin."
+
+The result proved that this undue haste could only produce a failure.
+Meanwhile they considered that the first example which the
+Representatives of the People ought to set was personal courage. The
+spark must not be allowed to die out. To march the first, to march at
+the head, such was their duty. The semblance of any hesitation would
+have been in truth more disastrous than any degree of rashness.
+
+Schoelcher is of an heroic nature, he has the grand impatience of
+danger.
+
+"Let us go," he cried; "our friends will join us, let us go outside."
+
+They had no arms.
+
+"Let us disarm the post which is over there," said Schoelcher.
+
+They left the Salle Roysin in order, two by two, arm in arm. Fifteen or
+twenty men of the people escorted them. They went before them, crying,
+"Long live the Republic! To arms!"
+
+Some children preceded and followed them, shouting, "Long live the
+Mountain!"
+
+The entrances of the closed shops were half opened. A few men appeared
+at the doors, a few women showed themselves at the windows. Knots of
+workmen going to their work watched them pass. They cried, "Long live
+our Representatives! Long live the Republic!"
+
+Sympathy was everywhere, but insurrection nowhere. The procession
+gathered few adherents on the way.
+
+A man who was leading a saddled horse joined them. They did not know
+this man, nor whence this horse came. It seemed as if the man offered
+his services to any one who wished to fly. Representative Dulac ordered
+this man to be off.
+
+In this manner they reached the guard-house of the Rue de Montrenil. At
+their approach the sentry gave the alarm, and the soldiers came out of
+the guard-house in disorder.
+
+Schoelcher, calm, impassive, in ruffles and a white tie, clothed, as
+usual, in black, buttoned to the neck in his tight frock coat, with the
+intrepid and brotherly air of a Quaker, walked straight up to them.
+
+"Comrades," he said to them, "we are the Representatives of the People,
+and come in the name of the people to demand your arms for the defence
+of the Constitution and of the Laws!"
+
+The post allowed itself to be disarmed. The sergeant alone made any show
+of resistance, but they said to him, "You are alone," and he yielded.
+The Representatives distributed the guns and the cartridges to the
+resolute band which surrounded them.
+
+Some soldiers exclaimed, "Why do you take away our muskets! We would
+fight for you and with you!"
+
+The Representatives consulted whether they should accept this offer.
+Schoelcher was inclined to do so. But one of them remarked that some
+Mobile Guards had made the same overtures to the insurgents of June, and
+had turned against the Insurrection the arms which the Insurrection had
+left them.
+
+The muskets therefore were not restored.
+
+The disarming having been accomplished, the muskets were counted; there
+were fifteen of them.
+
+"We are a hundred and fifty," said Cournet, "we have not enough
+muskets."
+
+"Well, then," said Schoelcher, "where is there a post?"
+
+"At the Lenoir Market."
+
+"Let us disarm it."
+
+With Schoelcher at their head and escorted by fifteen armed men the
+Representatives proceeded to the Lenoir Market. The post of the Lenoir
+Market allowed themselves to be disarmed even more willingly than the
+post in the Rue de Montreuil. The soldiers turned themselves round so
+that the cartridges might be taken from their pouches.
+
+The muskets were immediately loaded.
+
+"Now," exclaimed De Flotte, "we have thirty guns, let us look for a
+street corner, and raise a barricade."
+
+There were at that time about two hundred combatants.
+
+They went up the Rue de Montreuil.
+
+After some fifty steps Schoelcher said, "Where are we going? We are
+turning our backs on the Bastille. We are turning our backs upon the
+conflict."
+
+They returned towards the Faubourg.
+
+They shouted, "To arms!" They Where answered by "Long live our
+Representatives!" But only a few young men joined them. It was evident
+that the breeze of insurrection was not blowing.
+
+"Never mind," said De Flotte, "let us begin the battle. Let us achieve
+the glory of being the first killed."
+
+As they reached the point where the Streets Ste. Marguerite and de Cotte
+open out and divide the Faubourg, a peasant's cart laden with dung
+entered the Rue Ste. Marguerite.
+
+"Here," exclaimed De Flotte.
+
+They stopped the dung-cart, and overturned it in the middle of the
+Faubourg St. Antoine.
+
+A milkwoman came up.
+
+They overturned the milk-cart.
+
+A baker was passing in his bread-cart. He saw what was being done,
+attempted to escape, and urged his horse to a gallop. Two or three
+street Arabs--those children of Paris brave as lions and agile as
+cats--sped after the baker, ran past his horse, which was still
+galloping, stopped it, and brought back the cart to the barricade which
+had been begun.
+
+They overturned the bread-cart.
+
+An omnibus came up on the road from the Bastille.
+
+"Very well!" said the conductor, "I see what is going on."
+
+He descended with a good grace, and told his passengers to get
+down, while the coachman unharnessed his horses and went away shaking
+his cloak.
+
+They overturned the omnibus.
+
+The four vehicles placed end to end barely barred the street of the
+Faubourg, which in this part is very wide. While putting them in line
+the men of the barricade said,--
+
+"Let us not injure the carts more than we can help."
+
+This formed an indifferent barricade, very low, too short, and which
+left the pavements free on either side.
+
+At this moment a staff officer passed by followed by an orderly, saw the
+barricade, and fled at a gallop.
+
+Schoelcher calmly inspected the overturned vehicles. When he reached the
+peasant's cart, which made a higher heap than the others, he said, "that
+is the only good one."
+
+The barricade grew larger. They threw a few empty baskets upon it, which
+made it thicker and larger without strengthening it.
+
+They were still working when a child came up to them shouting, "The
+soldiers!"
+
+In truth two companies arrived from the Bastille, at the double, through
+the Faubourg, told off in squads at short distances apart, and barring
+the whole of the street.
+
+The doors and the windows were hastily closed.
+
+During this time, at a corner of the barricade, Bastide, impassive, was
+gravely telling a story to Madier de Montjau. "Madier," said he, "nearly
+two hundred years ago the Prince de Condé, ready to give battle in this
+very Faubourg St. Antoine, where we now are, asked an officer who was
+accompanying him, 'Have you ever seen a battle lost?'--'No, sire.'
+'Well, then, you will see one now.'--Madier, I tell you to-day,--you
+will speedily see a barricade taken."
+
+In the meanwhile those who were armed had assumed their places for the
+conflict behind the barricade.
+
+The critical moment drew nigh.
+
+"Citizens," cried Schoelcher, "do not fire a shot. When the Army and the
+Faubourgs fight, the blood of the People is shed on both sides. Let us
+speak to the soldiers first."
+
+He mounted on one of the baskets which heightened the barricade. The
+other Representatives arranged themselves near him on the omnibus.
+Malardier and Dulac were on his right. Dulac said to him, "You scarcely
+know me, Citizen Schoelcher, but I love you. Let me have the charge of
+remaining by your side. I only belong to the second rank in the
+Assembly, but I want to be in the first rank of the battle."
+
+At this moment some men in blouses, those whom the Second of December
+had enlisted, appeared at the corner of the Rue Ste. Marguerite, close
+to the barricade, and shouted, "Down with the 'Twenty-five francs!'"
+
+Baudin who had already selected his post for the combat, and who was
+standing on the barricade, looked fixedly at these men, and said to
+them,--
+
+"You shall see how one can die for 'twenty-five francs!'"
+
+There was a noise in the street. Some few doors which had remained half
+opened were closed. The two attacking columns had arrived in sight of
+the barricade. Further on could be seen confusedly other lines of
+bayonets. They were those which had barred my passage.
+
+Schoelcher, raising his arm with authority, signed to the captain, who
+commanded the first squad, to halt.
+
+The captain made a negative sign with his sword. The whole of the Second
+of December was in these two gestures. The Law said, "Halt!" The Sabre
+answered, "No!"
+
+The two companies continued to advance, but slowly, and keeping at the
+same distance from each other.
+
+Schoelcher came down from the barricade into the street. De Flotte,
+Dulac, Malardier, Brillier, Maigne, and Bruckner followed him.
+
+Then was seen a grand spectacle.
+
+Seven Representatives of the People, armed only with their sashes, that
+is to say, majestically clothed with Law and Right, advanced in the
+street beyond the barricade, and marched straight to the soldiers, who
+awaited them with their guns pointed at them.
+
+The other Representatives who had remained at the barricade made their
+last preparations for resistance. The combatants maintained an intrepid
+bearing. The Naval Lieutenant Cournet towered above them all with his
+tall stature. Baudin, still standing on the overturned omnibus, leaned
+half over the barricade.
+
+On seeing the Representatives approach, the soldiers and their officers
+were for the moment bewildered. Meanwhile the captain signed to the
+Representatives to stop.
+
+They stopped, and Schoelcher said in an impressive voice,--
+
+"Soldiers! we are the Representatives of the Sovereign People, we are
+your Representatives, we are the Elect of Universal Suffrage. In the
+name of the Constitution, in the name of Universal Suffrage, in the name
+of the Republic, we, who are the National Assembly, we, who are the Law,
+order you to join us, we summon you to obey. We ourselves are your
+leaders. The Army belongs to the People, and the Representatives of the
+People are the Chiefs of the Army. Soldiers! Louis Bonaparte violates
+the Constitution, we have outlawed him. Obey us."
+
+The officer who was in command, a captain named Petit, did not allow him
+to finish.
+
+"Gentlemen," he said, "I have my orders. I belong to the People. I am a
+Republican as you are, but I am only an instrument."
+
+"You know the Constitution?" said Schoelcher.
+
+"I only know my instructions."
+
+"There is an instruction above all other instructions," continued
+Schoelcher, "obligatory upon the Soldier as upon the Citizen--the Law."
+
+He turned again towards the soldiers to harangue them, but the captain
+cried out to him,--
+
+"Not another word! You shall not go on! If you add one word, I shall
+give the order to fire."
+
+"What does that matter to us?" said Schoelcher.
+
+At this moment an officer arrived on horseback. It was the major of the
+regiment. He whispered for a moment to the captain.
+
+"Gentlemen! Representatives!" continued the captain, waving his sword,
+"withdraw, or I shall fire."
+
+"Fire!" shouted De Flotte.
+
+The Representatives--strange and heroic copy of Fontenoy--took off their
+hats, and faced the muskets.
+
+Schoelcher alone kept his hat on his head, and waited with his arms
+crossed.
+
+"Fix bayonets," said the captain. And turning towards the squads,
+"Charge!"
+
+"Vive la République!" cried out the Representatives.
+
+The
+bayonets were lowered, the companies moved forward, the soldiers came on
+at the double upon the motionless Representatives.
+
+It was a terrible and superb moment.
+
+The seven Representatives saw the bayonets at their breasts without a
+word, without a gesture, without one step backwards. But the hesitation
+which was not in their soul was in the heart of the soldiers.
+
+The soldiers felt distinctly that this was a double stain upon their
+uniform--the outrage upon the Representatives of the People--which was
+treason, and the slaughter of unarmed men, which was cowardice. Now
+treason and cowardice are two epaulets to which a general sometimes
+becomes reconciled, the soldier--never.
+
+When the bayonets were so close to the Representatives that they touched
+their breasts, they turned aside of their own accord, and the soldier's
+by an unanimous movement passed between the Representatives without
+doing them any harm. Schoelcher alone had his coat pierced in two
+places, and in his opinion this was awkwardness instead of intention.
+One of the soldiers who faced him wished to push him away from the
+captain, and touched him with his bayonet. The point encountered the
+book of the addresses of the Representatives, which Schoelcher had in
+his pocket, and only pierced his clothing.
+
+A soldier said to De Flotte, "Citizen, we do not wish to hurt you."
+
+Nevertheless a soldier came up to Bruckner and pointed his gun at him.
+
+"Well," said Bruckner, "fire."
+
+The soldier, touched, lowered his arm, and shook Bruckner's hand.
+
+It was singular that, notwithstanding the order given by the officers,
+the two companies successively came up to the Representatives, charged
+with the bayonet, and turned aside. Instructions may order, but instinct
+prevails; instructions may be crime, but instinct is honor. Major P----
+said afterwards, "They had told us that we should have to deal with
+brigands, we had to deal with heroes."
+
+Meanwhile those on the barricade were growing uneasy, and seeing their
+colleagues surrounded, and wishing to succor them, they fired a musket
+shot. This unfortunate shot killed a soldier between De Flotte and
+Schoelcher.
+
+The officer who commanded the second attacking squad passed close to
+Schoelcher as the poor soldier fell. Schoelcher pointed out the fallen
+man to the officer, and said to him, "Lieutenant, look!"
+
+The officer answered by a gesture of despair,--
+
+"What would you have us do?"
+
+The two companies replied to the shot by a general volley, and rushed to
+the assault of the barricade, leaving behind them the seven
+Representatives astounded at being still alive.
+
+The barricade replied by a volley, but it could not hold out. It was
+carried.
+
+Baudin was killed.
+
+He had remained standing in his position on the omnibus. Three balls
+reached him. One struck him in the right eye and penetrated into the
+brain. He fell. He never regained consciousness. Half-an-hour afterwards
+he was dead. His body was taken to the Ste. Marguerite Hospital.
+
+Bourzat, who was close to Baudin, with Aubry (du Nord), had his coat
+pierced by a ball.
+
+We must again remark a curious incident,--the soldiers made no prisoner
+on this barricade. Those who defended it dispersed through the streets
+of the Faubourg, or took refuge in the neighboring houses. Representative
+Maigne, pushed by some affrighted women behind a door, was shut in with
+one of the soldiers who had just taken the barricade. A moment afterwards
+the soldier and the Representative went out together. The Representatives
+could freely leave this first field of battle.
+
+At this solemn moment of the struggle a last glimmer of Justice and of
+Right still flickered, and military honesty recoiled with a sort of
+dread anxiety before the outrage upon which they were entering. There is
+the intoxication of good, and there is an intoxication of evil: this
+intoxication later on drowned the conscience of the Army.
+
+The French Army is not made to commit crimes. When the struggle became
+prolonged, and ferocious orders of the day had to be executed, the
+soldiers must have been maddened. They obeyed not coldly, which would
+have been monstrous, but with anger, and this History will invoke as
+their excuse; and with many, perhaps, despair was at the root of their
+anger.
+
+The fallen soldier had remained on the ground. It was Schoelcher who
+raised him. A few women, weeping, but brave, came out of a house. Some
+soldiers came up. They carried him, Schoelcher holding his head, first
+to a fruiterer's shop, then to the Ste. Marguerite Hospital, where they
+had already taken Baudin.
+
+He was a conscript. The ball had entered his side. Through his gray
+overcoat buttoned to the collar, could be seen a hole stained with
+blood. His head had sunk on his shoulder, his pale countenance,
+encircled by the chinstrap of his shako, had no longer any expression,
+the blood oozed out of his mouth. He seemed barely eighteen years old.
+Already a soldier and still a boy. He was dead.
+
+This poor soldier was the first victim of the _coup d'état_. Baudin was
+the second.
+
+Before being a Republican Baudin had been a tutor. He came from that
+intelligent and brave race of schoolmasters ever persecuted, who have
+fallen from the Guizot Law into the Falloux Law, and from the Falloux
+Law into the Dupanloup Law. The crime of the schoolmaster is to hold a
+book open; that suffices, the Church condemns him. There is now, in
+France, in each village, a lighted torch--the schoolmaster--and a mouth
+which blows upon it--the curé. The schoolmasters of France, who knew how
+to die of hunger for Truth and for Science, were worthy that one of
+their race should be killed for Liberty.
+
+The first time that I saw Baudin was at the Assembly on January 13,
+1850. I wished to speak against the Law of Instruction. I had not put my
+name down; Baudin's name stood second. He offered me his turn. I
+accepted, and I was able to speak two days afterwards, on the 15th.
+
+Baudin was one of the targets of Sieur Dupin, for calls to order and
+official annoyances. He shared this honor with the Representatives Miot
+and Valentin.
+
+Baudin ascended the Tribune several times. His mode of speaking,
+outwardly hesitating, was energetic in the main. He sat on the crest of
+the Mountain. He had a firm spirit and timid manners. Thence there was in
+his constitution an indescribable embarrassment, mingled with decision.
+He was a man of middle height. His face ruddy and full, his broad chest,
+his wide shoulders announced the robust man, the laborer-schoolmaster,
+the peasant-thinker. In this he resembled Bourzat. Baudin leaned his head
+on his shoulder, listened with intelligence, and spoke with a gentle and
+grave voice. He had the melancholy air and the bitter smile of the
+doomed.
+
+On the evening of the Second of December I had asked him, "How old are
+you?" He had answered me, "Not quite thirty-three years."
+
+"And you?" said he.
+
+"Forty-nine."
+
+And he replied,--
+
+"To-day we are of the same age."
+
+He thought in truth of that to-morrow which awaited us, and in which was
+hidden that "perhaps" which is the great leveller.
+
+The first shots had been fired, a Representative had fallen, and the
+people did not rise! What bandage had they on their eyes, what weight
+had they on their hearts? Alas! the gloom which Louis Bonaparte had
+known how to cast over his crime, far from lifting, grew denser. For the
+first time in the sixty years, that the Providential era of Revolutions
+had been open, Paris, the city of intelligence, seemed not to
+understand!
+
+On leaving the barricade of the Rue Ste. Marguerite, De Flotte went to
+the Faubourg St. Marceau, Madier de Montjau went to Belleville,
+Charamaule and Maigne proceeded to the Boulevards. Schoelcher, Dulac,
+Malardier, and Brillier again went up the Faubourg St. Antoine by the
+side streets which the soldiers had not yet occupied. They shouted,
+"Vive la République!" They harangued the people on the doorsteps: "Is it
+the Empire that you want?" exclaimed Schoelcher. They even went as far
+as to sing the "Marseillaise." People took off their hats as they passed
+and shouted "Long live the Representatives!" But that was all.
+
+They were thirsty and weary. In the Rue de Reuilly a man came out of a
+door with a bottle in his hand, and offered them drink.
+
+Sartin joined them on the way. In the Rue de Charonne they entered the
+meeting-place of the Association of Cabinet Makers, hoping to find there
+the committee of the association in session. There was no
+one there. But nothing discouraged them.
+
+As they reached the Place de la Bastille, Dulac said to Schoelcher, "I
+will ask permission to leave you for an hour or two, for this reason: I
+am alone in Paris with my little daughter, who is seven years old. For
+the past week she has had scarlet fever. Yesterday, when the _coup
+d'état_ burst forth, she was at death's door. I have no one but this
+child in the world. I left her this morning to come with you, and she
+said to me, 'Papa, where are you going?' As I am not killed, I will go
+and see if she is not dead."
+
+Two hours afterwards the child was still living, and we were holding a
+permanent sitting at No. 15, Rue Richelieu, Jules Favre, Carnot, Michel
+de Bourges, and myself, when Dulac entered, and said to us, "I have come
+to place myself at your disposal."
+
+
+[9] "There was also a misunderstanding respecting the appointed time.
+Some made a mistake, and thought it was nine o'clock. The first arrivals
+impatiently awaited their colleagues. They were, as we have said, some
+twelve or fifteen in number at half-past eight. 'Time is being lost,'
+exclaimed one of them who had hardly entered; 'let us gird on our sashes;
+let us show the Representatives to the People, let us join it in raising
+barricades.' We shall perhaps save the country, at all events we shall
+save the honor of our party. 'Come, let us to the barricades!' This
+advice was immediately and unanimously acclaimed: one alone, Citizen
+Baudin, interposed the forcible objection, 'we are not sufficiently
+numerous to adopt such a resolution.' But he spiritedly joined in the
+general enthusiasm, and with a calm conscience, after having reserved
+the principle, he was not the last to gird on his sash."--SCHOELCHER,
+_Histoire des Crimes du 2d Decembre_, pp. 130-131.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+THE WORKMEN'S SOCIETIES ASK US FOR THE ORDER TO FIGHT
+
+In presence of the fact of the barricade of the Faubourg St. Antoine so
+heroically constructed by the Representatives, so sadly neglected by the
+populace, the last illusions, even mine, should have been dispersed.
+Baudin killed, the Faubourg cold. Such things spoke aloud. It was a
+supreme, manifest, absolute demonstration of that fact, the inaction of
+the people, to which I could not resign myself--a deplorable inaction,
+if they understood, a self-treason, if they did not understand, a fatal
+neutrality in every case, a calamity of which all the responsibility, we
+repeat, recoiled not upon the people but upon those who in June, 1848,
+after having promised them amnesty, had refused it, and who had unhinged
+the great soul of the people of Paris by breaking faith with them. What
+the Constituent Assembly had sown the Legislative Assembly harvested.
+We, innocent of the fault, had to submit to the consequence.
+
+The spark which we had seen flash for an instant through the
+crowd--Michel de Bourges from the height of Bonvalet's balcony, myself
+from the Boulevard du Temple--this spark seemed extinguished. Maigne
+firstly, then Brillier, then Bruckner, later on Charmaule, Madier de
+Montjau, Bastide, and Dulac came to report to us what had passed at the
+barricade of St. Antoine, the motives which had decided the
+Representatives present not to await the hour appointed for the
+rendezvous, and Baudin's death. The report which I made myself of what I
+had seen, and which Cassal and Alexander Rey completed by adding new
+circumstances, enabled us to ascertain the situation. The Committee could
+no longer hesitate: I myself renounced the hopes which I had based upon a
+grand manifestation, upon a powerful reply to the _coup d'état_, upon a
+sort of pitched battle waged by the guardians of the Republic against the
+banditti of the Elysée. The Faubourgs failed us; we possessed the
+lever--Right, but the mass to be raised, the People, we did not possess.
+There was nothing more to hope for, as those two great orators, Michel de
+Bourges and Jules Favre, with their keen political perception, had
+declared from the first, save a slow long struggle, avoiding decisive
+engagements, changing quarters, keeping Paris on the alert, saying to
+each, It is not at an end; leaving time for the departments to prepare
+their resistance, wearying the troops out, and in which struggle the
+Parisian people, who do not long smell powder with impunity, would
+perhaps ultimately take fire. Barricades raised everywhere, barely
+defended, re-made immediately, disappearing and multiplying themselves at
+the same time, such was the strategy indicated by the situation. The
+Committee adopted it, and sent orders in every direction to this effect.
+At that moment we were sitting at No. 15, Rue Richelieu, at the house of
+our colleague Grévy, who had been arrested in the Tenth Arrondissement on
+the preceding day, who was at Mazas. His brother had offered us his house
+for our deliberations. The Representatives, our natural emissaries,
+flocked around us, and scattered themselves throughout Paris, with our
+instructions to organize resistance at every point. They were the arms
+and the Committee was the soul. A certain number of ex-Constituents,
+intrepid men, Garnier-Pagès, Marie, Martin (de Strasbourg), Senart,
+formerly President of the Constituent Assembly, Bastide, Laissac,
+Landrin, had joined the Representatives on the preceding day. They
+established, therefore, in all the districts where it was possible
+Committees of Permanence in connection with us, the Central Committee,
+and composed either of Representatives or of faithful citizens. For our
+watchword we chose "Baudin."
+
+Towards noon the centre of Paris began to grow agitated.
+
+Our appeal to arms was first seen placarded on the Place de la Bourse
+and the Rue Montmartre. Groups pressed round to read it, and battled
+with the police, who endeavored to tear down the bills. Other
+lithographic placards contained in two parallel columns the decree of
+deposition drawn up by the Right at the Mairie of the Tenth
+Arrondissement, and the decree of outlawry voted by the Left. There were
+distributed, printed on gray paper in large type, the judgment of the
+High Court of Justice, declaring Louis Bonaparte attainted with the
+Crime of High Treason, and signed "Hardouin" (President), "Delapalme,"
+"Moreau" (of the Seine), "Cauchy," "Bataille" (Judges). This last name
+was thus mis-spelt by mistake, it should read "Pataille."
+
+At that moment people generally believed, and we ourselves believed, in
+this judgment, which, as we have seen, was not the genuine judgment.
+
+At the same time they posted in the populous quarters, at the corner of
+every street, two Proclamations. The first ran thus:--
+
+  "TO THE PEOPLE.
+
+  "ARTICLE III.[10]
+
+  "The Constitution is confided to the keeping and to the patriotism of
+  French citizens. Louis NAPOLEON is outlawed.
+
+  "The State of Siege is abolished.
+
+  "Universal suffrage is re-established.
+
+  "LONG LIVE THE REPUBLIC.
+
+  "To ARMS!
+
+  "For the United Mountain.
+
+  "The Delegate, VICTOR HUGO."
+
+The second ran thus:--
+
+  "INHABITANTS OF PARIS.
+
+  "The National Guards and the People of the Departments are marching on
+  Paris to aid you in seizing the TRAITOR, Louis Napoléon BONAPARTE.
+
+  "For the Representatives of the People,
+
+  "VICTOR HUGO, President.
+
+  "SCHOELCHER, Secretary."
+
+This last placard, printed on little squares of paper, was distributed
+abroad, says an historian of the _coup d'état_, by thousands of copies.
+
+For their part the criminals installed in the Government offices replied
+by threats: the great white placards, that is to say, the official
+bills, were largely multiplied. On one could be read:--
+
+  "WE, PREFECT OF THE POLICE,
+
+  "Decree as follows:--
+
+  "ARTICLE I. All meetings are rigorously prohibited. They will be
+  immediately dispersed by force.
+
+  "ARTICLE II. All seditious shouts, all reading in public, all posting
+  of political documents not emanating from a regularly constituted
+  authority, are equally prohibited.
+
+  "ARTICLE III. The agents of the Public Police will enforce the execution
+  of the present decree.
+
+  "Given at the Prefecture of Police, December 3, 1851.
+
+  "DE MAUPAS, Prefect of Police.
+
+  "Seen and approved,
+
+  "DE MORNY, Minister of the Interior."
+
+On another could be read,--
+
+  "THE MINISTER OF WAR,
+
+  "By virtue of the Law on the State of Siege,
+
+  "Decrees:--
+
+  "Every person taken constructing or defending a barricade, or carrying
+  arms, WILL BE SHOT.
+
+  "General of Division,
+
+  "Minister of war,
+
+  "DE SAINT-ARNAUD."
+
+We reproduce this Proclamation exactly, even to the punctuation. The
+words "Will be shot" were in capital letters in the placards signed "De
+Saint-Arnaud."
+
+The Boulevards were thronged with an excited crowd. The agitation
+increasing in the centre reached three Arrondissements, the 6th, 7th,
+and the 12th. The district of the schools began to disorderly. The
+Students of Law and of Medicine cheered De Flotte on the Place de
+Panthéon. Madier de Montjau, ardent and eloquent, went through and
+aroused Belleville. The troops, growing more numerous every moment,
+took possession of all the strategical points of Paris.
+
+At one o'clock, a young man was brought to us by the legal adviser of
+the Workmen's Societies, the ex-Constituent Leblond, at whose house the
+Committee had deliberated that morning. We were sitting in permanence,
+Carnot, Jules Favre, Michel de Bourges, and myself. This young man, who
+had an earnest mode of speaking and an intelligent countenance, was
+named King. He had been sent to us by the Committee of the Workmen's
+Society, from whom he was delegated. "The Workmen's Societies," he said
+to us, "place themselves at the disposal of the Committee of Legal
+Insurrection appointed by the Left. They can throw into the struggle
+five or six thousand resolute men. They will manufacture powder; as for
+guns, they will be found." The Workmen's Society requested from us an
+order to fight signed by us. Jules Favre took a pen and wrote,--"The
+undersigned Representatives authorize Citizen King and his friends to
+defend with them, and with arms in their hands, Universal Suffrage, the
+Republic, the Laws." He dated it, and we all four signed it. "That is
+enough," said the delegate to us, "you will hear of us."
+
+Two hours afterwards it was reported to us that the conflict had begun.
+They were fighting in the Rue Aumaire.
+
+
+[10] A typographical error--it should read "Article LXVIII." On the
+subject of this placard the author of this book received the following
+letter. It does honor to those who wrote it:--
+
+  "CITIZEN VICTOR HUGO,--We know that you have made an appeal to arms. We
+  have not been able to obtain it. We replace it by these bills which we
+  sign with your name. You will not disown us. When France is in danger
+  your name belongs to all; your name is a Public Power.
+
+  "FELIX BONY.
+
+  "DABAT."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+BAUDINS'S CORPSE
+
+With regard to the Faubourg St. Antoine, we had, as I said, lost nearly
+all hope, but the men of the _coup d'état_ had not lost all uneasiness.
+Since the attempts at rising and the barricades of the morning a rigorous
+supervision had been organized. Any one who entered the Faubourg ran the
+risk of being examined, followed, and upon the slightest suspicion,
+arrested. The supervision was nevertheless sometimes at fault. About two
+o'clock a short man, with an earnest and attentive air, crossed the
+Faubourg. A _sergent de ville_ and a police agent in plain clothes barred
+his passage. "Who are you?" "You seem a passenger." "Where are you going?"
+"Over there, close by, to Bartholomé's, the overseer of the sugar
+manufactory.--" They search him. He himself opened his pocket-book; the
+police agents turned out the pockets of his waistcoat and unbuttoned
+his shirt over his breast; finally the _sergent de ville_ said gruffly,
+"Yet I seem to have seen you here before this morning. Be off!" It was
+the Representative Gindrier. If they had not stopped at the pockets of
+his waistcoat--and if they had searched his great-coat, they would have
+found his sash there--Gindrier would have been shot.
+
+Not to allow themselves to be arrested, to keep their freedom for the
+combat--such was the watchword of the members of the Left. That is why
+we had our sashes upon us, but not outwardly visible.
+
+Gindrier had had no food that day; he thought he would go home, and
+returned to the new district of the Havre Railway Station, where he
+resided. In the Rue de Calais, which is a lonely street running from Rue
+Blanche to the Rue de Clichy, a _fiacre_ passed him. Gindrier heard his
+name called out. He turned round and saw two persons in a _fiacre_,
+relations of Baudin, and a man whom he did not know. One of the
+relations of Baudin, Madame L----, said to him, "Baudin is
+wounded!" She added, "They have taken him to the St. Antoine Hospital.
+We are going to fetch him. Come with us." Gindrier got into the
+_fiacre_. The stranger, however, was an emissary of the Commissary of
+Police of the Rue Ste. Marguerite St. Antoine. He had been charged by
+the commissary of Police to go to Baudin's house, No, 88, Rue de Clichy,
+to inform the family. Having only found the women at home he had
+confined himself to telling them that Representative Baudin was wounded.
+He offered to accompany them, and went with them in the _fiacre_. They
+had uttered the name of Gindrier before him. This might have been
+imprudent. They spoke to him; he declared that he would not betray the
+Representative, and it was settled that before the Commissary of Police
+Gindrier should assume to be a relation, and be called Baudin.
+
+The poor women still hoped. Perhaps the wound was serious, but Baudin
+was young, and had a good constitution. "They will save him," said they.
+Gindrier was silent. At the office of the Commissary of Police the truth
+was revealed.--"How is he?" asked Madame L---- on entering. "Why?" said
+the Commissary, "he is dead." "What do you mean? Dead!" "Yes; killed on
+the spot."
+
+This was a painful moment. The despair of these two women who had been
+so abruptly struck to the heart burst forth in sobs. "Ah, infamous
+Bonaparte!" cried Madame L----. "He has killed Baudin. Well, then, I will
+kill him. I will be the Charlotte Corday of this Marat."
+
+Gindrier claimed the body of Baudin. The Commissary of Police only
+consented to restore it to the family on exacting a promise that they
+would bury it at once, and without any ostentation, and that they would
+not exhibit it to the people. "You understand," he said, "that the sight
+of a Representative killed and bleeding might raise Paris." The _coup
+d'état_ made corpses, but did not wish that they should be utilized.
+
+On these conditions the Commissary of Police gave Gindrier two men and a
+safe conduct to fetch the body of Baudin from the hospital where he had
+been carried.
+
+Meanwhile Baudin's brother, a young man of four-and-twenty, a medical
+student, came up. This young man has since been arrested and imprisoned.
+His crime is his brother. Let us continue. They proceeded to the
+hospital. At the sight of the safe conduct the director ushered Gindrier
+and young Baudin into the parlor. There were three pallets there covered
+with white sheets, under which could be traced the motionless forms of
+three human bodies. The one which occupied the centre bed was Baudin. On
+his right lay the young soldier killed a minute before him by the side of
+Schoelcher, and on the left an old woman who had been struck down by a
+spent ball in the Rue de Cotte, and whom the executioners of the _coup
+d'état_ had gathered up later on; in the first moment one cannot find out
+all one's riches.
+
+The three corpses were naked under their winding sheets.
+
+They had left to Baudin alone his shirt and his flannel vest. They had
+found on him seven francs, his gold watch and chain, his Representative's
+medal, and a gold pencil-case which he had used in the Rue de Popincourt,
+after having passed me the other pencil, which I still preserve. Gindrier
+and young Baudin, bare-headed, approached the centre bed. They raised the
+shroud, and Baudin's dead face became visible. He was calm, and seemed
+asleep. No feature appeared contracted. A livid tint began to mottle his
+face.
+
+They drew up an official report. It is customary. It is not sufficient
+to kill people. An official report must also be drawn up. Young Baudin
+had to sign it, upon which, on the demand of the Commissary of Police,
+they "made over" to him the body of his brother. During these
+signatures, Gindrier in the courtyard of the hospital, attempted if not
+to console, at least to calm the two despairing women.
+
+Suddenly a man who had entered the courtyard, and who had attentively
+watched him for some moments, came abruptly up to him,--
+
+"What are you doing there?"
+
+"What is that to you?" said Gindrier.
+
+"You have come to fetch Baudin's body?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Is this your carriage?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Get in at once, and pull down the blinds."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"You are the Representative Gindrier. I know you. You were this morning
+on the barricade. If any other than myself should see you, you are
+lost."
+
+Gindrier followed his advice and got into the _fiacre_. While getting in
+he asked the man:
+
+"Do you belong to the Police?"
+
+The man did not answer. A moment after he came and said in a low voice,
+near the door of the _fiacre_ in which Gindrier was enclosed,--
+
+"Yes, I eat the bread, but I do not do the work."
+
+The two men sent by the Commissary of Police took Baudin on his wooden
+bed and carried him to the _fiacre_. They placed him at the bottom of
+the _fiacre_ with his face covered, and enveloped from head to foot in a
+shroud. A workman who was there lent his cloak, which was thrown over
+the corpse in order not to attract the notice of passers-by. Madame L----
+took her place by the side of the body, Gindrier opposite, young Baudin
+next to Gindrier. A _fiacre_ followed, in which were the other relative
+of Baudin and a medical student named Dutèche. They set off. During the
+journey the head of the corpse, shaken by the carriage, rolled from
+shoulder to shoulder; the blood began to flow from the wound and
+appeared in large red patches through the white sheet. Gindrier with
+his arms stretched out and his hand placed on its breast, prevented it
+from falling forwards; Madame L---- held it up by the side.
+
+They had told the coachman to drive slowly; the journey lasted more than
+an hour.
+
+When they reached No. 88, Rue de Clichy, the bringing out of the body
+attracted a curious crowd before the door. The neighbors flocked
+thither. Baudin's brother, assisted by Gindrier and Dutèche, carried up
+the corpse to the fourth floor, where Baudin resided. It was a new
+house, and he had only lived there a few months.
+
+They carried him into his room, which was in order, and just as he had
+left it on the morning of the 2d. The bed, on which he had not slept the
+preceding night, had not been disturbed. A book which he had been
+reading had remained on the table, open at the page where he had left
+off. They unrolled the shroud, and Gindrier cut off his shirt and his
+flannel vest with a pair of scissors. They washed the body. The ball had
+entered through the corner of the arch of the right eye, and had gone out
+at the back of the head. The wound of the eye had not bled. A sort of
+swelling had formed there; the blood had flowed copiously through the
+hole at the back of the head. They put clean linen on him, and clean
+sheets on the bed, and laid him down with his head on the pillow, and
+his face uncovered. The women were weeping in the next room.
+
+Gindrier had already rendered the same service to the ex-Constituent
+James Demontry. In 1850 James Demontry died in exile at Cologne.
+Gindrier started for Cologne, went to the cemetery, and had James
+Demontry exhumed. He had the heart extracted, embalmed it, and enclosed
+it in a silver vase, which he took to Paris. The party of the Mountain
+delegated him, with Chollet and Joigneux, to convey this heart to Dijon,
+Demontry's native place, and to give him a solemn funeral. This funeral
+was prohibited by an order of Louis Bonaparte, then President of the
+Republic. The burial of brave and faithful men was unpleasing to Louis
+Bonaparte--not so their death.
+
+When Baudin had been laid out on the bed, the women came in, and all
+this family, seated round the corpse, wept. Gindrier, whom other duties
+called elsewhere, went downstairs with Dutèche. A crowd had formed
+before the door.
+
+A man in a blouse, with his hat on his head, mounted on a kerbstone, was
+speechifying and glorifying the _coup d'état_. Universal Suffrage
+re-established, the Law of the 31st May abolished, the "Twenty-five
+francs" suppressed; Louis Bonaparte has done well, etc.--Gindrier,
+standing on the threshold of the door, raised his voice: "Citizens!
+above lies Baudin, a Representative of the People, killed while
+defending the People; Baudin the Representative of you all, mark that
+well! You are before his house; he is there bleeding on his bed, and
+here is a man who dares in this place to applaud his assassin! Citizens!
+shall I tell you the name of this man? He is called the Police! Shame
+and infamy to traitors and to cowards! Respect to the corpse of him who
+has died for you!"
+
+And pushing aside the crowd, Gindrier took the man who had
+been speaking by the collar, and knocking his hat on to the ground with
+the back of his hand, he cried, "Hats off!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+THE DECREES OF THE REPRESENTATIVES WHO REMAINED FREE
+
+The text of the judgment which was believed to have been dawn up by the
+High Court of Justice had been brought to us by the ex-Constituent
+Martin (of Strasbourg), a lawyer at the Court of Cassation. At the same
+time we learned what was happening in the Rue Aumaire. The battle was
+beginning, it was important to sustain it, and to feed it; it was
+important ever to place the legal resistance by the side of the armed
+resistance. The members who had met together on the preceding day at the
+Mairie of the Tenth Arrondissement had decreed the deposition of Louis
+Bonaparte; but this decree, drawn up by a meeting almost exclusively
+composed of the unpopular members of the majority, might have no effect
+on the masses; it was necessary that the Left should take it up, should
+adopt it, should imprint upon it a more energetic and more revolutionary
+accent, and also take possession of the judgment of the High Court,
+which was believed to be genuine, to lend assistance to this judgment,
+and put it into execution.
+
+In our appeal to arms we had outlawed Louis Bonaparte. The decree of
+deposition taken up and counter-signed by us added weight to this
+outlawry, and completed the revolutionary act by the legal act.
+
+The Committee of Resistance called together the Republican
+Representatives.
+
+The apartments of M. Grévy, where we had been sitting, being too small,
+we appointed for our meeting-place No. 10. Rue des Moulins, although
+warned that the police had already made a raid upon this house. But we
+had no choice; in time of Revolution prudence is impossible, and it is
+speedily seen that it is useless. Confidence, always confidence; such is
+the law of those grand actions which at times determine great events.
+The perpetual improvisation of means, of policy, of expedients, of
+resources, nothing step by step, everything on the impulse of the moment,
+the ground never sounded, all risks taken as a whole, the good with the
+bad, everything chanced on all sides at the same time, the hour, the
+place, the opportunity, friends, family, liberty, fortune, life,--such
+is the revolutionary conflict.
+
+Towards three o'clock about sixty Representatives were meeting at No.
+10, Rue des Moulins, in the large drawing-room, out of which opened a
+little room where the Committee of Resistance was in session.
+
+It was a gloomy December day, and darkness seemed already to have almost
+set in. The publisher Hetzel, who might also be called the poet Hetzel,
+is of a noble mind and of great courage. He has, as is known, shown
+unusual political qualities as Secretary-General of the Ministry of
+Foreign Affairs under Bastide; he came to offer himself to us, as the
+brave and patriotic Hingray had already done in the morning. Hetzel knew
+that we needed a printing-office above everything; we had not the
+faculty of speech, and Louis Bonaparte spoke alone. Hetzel had found a
+printer who had said to him, "_Force me, put a pistol to my throat, and
+I will print whatever you wish_." It was only a question, therefore, of
+getting a few friends together, of seizing this printing-office by main
+force, of barricading it, and, if necessary, of sustaining a siege,
+while our Proclamations and our decrees were being printed. Hetzel
+offered this to us. One incident of his arrival at our meeting-place
+deserves to be noted. As he drew near the doorway he saw in the twilight
+of this dreary December day a man standing motionless at a short
+distance, and who seemed to be lying in wait. He went up to this man,
+and recognized M. Yon, the former Commissary of Police of the Assembly.
+
+"What are you doing there?" said Hetzel abruptly. "Are you there to
+arrest us? In that case, here is what I have got for you," and he took
+out two pistols from his pocket.
+
+M. Yon answered smiling,--
+
+"I am in truth watching, not against you, but for you; I am guarding
+you."
+
+M. Yon, aware of our meeting at Landrin's house and fearing that we
+should be arrested, was, of his own accord, acting as police for us.
+
+Hetzel had already revealed his scheme to Representative Labrousse, who
+was to accompany him and give him the moral support of the Assembly in
+his perilous expedition. A first rendezvous which had been agreed upon
+between them at the Café Cardinal having failed, Labrousse had left with
+the owner of the _café_ for Hetzel a note couched in these terms:--
+
+"Madame Elizabeth awaits M. Hetzel at No. 10, Rue des Moulins."
+
+In accordance with this note Hetzel had come.
+
+We accepted Hetzel's offer, and it was agreed that at nightfall
+Representative Versigny, who performed the duties of Secretary to the
+Committee, should take him our decrees, our Proclamation, such items of
+news as may have reached us, and all that we should judge proper to
+publish. It was settled that Hetzel should await Versigny on the
+pavement at the end of the Rue de Richelieu which runs alongside the
+Café Cardinal.
+
+Meanwhile Jules Favre, Michel de Bourges and myself had drawn up a final
+decree, which was to combine the deposition voted by the Right with the
+outlawry voted by us. We came back into the large room to read it to the
+assembled Representatives, and for them to sign it.
+
+At this moment the door opened, and Emile de Girardin appeared. We had
+not seen him since the previous evening.
+
+Emile de Girardin--after dispersing from around him that mist which
+envelopes every combatant in party warfare, and which at a distance
+changes or obscures the appearance of a man--Emile de Girardin is an
+extraordinary thinker, an accurate writer, energetic, logical, skilful,
+hearty; a journalist in whom, as in all great journalists, can be seen
+the statesman. We owe to Emile de Girardin this great work of progress,
+the cheap Press. Emile de Girardin has this great gift, a clearheaded
+stubbornness. Emile de Girardin is a public watchman; his journal is his
+sentry-box; he waits, he watches, he spies out, he enlightens, he lies
+in wait, he cries "Who goes there?" at the slightest alarm, he fires
+volleys with his pen. He is ready for every form of combat, a sentinel
+to-day, a General to-morrow. Like all earnest minds he understands, he
+sees, he recognizes, he handles, so to speak, the great and magnificent
+identity embraced under these three words, "Revolution, Progress,
+Liberty;" he wishes for the Revolution, but above all through Progress;
+he wishes for progress, but solely through Liberty. One can, and
+according to our opinion sometimes rightly, differ from him as to the
+road to be taken, as to the attitude to be assumed, and the position to
+be maintained, but no one can deny his courage, which he has proved in
+every form, nor reject his object, which is the moral and physical
+amelioration of the lot of all. Emile de Girardin is more Democratic
+than Republican, more Socialist than Democratic; on the day when these
+three ideas, Democracy, Republicanism, Socialism, that is to say, the
+principle, the form, and the application, are balanced in his mind the
+oscillations which still exist in him will cease. He has already Power,
+he will have Stability.
+
+In the course of this sitting, as we shall see, I did not always agree
+with Emile de Girardin. All the more reason that I should record here
+how greatly I appreciate the mind formed of light and of courage. Emile
+de Girardin, whatever his failings may be, is one of those men who do
+honor to the Press of to-day; he unites in the highest degree the
+dexterity of the combatant with the serenity of the thinker.
+
+I went up to him, and I asked him,--
+
+"Have you any workmen of the _Presse_ still remaining?"
+
+He answered me,--
+
+"Our presses are under seal, and guarded by the _Gendarmerie Mobile_,
+but I have five or six willing workmen, they can produce a few placards
+with the brush."
+
+"Well then," said I, "print our decrees and our Proclamation." "I will
+print anything," answered he, "as long as it is not an appeal to arms."
+
+He added, addressing himself to me, "I know your Proclamation. It is a
+war-cry, I cannot print that."
+
+They remonstrated at this. He then declared that he for his part made
+Proclamations, but in a different sense from ours. That according to him
+Louis Bonaparte should not be combated by force of arms, but by creating
+a vacuum. By an armed conflict he would be the conqueror, by a vacuum he
+would be conquered. He urged us to aid him in isolating the "deposed of
+the Second December." "Let us bring about a vacuum around him!" cried
+Emile de Girardin, "let us proclaim an universal strike. Let the merchant
+cease to sell, let the consumer cease from buying, let the workman cease
+from working, let the butcher cease from killing, let the baker cease
+from baking, let everything keep holiday, even to the National Printing
+Office, so that Louis Bonaparte may not find a compositor to compose the
+_Moniteur_, not a pressman to machine it, not a bill-sticker to placard
+it! Isolation, solitude, a void space round this man! Let the nation
+withdraw from him. Every power from which the nation withdraws falls like
+a tree from which the roots are divided. Louis Bonaparte abandoned by all
+in his crime will vanish away. By simply folding our arms as we stand
+around him he will fall. On the other hand, fire on him and you will
+consolidate him. The army is intoxicated, the people are dazed and do not
+interfere, the middle classes are afraid of the President, of the people,
+of you, of every one! No victory is possible. You will go straight before
+you, like brave men, you risk your heads, very good; you will carry with
+you two or three thousand daring men, whose blood mingled with yours,
+already flows. It is heroic, I grant you. It is not politic. As for me,
+I will not print an appeal to arms, and I reject the combat. Let us
+organize an universal strike."
+
+This point of view was haughty and superb, but unfortunately I felt it
+to be unattainable. Two aspects of the truth seized Girardin, the
+logical side and the practical side. Here, in my opinion, the practical
+side was wanting.
+
+Michel de Bourges answered him. Michel de Bourges with his sound logic
+and quick reasoning put his finger on what was for us the immediate
+question; the crime of Louis Bonaparte, the necessity to rise up erect
+before this crime. It was rather a conversation than a debate, but
+Michel de Bourges and Jules Favre, who spoke next, raised it to the
+highest eloquence. Jules Favre, worthy to understand the powerful mind
+of Girardin would willingly have adopted this idea, if it had seemed
+practicable, of the universal strike, of the void around the man; he
+found it great, but impossible. A nation does not pull up short. Even
+when struck to the heart, it still moves on. Social movement, which is
+the animal life of society, survives all political movement. Whatever
+Emile de Girardin might hope, there would always be a butcher who would
+kill, a baker who would bake, men must eat! "To make universal labor
+fold its arms is a chimera!" said Jules Favre, "a dream! The People
+fight for three days, for four days, for a week; society will not wait
+indefinitely." As to the situation, it was doubtless terrible, it was
+doubtless tragical, and blood flowed, but who had brought about this
+situation? Louis Bonaparte. For ourselves we would accept it, such as it
+was, and nothing more.
+
+Emile de Girardin, steadfast, logical, absolute in his idea, persisted.
+Some might be shaken. Arguments, which were so abundant in this vigorous
+and inexhaustible mind, crowded upon him. As for me, I saw Duty before
+me like a torch.
+
+I interrupted him. I cried out, "It is too late to deliberate what we
+are to do. We have not got to do it. It is done. The gauntlet of the
+_coup d'état_ is thrown down, the Left takes it up. The matter is as
+simple as this. The outrage of the Second December is an infamous,
+insolent, unprecedented defiance to Democracy, to Civilization, to
+Liberty, to the People, to France. I repeat that we have taken up this
+gauntlet, we are the Law, but the living Law which at need can arm
+itself and fight. A gun in our hands is a protest. I do not know whether
+we shall conquer, but it is our duty to protest. To protest first in
+Parliament; when Parliament is closed, to protest in the street; when
+the street is closed, to protest in exile; when exile is fulfilled, to
+protest in the tomb. Such is our part, our office, our mission. The
+authority of the Representatives is elastic; the People bestow it,
+events extend it."
+
+While we were deliberating, our colleague, Napoleon Bonaparte, son
+of the ex-King of Westphalia, came in. He listened. He spoke. He
+energetically blamed, in a tone of sincere and generous indignation, his
+cousin's crime, but he declared that in his opinion a written protest
+would suffice. A protest of the Representatives, a protest of the
+Council of State, a protest of the Magistracy, a protest of the Press,
+that this protest would be unanimous and would enlighten France, but
+that no other form of resistance would obtain unanimity. That as for
+himself, having always considered the Constitution worthless, having
+contended against it from the first in the Constituent Assembly, he
+would not defend it at the last, that he assuredly would not give one
+drop of blood for it. That the Constitution was dead, but that the
+Republic was living, and that we must save, not the Constitution, a
+corpse, but the Republic, the principle!
+
+Remonstrances burst forth. Bancel, young, glowing, eloquent, impetuous,
+overflowing with self-confidence, cried out that we ought not to look at
+the shortcomings of the Constitution, but at the enormity of the crime
+which had been committed, the flagrant treason, the violated oath; he
+declared that we might have voted against the Constitution in the
+Constituent Assembly, and yet defend it to-day in the presence of an
+usurper; that this was logical, and that many amongst us were in this
+position. He cited me as an example. Victor Hugo, said he, is a proof of
+this. He concluded thus: "You have been present at the construction of a
+vessel, you have considered it badly built, you have given advice which
+has not been listened to. Nevertheless, you have been obliged to embark
+on board this vessel, your children and your brothers are there with
+you, your mother is on board. A pirate ranges up, axe in one hand, to
+scuttle the vessel, a torch in the other to fire it. The crew are
+resolved to defend themselves and run to arms. Would you say to this
+crew, 'For my part I consider this vessel badly built, and I will let it
+be destroyed'?"
+
+"In such a case," added Edgar Quinet, "whoever is not on the side of the
+vessel is on the side of the pirates."
+
+They shouted on all sides, "The decree! Read the decree!"
+
+I was standing leaning against the fire place. Napoleon Bonaparte came
+up to me, and whispered in my ear,--
+
+"You are undertaking," said he, "a battle which is lost beforehand."
+
+I answered him, "I do not look at success, I look at duty."
+
+He replied, "You are a politician, consequently you ought to look
+forward to success. I repeat, before you go any further, that the battle
+is lost beforehand."
+
+I resumed, "If we enter upon the conflict the battle is lost. You say
+so, I believe it; but if we do not enter upon it, honor is lost. I would
+rather lose the battle than honor."
+
+He remained silent for a moment, then he took my hand.
+
+"Be it so," continued he, "but listen to me. You run, you yourself
+personally, great dancer. Of all the men in the Assembly you are the one
+whom the President hates the most. You have from the height of the
+Tribune nicknamed him, 'Napoleon the Little.' You understand that will
+never be forgotten. Besides, it was you who dictated the appeal to arms,
+and that is known. If you are taken, you are lost. You will be shot on
+the spot, or at least transported. Have you a safe place where you can
+sleep to-night?"
+
+I had not as yet thought of this. "In truth, no," answered I.
+
+He continued, "Well, then, come to my house. There is perhaps only one
+house in Paris where you would be in safety. That is mine. They will not
+come to look for you there. Come, day or night, at what hour you please,
+I will await you, and I will open the door to you myself. I live at No.
+5, Rue d'Alger."
+
+I thanked him. It was a noble and cordial offer. I was touched by it. I
+did not make use of it, but I have not forgotten it.
+
+They cried out anew, "Read the decree! Sit down! sit down!"
+
+There was a round table before the fire place; a lamp, pens,
+blotting-books, and paper were brought there; the members of the
+Committee sat down at this table, the Representatives took their places
+around them on sofas, on arm-chairs, and on all the chairs which could
+be found in the adjoining rooms. Some looked about for Napoleon
+Bonaparte. He had withdrawn.
+
+A member requested that in the first place the meeting should declare
+itself to be the National Assembly, and constitute itself by immediately
+appointing a President and Secretaries. I remarked that there was no
+need to declare ourselves the Assembly, that we were the Assembly by
+right as well as in fact, and the whole Assembly, our absent colleagues
+being detained by force; that the National Assembly, although mutilated
+by the _coup d'état_, ought to preserve its entity and remain constituted
+afterwards in the same manner as before; that to appoint another
+President and another staff of Secretaries would be to give Louis
+Bonaparte an advantage over us, and to acknowledge in some manner the
+Dissolution; that we ought to do nothing of the sort; that our decrees
+should be published, not with the signature of a President, whoever he
+might be, but with the signature of all the members of the Left who had
+not been arrested, that they would thus carry with them full authority
+over the People, and full effect. They relinquished the idea of appointing
+a President. Noël Parfait proposed that our decrees and our resolutions
+should be drawn up, not with the formula: "The National Assembly
+decrees," etc.; but with the formula: "The Representatives of the People
+remaining at liberty decree," etc. In this manner we should preserve all
+the authority attached to the office of the Representatives of the People
+without associating the arrested Representatives with the responsibility
+of our actions. This formula had the additional advantage of separating
+us from the Right. The people knew that the only Representatives
+remaining free were the members of the Left. They adopted Noël Parfait's
+advice.
+
+I read aloud the decree of deposition. It was couched in these words:--
+
+  "DECLARATION.
+
+  "The Representatives of the people remaining at liberty, by virtue of
+  Article 68 of the Constitution, which runs as follows:--
+
+    "'Article 68.--Every measure by which the President of the Republic
+    dissolves the Assembly, prorogues it, or obstructs the exercise of
+    its authority, is a crime of High Treason.
+
+    "'By this action alone the President is deposed from his office; the
+    citizens are bound to refuse him obedience; the executive power
+    passes by right to the National Assembly; the judges of the High
+    Court of Justice should meet together immediately under penalty of
+    treason, and convoke the juries in a place which they shall appoint
+    to proceed to the judgment of the President and his accomplices.'
+
+  "Decree:--
+
+  "ARTICLE I.--Louis Bonaparte is deposed from his office of President
+  of the Republic.
+
+  "ARTICLE II.--All citizens and public officials are bound to refuse
+  him obedience under penalty of complicity.
+
+  "ARTICLE III.--The judgment drawn up on December 2d by the High Court
+  of Justice, and which declares Louis Bonaparte attainted with the
+  Crime of High Treason, shall be published and executed. Consequently
+  the civil and military authorities are summoned under penalty of
+  Treason to lend their active assistance to the execution of the said
+  judgment.
+
+  "Given at Paris, in permanent session, December 3d, 1851."
+
+The decree having been read, and voted unanimously, we signed it, and
+the Representatives crowded round the table to add their signatures to
+ours. Sain remarked that this signing took time, that in addition we
+numbered barely more than sixty, a large number of the members of the
+Left being at work in the streets in insurrection. He asked if the
+Committee, who had full powers from the whole of the Left, had any
+objection to attach to the decree the names of all the Republican
+Representatives remaining at liberty, the absent as well as those
+present. We answered that the decree signed by all would assuredly
+better answer its purpose. Besides, it was the counsel which I had
+already given. Bancel had in his pocket on old number of the _Moniteur_
+containing the result of a division.
+
+They cut out a list of the names of the members of the Left, the names
+of those who were arrested were erased, and the list was added to the
+decree.[11]
+
+The name of Emile de Girardin upon this list caught my eye. He was still
+present.
+
+"Do you sign this decree?" I asked him.
+
+"Unhesitatingly."
+
+"In that case will you consent to print it?"
+
+"Immediately."
+
+He continued,--
+
+"Having no longer any presses, as I have told you, I can only print it
+as a handbill, and with the brush. It takes a long time, but by eight
+o'clock this evening you shall have five hundred copies."
+
+"And," continued I, "you persist in refusing to print the appeal to
+arms?"
+
+"I do persist."
+
+A second copy was made of the decree, which Emile de Girardin took away
+with him. The deliberation was resumed. At each moment Representatives
+came in and brought items of news: Amiens in insurrection--Rheims and
+Rouen in motion, and marching on Paris--General Canrobert resisting the
+_coup d'état_--General Castellane hesitating--the Minister of the United
+States demanding his passports. We placed little faith in these rumors,
+and facts proved that we were right.
+
+Meanwhile Jules Favre had drawn up the following decree, which he
+proposed, and which was immediately adopted:--
+
+  "DECREE.
+
+  "FRENCH REPUBLIC.
+
+  "Liberty,--Equality,--Fraternity.
+
+  "The undersigned Representatives remaining at liberty, assembled in
+  Permanent Session,--
+
+  "Considering the arrest of the majority of our colleagues, and the
+  urgency of the moment:
+
+  "Considering that for the accomplishment of his crime Louis Bonaparte
+  has not contented himself with multiplying the most formidable means of
+  destruction against the lives and property of the citizens of Paris,
+  that he has trampled under foot every law, that he has annihilated all
+  the guarantees of civilized nations:
+
+  "Considering that these criminal madnesses only serve to augment the
+  violent denunciation of every conscience and to hasten the hour of
+  national vengeance, but that it is important to proclaim the Right:
+
+  "Decree:
+
+  "ARTICLE I.--The State of Siege is raised in all Departments where it
+  has been established, the ordinary laws resume their authority.
+
+  "ARTICLE II.--It is enjoined upon all military leaders under penalty
+  of Treason immediately to lay down the extraordinary powers which
+  have been conferred upon them.
+
+  "ARTICLE III.--Officials and agents of the public force are charged
+  under penalty of treason to put this present decree into execution.
+
+  "Given in Permanent Session, 3d December, 1851."
+
+Madier de Montjau and De Flotte entered. They came from outside. They
+had been in all the districts where the conflict was proceeding, they
+had seen with their own eyes the hesitation of a part of the population
+in the presence of these words, "The Law of the 31st May is abolished,
+Universal Suffrage is re-established." The placards of Louis Bonaparte
+were manifestly working mischief. It was necessary to oppose effort to
+effort, and to neglect nothing which could open the eyes of the people.
+I dictated the following Proclamation:-
+
+  "PROCLAMATION.
+
+  "People! you are being deceived.
+
+  "Louis Bonaparte says that he has re-established you in your rights,
+  and that he restores to you Universal Suffrage.
+
+  "Louis Bonaparte has lied.
+
+  "Read his placards. He grants you--what infamous mockery!--the right
+  of conferring on him, on him _alone_, the Constituent power; that is
+  to say, the Supreme power, which belongs to you. He grants you the
+  right to appoint him Dictator _for ten years_. In other words, he
+  grants you the right of abdicating and of crowning him. A right which
+  even you do not possess, O People! for one generation cannot dispose
+  of the sovereignty of the generation which shall follow it.
+
+  "Yes, he grants to you, Sovereign, the right of giving yourself a
+  master, and that master himself.
+
+  "Hypocrisy and treason!
+
+  "People! we unmask the hypocrite. It is for you to punish the traitor!
+
+  "The Committee of Resistance:
+
+  "Jules Favre, De Flotte, Carnot, Madier de Montjau, Mathieu (de la
+  Drôme), Michel de Bourges, Victor Hugo."
+
+Baudin had fallen heroically. It was necessary to let the People know of
+his death, and to honor his memory. The decree below was voted on the
+proposition of Michel de Bourges:--
+
+  "DECREE.
+
+  "The Representatives of the People remaining at liberty considering
+  that the Representative Baudin has died on the barricade of the
+  Faubourg St. Antoine for the Republic and for the laws, and that he
+  has deserved well of his country, decree:
+
+  "That the honors of the Panthéon are adjudged to Representative Baudin.
+
+  "Given in Permanent Session, 3d December, 1851."
+
+After honor to the dead and the needs of the conflict it was
+necessary in my opinion to enunciate immediately and dictatorially
+some great popular benefit. I proposed the abolition of the _octroi_
+duties and of the duty on liquors. This objection was raised, "No
+caresses to the people! After victory, we will see. In the meantime
+let them fight! If they do not fight, if they do not rise, if they do
+not understand that it is for them, for their rights that we the
+Representatives, that we risk our heads at this moment--if they leave
+us alone at the breach, in the presence of the _coup d'état_--it is
+because they are not worthy of Liberty!"
+
+Bancel remarked that the abolition of the _octroi_ duties and the duty
+on liquors were not caresses to the People, but succor to the poor, a
+great economical and reparatory measure, a satisfaction to the public
+demand--a satisfaction which the Right had always obstinately refused,
+and that the Left, master of the situation, ought hasten to accord. They
+voted, with the reservation that it should not be published until after
+victory, the two decrees in one; in this form:--
+
+  "DECREE.
+
+  "The Representatives remaining at liberty decree:
+
+  "The _Octroi_ Duties are abolished throughout the extent of the
+  territory of the Republic.
+
+  "Given in permanent Session, 3d December, 1851."
+
+Versigny, with a copy of the Proclamations and of the Decree, left in
+search of Hetzel. Labrousse also left with the same object. They settled
+to meet at eight o'clock in the evening at the house of the former
+member of the Provisional Government Marie, Rue Neuve des Petits Champs.
+
+As the members of the Committee and the Representatives withdrew I was
+told that some one had asked to speak to me. I went into a sort of
+little room attached to the large meeting-room, and I found there a man
+in a blouse, with an intelligent and sympathetic air. This man had a
+roll of paper in his hand.
+
+"Citizen Victor Hugo," said he to me, "you have no printing office. Here
+are the means which will enable you to dispense with one."
+
+He unfolded on the mantel-piece the roll which he had in his hand. It
+was a species of blotting-book made of very thin blue paper, and which
+seemed to be slightly oiled. Between each leaf of blue paper there was a
+sheet of white paper. He took out of his pocket a sort of blunt bodkin,
+saying, "The first thing to hand will serve your purpose, a nail or a
+match," and he traced with his bodkin on the first leaf of the book the
+word "Republic." Then turning over the leaves, he said, "Look at this."
+
+The word "Republic" was reproduced upon the fifteen or twenty white
+leaves which the book contained.
+
+He added, "This paper is usually used to trace the designs of
+manufactured fabrics. I thought that it might be useful at a moment like
+this. I have at home a hundred books like this on which I can make a
+hundred copies of what you want--a Proclamation, for instance--in the
+same space of time that it takes to write four or five. Write something,
+whatever you may think useful at the present moment, and to-morrow
+morning five hundred copies shall be posted throughout Paris."
+
+I had none of the documents with me which we had just drawn up. Versigny
+had gone away with the copies. I took a sheet of paper, and, leaning on
+the corner of the chimney-piece, I wrote the following Proclamation:--
+
+  "TO THE ARMY.
+
+  "Soldiers!
+
+  "A man has just broken the Constitution. He tears up the oath which
+  he has sworn to the people; he suppresses the law, stifles Right,
+  stains Paris with blood, chokes France, betrays the Republic!
+
+  "Soldiers, this man involves you in his crime.
+
+  "There are two things holy; the flag which represents military honor
+  and the law which represents the National Right. Soldiers, the
+  greatest of outrages is the flag raised against the Law! Follow no
+  longer the wretched man who misleads you. Of such a crime French
+  soldiers should be the avengers, not the accomplices.
+
+  "This man says he is named Bonaparte. He lies, for Bonaparte is a
+  word which means glory. This man says that he is named Napoléon. He
+  lies, for Napoléon is a word which means genius. As for him, he is
+  obscure and insignificant. Give this wretch up to the law. Soldiers,
+  he is a false Napoléon. A true Napoléon would once more give you a
+  Marengo; he will once more give you a Transnonain.
+
+  "Look towards the true function of the French army; to protect the
+  country, to propagate the Revolution, to free the people, to sustain
+  the nationalities, to emancipate the Continent, to break chains
+  everywhere, to protect Right everywhere, this is your part amongst
+  the armies of Europe. You are worthy of great battle-fields.
+
+  "Soldiers, the French Army is the advanced guard of humanity.
+
+  "Become yourselves again, reflect; acknowledge your faults; rise up!
+  Think of your Generals arrested, taken by the collar by galley
+  sergeants and thrown handcuffed into robbers' cells! The malefactor,
+  who is at the Elysée, thinks that the Army of France is a band of
+  mercenaries; that if they are paid and intoxicated they will obey.
+  He sets you an infamous task, he causes you to strangle, in this
+  nineteenth century, and in Paris itself, Liberty, Progress, and
+  Civilization. He makes you--you, the children of France--destroy all
+  that France has so gloriously and laboriously built up during the
+  three centuries of light and in sixty years of Revolution! Soldiers!
+  you are the 'Grand Army!' respect the 'Grand Nation!'
+
+  "We, citizens; we, Representatives of the People and of yourselves;
+  we, your friends, your brothers; we, who are Law and Right; we, who
+  rise up before you, holding out our arms to you, and whom you strike
+  blindly with your swords--do you know what drives us to despair? It
+  is not to see our blood which flows; it is to see your honor which
+  vanishes.
+
+  "Soldiers! one step more in the outrage, one day more with Louis
+  Bonaparte, and you are lost before universal conscience. The men who
+  command you are outlaws. They are not generals--they are criminals.
+  The garb of the galley slave awaits them; see it already on their
+  shoulders. Soldiers! there is yet time--Stop! Come back to the
+  country! Come back to the Republic! If you continue, do you know
+  what History will say of you? It will say, They have trampled under
+  the feet of their horses and crushed beneath the wheels of their
+  cannon all the laws of their country; they, French soldiers, they
+  have dishonored the anniversary of Austerlitz, and by their fault,
+  by their crime, the name of Napoléon sprinkles as much shame to-day
+  upon France as in other times it has showered glory!
+
+  "French soldiers! cease to render assistance to crime!"
+
+My colleagues of the Committee having left, I could not consult them--time
+pressed--I signed:
+
+  "For the Representatives of the People remaining at liberty, the
+  Representative member of the Committee of Resistance,
+
+  "VICTOR HUGO."
+
+The man in the blouse took away the Proclamation saying, "You will see
+it again to-morrow morning." He kept his word. I found it the nest day
+placarded in the Rue Rambuteau, at the corner of the Rue de l'Homme-Armé
+and the Chapelle-Saint-Denis. To those who were not in the secret of the
+process it seemed to be written by hand in blue ink.
+
+I thought of going home. When I reached the Rue de la Tour d'Auvergne,
+opposite my door, it happened curiously and by some chance to be half
+open. I pushed it, and entered. I crossed the courtyard, and went
+upstairs without meeting any one.
+
+My wife and my daughter were in the drawing-room round the fire with
+Madame Paul Meurice. I entered noiselessly; they were conversing in a
+low tone. They were talking of Pierre Dupont, the popular song-writer,
+who had come to me to ask for arms. Isidore, who had been a soldier, had
+some pistols by him, and had lent three to Pierre Dupont for the
+conflict.
+
+Suddenly these ladies turned their heads and saw me close to them. My
+daughter screamed. "Oh, go away," cried my wife, throwing her arms round
+my neck, "you are lost if you remain here a moment. You will be arrested
+here!" Madame Paul Meurice added, "They are looking for you. The police
+were here a quarter of an hour ago." I could not succeed in reassuring
+them. They gave me a packet of letters offering me places of refuge for
+the night, some of them signed with names unknown to me. After some
+moments, seeing them more and more frightened, I went away. My wife said
+to me, "What you are doing, you are doing for justice. Go, continue!" I
+embraced my wife and my daughter; five months have elapsed at the time
+when I am writing these lines. When I went into exile they remained near
+my son Victor in prison; I have not seen them since that day.
+
+I left as I had entered. In the porter's lodge there were only two or
+three little children seated round a lamp, laughing and looking at
+pictures in a book.
+
+
+[11] This list, which belongs to History, having served as the base of
+the proscription list, will be found complete in the sequel to this book
+to be published hereafter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+THE ARCHBISHOP
+
+On this gloomy and tragical day an idea struck one of the people.
+
+He was a workman belonging to the honest but almost imperceptible
+minority of Catholic Democrats. The double exaltation of his mind,
+revolutionary on one side, mystical on the other, caused him to be
+somewhat distrusted by the people, even by his comrades and his friends.
+Sufficiently devout to be called a Jesuit by the Socialists,
+sufficiently Republican to be called a Red by the Reactionists, he
+formed an exception in the workshops of the Faubourg. Now, what is
+needed in these supreme crises to seize and govern the masses are men
+of exceptional genius, not men of exceptional opinion. There is no
+revolutionary originality. In order to be something, in the time of
+regeneration and in the days of social combat, one must bathe fully in
+those powerful homogeneous mediums which are called parties. Great
+currents of men follow great currents of ideas, and the true
+revolutionary leader is he who knows how best to drive the former in
+accordance with the latter.
+
+Now the Gospel is in accordance with the Revolution, but Catholicism is
+not. This is due to the fact that in the main the Papacy is not in
+accordance with the Gospel. One can easily understand a Christian
+Republican, one cannot understand a Catholic Democrat. It is a
+combination of two opposites. It is a mind in which the negative bars
+the way to the affirmative. It is a neuter.
+
+Now in time revolution, whoever is neuter of is impotent. Nevertheless,
+during the first hours of resistance against the _coup d'état_ the
+democratic Catholic workman, whose noble effort we are here relating,
+threw himself so resolutely into the cause of Justice and of Truth, that
+in a few moments he transformed distrust into confidence, and was hailed
+by the people. He showed such gallantry at the rising of the barricade
+of the Rue Aumaire that with an unanimous voice they appointed him their
+leader. At the moment of the attack he defended it as he had built it,
+with ardor. That was a sad but glorious battle-field; most of his
+companions were killed, and he escaped only by a miracle.
+
+However, he succeeded in returning home, saying to himself bitterly,
+"All is lost."
+
+It seemed evident to him that the great masses of the people would not
+rise. Thenceforward it appeared impossible to conquer the _coup d'état_
+by a revolution; it could be only combated by legality. What had been
+the risk at the beginning became the hope at the end, for he believed
+the end to be fatal, and at hand. In his opinion it was necessary, as
+the people were defaulters, to try now to arouse the middle classes. Let
+one legion of National Guards go out in arms, and the Elysée was lost.
+For this a decisive blow must be struck--the heart of the middle classes
+must be reached--the "bourgeois" must be inspired by a grand spectacle
+which should not be a terrifying spectacle.
+
+It was then that this thought came to this workman, "Write to the
+Archbishop of Paris."
+
+The workman took a pen, and from his humble garret he wrote to the
+Archbishop of Paris an enthusiastic and earnest letter in which he, a
+man of the people and a believer, said this to his Bishop; we give the
+substance of his letter:--
+
+"This is a solemn hour, Civil War sets by the ears the Army and People,
+blood is being shed. When blood flows the Bishop goes forth. M. Sibour
+should follow in the path of M. Affre. The example is great, the
+opportunity is still greater.
+
+"Let the Archbishop of Paris, followed by all his clergy, the Pontifical
+cross before him, his mitre on his head, go forth in procession through
+the streets. Let him summon to him the National Assembly and the High
+Court, the Legislators in their sashes, the Judges in their scarlet
+robes; let him summon to him the citizens, let him summon to him the
+soldiers, let him go straight to the Elysée. Let him raise his hand in
+the name of Justice against the man who is violating the laws, and in
+the name of Jesus against the man who is shedding blood. Simply with
+his raised hand he will crush the _coup d'état_.
+
+"And he will place his statue by the side of M. Affre, and it will be
+said that twice two Archbishops of Paris have trampled Civil War beneath
+their feet."
+
+"The Church is holy, but the Country is sacred. There are times when the
+Church should succor the Country."
+
+The letter being finished, he signed it with his workman's signature.
+
+But now a difficulty arose; how should it be conveyed to its destination?
+
+Take it himself!
+
+But would he, a mere workman in a blouse, be allowed to penetrate to the
+Archbishop!
+
+And then, in order to reach the Archiepiscopal Palace, he would have to
+cross those very quarters in insurrection, and where, perhaps, the
+resistance was still active. He would have to pass through streets
+obstructed by troops, he would be arrested and searched; his hands smelt
+of powder, he would be shot; and the letter would not reach its
+destination.
+
+What was to be done?
+
+At the moment when he had almost despaired of a solution, the name of
+Arnauld de l'Ariége came to his mind.
+
+Arnauld de l'Ariége was a Representative after his own heart. Arnauld de
+l'Ariége was a noble character. He was a Catholic Democrat like the
+workman. At the Assembly he raised aloft, but he bore nearly alone, that
+banner so little followed which aspires to ally the Democracy with the
+Church. Arnauld de l'Ariége, young, handsome, eloquent, enthusiastic,
+gentle, and firm, combined the attributes of the Tribune with the faith
+of the knight. His open nature, without wishing to detach itself from
+Rome, worshipped Liberty. He had two principles, but he had not two
+faces. On the whole the democratic spirit preponderated in him. He said
+to me one day, "I give my hand to Victor Hugo. I do not give it to
+Montalembert."
+
+The workman knew him. He had often written to him, and had sometimes
+seen him.
+
+Arnauld de l'Ariége lived in a district which had remained almost free.
+
+The workman went there without delay.
+
+Like the rest of us, as has been seen, Arnauld de l'Ariége had taken
+part in the conflict. Like most of the Representatives of the Left, he
+had not returned home since the morning of the 2d. Nevertheless, on the
+second day, he thought of his young wife whom he had left without
+knowing if he should see her again, of his baby of six months old which
+she was suckling, and which he had not kissed for so many hours, of that
+beloved hearth, of which at certain moments one feels an absolute need
+to obtain a fleeting glimpse, he could no longer resist; arrest, Mazas,
+the cell, the hulks, the firing party, all vanished, the idea of danger
+was obliterated, he went home.
+
+It was precisely at that moment that the workman arrived there.
+
+Arnauld de l'Ariége received him, read his letter, and approved of it.
+
+Arnauld de l'Ariége knew the Archbishop of Paris personally.
+
+M. Sibour, a Republican priest appointed Archbishop of Paris by General
+Cavaignac, was the true chief of the Church dreamed of by the liberal
+Catholicism of Arnauld de l'Ariége. On behalf of the Archbishop, Arnauld
+de l'Ariége represented in the Assembly that Catholicism which M. de
+Montalembert perverted. The democratic Representative and the Republic
+Archbishop had at times frequent conferences, in which acted as
+intermediatory the Abbé Maret, an intelligent priest, a friend of the
+people and of progress, Vicar-General of Paris, who has since been Bishop
+_in partibus_ of Surat. Some days previously Arnauld had seen the
+Archbishop, and had received his complaints of the encroachment of the
+Clerical party upon the episcopal authority, and he even proposed shortly
+to interpellate the Ministry on this subject and to take the question
+into the Tribune.
+
+Arnauld added to the workman's letter a letter of introduction, signed
+by himself, and enclosed the two letters in the same envelope.
+
+But here the same question arose.
+
+How was the letter to be delivered?
+
+Arnauld, for still weightier reasons than those of the workman, could
+not take it himself.
+
+And time pressed!
+
+His wife saw his difficulty and quietly said,--
+
+"I will take charge of it."
+
+Madame Arnauld de l'Ariége, handsome and quite young, married scarcely
+two years, was the daughter of the Republican ex-Constituent Guichard,
+worthy daughter of such a father, and worthy wife of such a husband.
+
+They were fighting in Paris; it was necessary to face the dangers of the
+streets, to pass among musket-balls, to risk her life.
+
+Arnauld de l'Ariége hesitated.
+
+"What do you want to do?" he asked.
+
+"I will take this letter."
+
+"You yourself?"
+
+"I myself."
+
+"But there is danger."
+
+She raised her eyes, and answered,--
+
+"Did I make that objection to you when you left me the day before
+yesterday?"
+
+He kissed her with tears in his eyes, and answered, "Go."
+
+But the police of the _coup d'état_ were suspicious, many women were
+searched while going through the streets; this letter might be found on
+Madame Arnauld. Where could this letter be hidden?
+
+"I will take my baby with me," said Madame Arnauld.
+
+She undid the linen of her little girl, hid the letter there, and
+refastened the swaddling band.
+
+When this was finished the father kissed his child on the forehead, and
+the mother exclaimed laughingly,--
+
+"Oh, the little Red! She is only six months' old, and she is already a
+conspirator!"
+
+Madame Arnauld reached the Archbishop's Palace with some difficulty. Her
+carriage was obliged to take a long round. Nevertheless she arrived
+there. She asked for the Archbishop. A woman with a child in her arms
+could not be a very terrible visitor, and she was allowed to enter.
+
+But she lost herself in courtyards and staircases. She was seeking her
+way somewhat discouraged, when she met the Abbé Maret. She knew him. She
+addressed him. She told him the object of her expedition. The Abbé Maret
+read the workman's letter, and was seized with enthusiasm: "This may
+save all," said he.
+
+He added, "Follow me, madam, I will introduce you."
+
+The Archbishop of Paris was in the room which adjoins his study. The
+Abbé Maret ushered Madame Arnauldé into the study, informed the
+Archbishop, and a moment later the Archbishop entered. Besides the Abbé
+Maret, the Abbé Deguerry, the Curé of the Madeleine, was with him.
+
+Madame Arnauld handed to M. Sibour the two letters of her husband and
+the workman. The Archbishop read them, and remained thoughtful.
+
+"What answer am I to take back to my husband?" asked Madame Arnauld.
+
+"Madame," replied the Archbishop, "it is too late. This should have been
+done before the struggle began. Now, it would be only to risk the
+shedding of more blood than perhaps has yet been spilled."
+
+The Abbé Deguerry was silent. The Abbé Maret tried respectfully to turn
+the mind of his Bishop towards the grand effort unsoiled by the workman.
+He spoke eloquently. He laid great stress open this argument, that the
+appearance of the Archbishop would bring about a manifestation of the
+National Guard, and that a manifestation of the National Guard would
+compel the Elysée to draw back.
+
+"No," said the Archbishop, "you hope for the impossible. The Elysée will
+not draw back now. You believe that I should stop the bloodshed--not at
+all; I should cause it to flow, and that in torrents. The National Guard
+has no longer any influence. If the legions appeared, the Elysée could
+crush the legions by the regiments. And then, what is an Archbishop in
+the presence of the Man of the _coup d'état_? Where is the oath? Where
+is the sworn faith? Where is the Respect for Right? A man does not turn
+back when he has made three steps in such a crime. No! No! Do not hope.
+This man will do all. He has struck the Law in the hand of the
+Representatives. He will strike God in mine."
+
+And he dismissed Madame Arnauld with the look of a man overwhelmed with
+sorrow.
+
+Let us do the duty of the Historian. Six weeks afterwards, in the Church
+of Notre Dame, some one was singing the _Te Deum_ in honor of the
+treason of December--thus making God a partner in a crime.
+
+This man was the Archbishop Sibour.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+MOUNT VALERIEN
+
+Of the two hundred and thirty Representatives prisoners at the barracks
+of the Quai d'Orsay fifty-three had been sent to Mount Valérien. They
+loaded them in four police vans. Some few remained who were packed in an
+omnibus. MM. Benoist d'Azy, Falloux, Piscatory, Vatimesail, were locked
+in the wheeled cells, as also Eugène Sue and Esquiros. The worthy M.
+Gustave de Beaumont, a great upholder of the cellular system, rode in a
+cell vehicle. It is not an undesirable thing, as we have said, that the
+legislator should taste of the law.
+
+The Commandant of Mount Valérien appeared under the archway of the fort
+to receive the Representative prisoners.
+
+He at first made some show of registering them in the jailer's book.
+General Oudinot, under whom he had served, rebuked him severely,--
+
+"Do you know me?"
+
+"Yes, General."
+
+"Well then, let that suffice. Ask no more."
+
+"Yes," said Tamisier. "Ask more and salute. We are more than the Army;
+we are France."
+
+The commandant understood. From that moment he was hat in hand before
+the generals, and bowed low before the Representatives.
+
+They led them to the barracks of the fort and shut them up promiscuously
+in a dormitory, to which they added fresh beds, and which the soldiers
+had just quitted. They spent their first night there. The beds touched
+each other. The sheets were dirty.
+
+Next morning, owing to a few words which had been heard outside, the
+rumor spread amongst them that the fifty-three were to be sorted, and
+that the Republicans were to be placed by themselves. Shortly afterwards
+the rumor was confirmed. Madame de Luynes gained admission to her
+husband, and brought some items of news. It was asserted, amongst other
+things, that the Keeper of the Seals of the _coup d'état_, the man who
+signed himself Eugène Rouher, "Minister of Justice," had said, "Let them
+set the men of the Right at liberty, and send the men of the Left to the
+dungeon. If the populace stirs they will answer for everything. As a
+guarantee for the submission of the Faubourgs we shall have the head of
+the Reds."
+
+We do not believe that M. Rouher uttered these words, in which there is
+so much audacity. At that moment M. Rouher did not possess any.
+Appointed Minister on the 2d December, he temporized, he exhibited a
+vague prudery, he did not venture to install himself in the Place
+Vendôme. Was all that was being done quite correct? In certain minds the
+doubt of success changes into scruples of conscience. To violate every
+law, to perjure oneself, to strangle Right, to assassinate the country,
+are all these proceedings wholly honest? While the deed is not
+accomplished they hesitate. When the deed has succeeded they throw
+themselves upon it. Where there is victory there is no longer treason;
+nothing serves like success to cleanse and render acceptable that
+unknown thing which is called crime. During the first moments M. Rocher
+reserved himself. Later on he has been one of the most violent advisers
+of Louis Bonaparte. It is all very simple. His fear beforehand explains
+his subsequent zeal.
+
+The truth is, that these threatening words had been spoken not by
+Rouher, but by Persigny.
+
+M. de Luynes imparted to his colleagues what was in preparation, and
+warned them that they would be asked for their names in order that the
+white sheep might be separated from the scarlet goats. A murmur which
+seemed to be unanimous arose. These generous manifestations did honor to
+the Representatives of the Right.
+
+"No! no! Let us name no one, let us not allow ourselves to be sorted,"
+exclaimed M. Gustave de Beaumont.
+
+M. de Vatimesnil added, "We have come in here all together, we ought to
+go out all together."
+
+Nevertheless a few moments afterwards Antony Thouret was informed that a
+list of names was being secretly prepared, and that the Royalist
+Representatives were invited to sign it. They attributed, doubtless
+wrongly, this unworthy resolution to the honorable M. de Falloux.
+
+Antony Thouret spoke somewhat warmly in the centre of the group, which
+were muttering together in the dormitory.
+
+"Gentlemen," said he, "a list of names is being prepared. This would be
+an unworthy action. Yesterday at the Mairie of the Tenth Arrondissement
+you said to us, 'There is no longer Left or Right; we are the Assembly.'
+You believed in the victory of the People, and you sheltered yourself
+behind us Republicans. Today you believe in the victory of the _coup
+d'état_, and you would again become Royalists, to deliver us up, us
+Democrats! Truly excellent. Very well! Pray do so."
+
+A universal shout arose.
+
+"No! No! No more Right or Left! All are the Assembly. The same lot for
+all!"
+
+The list which had been begun was seized and burnt.
+
+"By decision of the Chamber," said M. de Vatimesnil, smiling. A
+Legitimist Representative added,--
+
+"Of the Chamber? No, let us say of the Chambered."
+
+A few moments afterwards the Commissary of the fort appeared, and in
+polite phrases, which, however, savored somewhat of authority, invited
+each of the Representatives of the People to declare his name in order
+that each might be allotted to his ultimate destination.
+
+A shout of indignation answered him.
+
+"No one! No one will give his name," said General Oudinot.
+
+Gustave de Beaumont added,--
+
+"We all bear the same name: Representatives of the People."
+
+The Commissary saluted them and went away.
+
+After two hours he came back. He was accompanied this time by the Chief
+of the Ushers of the Assembly, a man named Duponceau, a species of
+arrogant fellow with a red face and white hair, who on grand days
+strutted at the foot of the Tribune with a silvered collar, a chain over
+his stomach, and a sword between his legs.
+
+The Commissary said to Duponceau,--"Do your duty."
+
+What the Commissary meant, and what Duponceau understood by this word
+_duty_, was that the Usher should denounce the Legislators. Like the
+lackey who betrays his masters.
+
+It was done in this manner.
+
+This Duponceau dared to look in the faces of the Representatives by
+turn, and he named them one after the other to a policeman, who took
+notes of them.
+
+The Sieur Duponceau was sharply castigated while holding this review.
+
+"M. Duponceau," said M. Vatimesnil to him, "I always thought you an
+idiot, but I believed you to be an honest man."
+
+The severest rebuke was administered by Antony Thouret. He looked Sieur
+Duponceau in the face, and said to him, "You deserve to be named Dupin."
+
+The Usher in truth was worthy of being the President, and the President
+was worthy of being the Usher.
+
+The flock having been counted, the classification having been made,
+there were found to be thirteen goats: ten Representatives of the Left;
+Eugène Sue, Esquires, Antony Thouret, Pascal Duprat, Chanay, Fayolle,
+Paulin Durrien, Benoit, Tamisier, Tailard Latérisse, and three members
+of the Right, who since the preceding day had suddenly become Red in the
+eyes of the _coups d'état_; Oudinot, Piscatory, and Thuriot de la
+Rosière.
+
+They confined these separately, and they set at liberty one by one the
+forty who remained.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+THE LIGHTNING BEGINS TO FLASH AMONGST THE PEOPLE
+
+The evening wore a threatening aspect.
+
+Groups were formed on the Boulevards. As night advanced they grew larger
+and became mobs, which speedily mingled together, and only formed one
+crowd. An enormous crowd, reinforced and agitated by tributary currents
+from the side-streets, jostling one against another, surging, stormy,
+and whence ascended an ominous hum. This hubbub resolved itself into one
+word, into one name which issued simultaneously from every mouth, and
+which expressed the whole of the situation: "Soulouque!"[12] Throughout
+that long line from the Madeleine to the Bastille, the roadway nearly
+everywhere, except (was this on purpose?) at the Porte St. Denis and the
+Porte St. Martin, was occupied by the soldiers--infantry and cavalry,
+ranged in battle-order, the artillery batteries being harnessed; on the
+pavements on each side of this motionless and gloomy mass, bristling
+with cannon, swords, and bayonets, flowed a torrent of angry people. On
+all sides public indignation prevailed. Such was the aspect of the
+Boulevards. At the Bastille there was a dead calm.
+
+At the Porte St. Martin the crowd, hemmed together and uneasy, spoke in
+low tones. Groups of workmen talked in whispers. The Society of the 10th
+December made some efforts there. Men in white blouses, a sort of
+uniform which the police assumed during those days, said, "Let us leave
+them alone; let the 'Twenty-five francs' settle it amongst themselves!
+They deserted us in June, 1848; to-day let them get out of the
+difficulty alone! It does not concern us!" Other blouses, blue blouses,
+answered them, "We know what we have to do. This is only the beginning,
+wait and see."
+
+Others told how the barricades of the Rue Aumaire were being rebuilt,
+how a large number of persons had already been killed there, how they
+fired without any summons, how the soldiers were drunk, how at various
+points in the district there were ambulances already crowded with killed
+and wounded. All this was said seriously, without loud speaking, without
+gesture, in a confidential tone. From time to time the crowd were silent
+and listened, and distant firing was heard.
+
+The groups said, "Now they are beginning to tear down the curtain."
+
+We were holding Permanent Session at Marie's house in the Rue Croix des
+Petits Champs. Promises of co-operation poured in upon us from every
+side. Several of our colleagues, who had not been able to find us on the
+previous day, had joined us, amongst others Emmanuel Arago, gallant son
+of an illustrious father; Farconnet and Roussel (de l'Yonne), and some
+Parisian celebrities, amongst whom was the young and already well-known
+defender of the _Avénement du Peuple_, M. Desmarets.
+
+Two eloquent men, Jules Favre and Alexander Rey, seated at a large table
+near the window of the small room, were drawing up a Proclamation to the
+National Guard. In the large room Sain, seated in an arm-chair, his feet
+on the dog-irons, drying his wet boots before a huge fire, said, with
+that calm and courageous smile which he wore in the Tribune, "Things are
+looking badly for us, but well for the Republic. Martial law is
+proclaimed; it will be carried out with ferocity, above all against us.
+We are laid in wait for, followed, tracked, there is little probability
+that we shall escape. To-day, to-morrow, perhaps in ten minutes, there
+will be a 'miniature massacre' of Representatives. We shall be taken
+here or elsewhere, shot down on the spot or killed with bayonet thrusts.
+They will parade our corpses, and we must hope that that will at length
+raise the people and overthrow Bonaparte. We are dead, but Bonaparte is
+lost."
+
+At eight o'clock, as Emile de Girardin had promised, we received from
+the printing office of the _Presse_ five hundred copies of the decree of
+deposition and of outlawry endorsing the judgment of the High Court, and
+with all our signatures attached. It was a placard twice as large as
+one's hand, and printed on paper used for proofs. Noël Parfait brought us
+the five hundred copies, still damp, between his waistcoat and his shirt.
+Thirty Representatives divided the bills amongst them, and we sent them
+on the Boulevards to distribute the Decree to the People.
+
+The effect of this Decree falling in the midst of the crowd was
+marvellous. Some _cafés_ had remained open, people eagerly snatched the
+bills, they pressed round the lighted shop windows, they crowded under
+the street lamps. Some mounted on kerbstones or on tables, and read
+aloud the Decree.--"That is it! Bravo!" cried the people. "The
+signatures!" "The signatures!" they shouted. The signatures were read
+out, and at each popular name the crowd applauded. Charamaule, merry and
+indignant, wandered through the groups, distributing copies of the
+Decree; his great stature, his loud and bold words, the packet of
+handbills which he raised, and waved above his head, caused all hands to
+be stretched out towards him. "Shout 'Down with Soulouque!'" said he,
+"and you shall have some." All this in the presence of the soldiers.
+Even a sergeant of the line, noticing Charamaule, stretched out his hand
+for one of the bills which Charamaule was distributing. "Sergeant," said
+Charamaule to him, "cry, 'Down with Soulouque!'" The sergeant hesitated
+for a moment, and answered "No." "Well, then," replied Charamaule,
+"Shout, 'Long live Soulouque.'" This time the sergeant did not hesitate,
+he raised his sword, and, amid bursts of laughter and of applause, he
+resolutely shouted, "Long live Soulouque!"
+
+The reading of the Decree added a gloomy warmth to the popular anger.
+They set to work on all sides to tear down the placards of the _coup
+d'état_. At the door of the Café des Variétés a young man cried out to
+the officers, "You are drunk!" Some workmen on the Boulevard
+Bonne-Nouvelle shook their fists at the soldiers and said, "Fire, then,
+you cowards, on unarmed men! If we had guns you would throw the butts of
+your muskets in the air." Charges of cavalry began to be made in front
+of the Café Cardinal.
+
+As there were no troops on the Boulevard St. Martin and the Boulevard du
+Temple, the crowd was more compact pact there than elsewhere. All the
+shops were shut there; the street lamps alone gave any light. Against
+the gloss of the unlighted windows heads might be dimly seen peering
+out. Darkness produced silence; this multitude, as we have already said,
+was hushed. There was only heard a confused whispering. Suddenly a
+light, a noise, an uproar burst forth from the entrance of the Rue St.
+Martin. Every eye was turned in that direction; a profound upheaving
+agitated the crowd; they rushed forward, they pressed against the
+railings of the high pavements which border the cutting between the
+theatres of the Porte St. Martin and the Ambigu. A moving mass was seen,
+and an approaching light. Voices were singing. This formidable chorus
+was recognized,
+
+    "Aux armes, Citoyens; formez vos bataillons!"
+
+Lighted torches were coming, it was the "Marseillaise," that other torch
+of Revolution and of warfare which was blazing.
+
+The crowd made way for the mob which carried the torches, and which were
+singing. The mob reached the St. Martin cutting, and entered it. It was
+then seen what this mournful procession meant. The mob was composed of
+two distinct groups. The first carried on its shoulders a plank, on which
+could be seen stretched an old man with a white beard, stark, the mouth
+open, the eyes fixed, and with a hole in his forehead. The swinging
+movement of the bearers shook the corpse, and the dead head rose and fell
+in a threatening and pathetic manner. One of the men who carried him,
+pale, and wounded in the breast, placed his hand to his wound, leant
+against the feet of the old man, and at times himself appeared ready to
+fall. The other group bore a second litter, on which a young man was
+stretched, his countenance pale and his eyes closed, his shirt stained,
+open over his breast, displaying his wounds. While bearing the two
+litters the groups sang. They sang the "Marseillaise," and at each chorus
+they stopped and raised their torches, crying, "To arms!" Some young men
+waved drawn swords. The torches shed a lurid light on the pallid
+foreheads of the corpses and on the livid faces of the crowd. A shudder
+ran through the people. It appeared as though they again saw the terrible
+vision of February, 1848.
+
+This gloomy procession came from the Rue Aumaire. About eight o'clock
+some thirty workmen gathered together from the neighborhood of the
+markets, the same who on the next day raised the barricade of the
+Guérin-Boisseau, reached the Rue Aumaire by the Rue de Petit Lion, the
+Rue Neuve-Bourg-l'Abbé, and the Carré St. Martin. They came to fight,
+but here the combat was at an end. The infantry had withdrawn after
+having pulled down the barricades. Two corpses, an old man of seventy
+and a young man of five-and-twenty, lay at the corner of the street on
+the ground, with uncovered faces, their bodies in a pool of blood, their
+heads on the pavement where they had fallen. Both were dressed in
+overcoats, and seemed to belong to the middle class. The old man had his
+hat by his side; he was a venerable figure with a white beard, white
+hair, and a calm expression. A ball had pierced his skull.
+
+The young man's breast was pierced with buck-shot. One was the father,
+the other the son. The son, seeing his father fall, had said, "I also
+will die." Both were lying side by side.
+
+Opposite the gateway of the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers there was
+a house in course of building. They fetched two planks from it, they
+laid the corpses on the planks, the crowd raised them upon their
+shoulders, they brought torches, and they began their march. In the Rue
+St. Denis a man in a white blouse barred the way. "Where are you going?"
+said he to them. "You will bring about disasters! You are helping the
+'Twenty-five francs!'" "Down with the police! Down with the white
+blouse!" shouted the crowd. The man slunk away.
+
+The mob swelled on its road; the crowd opened out and repeated the
+"Marseillaise" in chorus, but with the exception of a few swords no one
+was armed. On the boulevard the emotion was intense. Women clasped their
+hands in pity. Workmen were heard to exclaim, "And to think that we have
+no arms!"
+
+The procession, after having for some time followed the Boulevards,
+re-entered the streets, followed by a deeply-affected and angry
+multitude. In this manner it reached the Rue de Gravilliers. Then a
+squad of twenty _sergents de ville_ suddenly emerging from a narrow
+street rushed with drawn swords upon the men who were carrying the
+litters, and overturned the corpses into the mud. A regiment of
+Chasseurs came up at the double, and put an end to the conflict with
+bayonet thrusts. A hundred and two citizen prisoners were conducted to
+the Prefecture. The two corpses received several sword-cuts in the
+confusion, and were killed a second time. The brigadier Revial, who
+commanded the squad of the _sergents de ville_, received the Cross of
+Honor for this deed of arms.
+
+At Marie's we were on the point of being surrounded. We decided to leave
+the Rue Croix des Petits Champs.
+
+At the Elysée they commenced to tremble. The ex-Commandant Fleury, one
+of the aides-de-camp of the Presidency, was summoned into the little
+room where M. Bonaparte had remained throughout the day. M. Bonaparte
+conferred a few moments alone with M. Fleury, then the aide-de-camp came
+out of the room, mounted his horse, and galloped off in the direction of
+Mazas.
+
+After this the men of the _coup d'état_ met together in M. Bonaparte's
+room, and held council. Matters were visibly going badly; it was
+probable that the battle would end by assuming formidable proportions.
+Up to that time they had desired this, now they did not feel sure that
+they did not fear it. They pushed forward towards it, but they
+mistrusted it. There were alarming symptoms in the steadfastness of the
+resistance, and others not less serious in the cowardice of adherents.
+Not one of the new Ministers appointed during the morning had taken
+possession of his Ministry--a significant timidity on the part of people
+ordinarily so prompt to throw themselves upon such things. M. Roulier,
+in particular, had disappeared, no one knew where--a sign of tempest.
+Putting Louis Bonaparte on one side, the _coup d'état_ continued to rest
+solely upon three names, Morny, St. Arnaud, and Maupas. St. Arnaud
+answered for Magnan. Morny laughed and said in a whisper, "But does
+Magnan answer for St. Arnaud?" These men adopted energetic measures,
+they sent for new regiments; an order to the garrisons to march upon
+Paris was despatched in the one direction as far as Cherbourg, and on
+the other as far as Maubeuge. These criminals, in the main deeply
+uneasy, sought to deceive each other. They assumed a cheerful
+countenance; all spoke of victory; each in the background arranged for
+flight; in secret, and saying nothing, in order not to give the alarm to
+his compromised colleagues, so as, in case of failure, to leave the
+people some men to devour. For this little school of Machiavellian apes
+the hopes of a successful escape lie in the abandonment of their
+friends. During their flight they throw their accomplices behind them.
+
+
+[12] A popular nickname for Louis Bonaparte. Faustin Soulouque was the
+negro Emperor of Hayti, who, when President of the Republic, had carried
+out a somewhat similar _coup d'état_ in 1848, being subsequently elected
+Emperor. He treated the Republicans with great cruelty, putting most of
+them to death.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+
+WHAT FLEURY WENT TO DO AT MAZAS
+
+During the same night towards four o'clock the approaches of the
+Northern Railway Station were silently invested by two regiments; one
+of Chasseurs de Vincennes, the other of _Gendarmerie Mobile_. Numerous
+squads of _sergents de ville_ installed themselves in the terminus. The
+station-master was ordered to prepare a special train and to have an
+engine ready. A certain number of stokers and engineers for night
+service were retained. No explanation however was vouchsafed to any
+one, and absolute secrecy was maintained. A little before six o'clock a
+movement was apparent in the troops. Some _sergents de ville_ came
+running up, and a few minutes afterwards a squadron of Lancers emerged
+at a sharp trot from the Rue du Nord. In the centre of the squadron and
+between the two lines of horse-soldiers could be seen two police-vans
+drawn by post-horses, behind each vehicle came a little open barouche,
+in which there sat one man. At the head of the Lancers galloped the
+aide-de-camp Fleury.
+
+The procession entered the courtyard, then the railway station, and the
+gates and doors were reclosed.
+
+The two men in the barouches made themselves known to the Special
+Commissary of the station, to whom the aide-de-camp Fleury spoke
+privately. This mysterious convoy excited the curiosity of the railway
+officials; they questioned the policemen, but these knew nothing. All
+that they could tell was that these police-vans contained eight places,
+that in each van there were four prisoners, each occupying a cell, and
+that the four other cells were filled by four _sergents de ville_
+placed between the prisoners so as to prevent any communication between
+the cells.
+
+After various consultations between the aide-de-camp of the Elysée and
+the men of the Prefect Maupas, the two police-vans were placed on
+railway trucks, each having behind it the open barouche like a wheeled
+sentry-box, where a police agent acted as sentinel. The engine was
+ready, the trucks were attached to the tender, and the train started. It
+was still pitch dark.
+
+For a long time the train sped on in the most profound silence.
+Meanwhile it was freezing, in the second of the two police-vans, the
+_sergents de ville_, cramped and chilled, opened their cells, and in
+order to warm and stretch themselves walked up and down the narrow
+gangway which runs from end to end of the police-vans. Day had broken,
+the four _sergents de ville_ inhaled the outside air and gazed at the
+passing country through a species of port-hole which borders each side
+of the ceiling of the passage. Suddenly a loud voice issued from one of
+the cells which had remained closed, and cried out, "Hey! there! it is
+very cold, cannot I relight my cigar here?"
+
+Another voice immediately issued from a second cell, and said, "What! it
+is you? Good-morning, Lamoricière!"
+
+"Good-morning, Cavaignac!" replied the first voice.
+
+General Cavaignac and General Lamoricière had just recognized each
+other.
+
+A third voice was raised from a third cell. "Ah! you are there,
+gentlemen. Good-morning and a pleasant journey."
+
+He who spoke then was General Changarnier.
+
+"Generals?" cried out a fourth voice. "I am one of you!"
+
+The three generals recognized M. Baze. A burst of laughter came from the
+four cells simultaneously.
+
+This police-van in truth contained, and was carrying away from Paris,
+the Questor Baze, and the Generals Lamoricière, Cavaignac, and
+Changarnier. In the other vehicle, which was placed foremost on the
+trucks, there were Colonel Charras, Generals Bedeau and Le Flô, and
+Count Roger (du Nord).
+
+At midnight these eight Representative prisoners were sleeping in their
+cells at Mazas, when they heard a sudden knocking at their doors, and a
+voice cried out to them, "Dress, they are coming to fetch you." "Is it to
+shoot us?" cried Charras from the other side of the door. They did not
+answer him. It is worth remarking that this idea came simultaneously to
+all. And in truth, if we can believe what has since transpired through
+the quarrels of accomplices, it appears that in the event of a sudden
+attack being made by us upon Mazas to deliver them, a fusillade had been
+resolved upon, and that St. Arnaud had in his pocket the written order,
+signed "Louis Bonaparte."
+
+The prisoners got up. Already on the preceding night a similar notice
+had been given to them. They had passed the night on their feet, and at
+six o'clock in the morning the jailer said to them, "You can go to bed."
+The hours passed by; they ended by thinking it would be the same as the
+preceding night, and many of them, hearing five o'clock strike from the
+clock tower inside the prison, were going to get back into bed, when the
+doors of their cells were opened. All the eight were taken downstairs
+one by one into the clerk's office in the Rotunda, and were then ushered
+into the police-van without having met or seen each other during the
+passage. A man dressed in black, with an impertinent bearing, seated at
+a table with pen in hand, stopped them on their way, and asked their
+names. "I am no more disposed to tell you my name than I am curious to
+learn yours," answered General Lamoricière, and he passed outside.
+
+The aide-de-camp Fleury, concealing his uniform under his hooded cloak,
+stationed himself in the clerk's office. He was charged, to use his own
+words, to "embark" them, and to go and report their "embarkation" at the
+Elysée. The aide-de-camp Fleury had passed nearly the whole of his
+military career in Africa in General Lamoricière's division; and it was
+General Lamoricière who in 1848, then being Minister of War, had
+promoted him to the rank of major. While passing through the clerk's
+office, General Lamoricière looked fixedly at him.
+
+When they entered the police-vans the generals were smoking cigars. They
+took them from them. General Lamoricière had kept his. A voice from
+outside cried three separate times, "Stop his smoking!" A _sergent de
+ville_ who was standing by the door of the cell hesitated for
+some time, but however ended by saying to the general, "Throw away your
+cigar."
+
+Thence later on ensued the exclamation which caused General Cavaignac to
+recognize General Lamoricière. The vehicles having been loaded they set
+off.
+
+They did not know either with whom they were or where they were going.
+Each observed for himself in his box the turnings of the streets, and
+tried to speculate. Some believed that they were being taken to the
+Northern Railway Station; others thought to the Havre Railway Station.
+They heard the trot of the escort on the paving-stones.
+
+On the railway the discomfort of the cells greatly increased. General
+Lamoricière, encumbered with a parcel and a cloak, was still more jammed
+in than the others. He could not move, the cold seized him, and he ended
+by the exclamation which put all four of them in communication with each
+other.
+
+On hearing the names of the prisoners their keepers, who up to that time
+had been rough, became respectful. "I say there," said General
+Changarnier, "open our cells, and let us walk up and down the passage
+like yourselves." "General," said a _sergent de ville_, "we are forbidden
+to do so. The Commissary of Police is behind the carriage in a barouche,
+whence he sees everything that is taking place here." Nevertheless, a
+few moments afterwards, the keepers, under pretext of cold, pulled up
+the ground-glass window which closed the vehicle on the side of the
+Commissary, and having thus "blocked the police," as one of them
+remarked, they opened the cells of the prisoners.
+
+It was with great delight that the four Representatives met again and
+shook hands. Each of these three generals at this demonstrative moment
+maintained the character of his temperament. Lamoricière, impetuous and
+witty, throwing himself with all his military energy upon "the Bonaparte;"
+Cavaignac, calm and cold; Changarnier, silent and looking out through
+the port-hole at the landscape. The _sergents de ville_ ventured to put
+in a word here and there. One of them related to the prisoners that the
+ex-Prefect Carlier had spent the night of the First and Second at the
+Prefecture of Police. "As for me," said he, "I left the Prefecture at
+midnight, but I saw him up to that hour, and I can affirm that at
+midnight he was there still."
+
+They reached Creil, and then Noyon. At Noyon they gave them some
+breakfast, without letting them get out, a hurried morsel and a glass of
+wine. The Commissaries of Police did not open their lips to them. Then
+the carriages were reclosed, and they felt they were being taken off the
+trucks and being replaced on the wheels. Post horses arrived, and the
+vehicles set out, but slowly; they were now escorted by a company of
+infantry _Gendarmerie Mobile_.
+
+When they left Noyon they had been ten hours in the police-van. Meanwhile
+the infantry halted. They asked permission to get out for a moment "We
+consent," said one of the Commissaries of the Police, "but only for a
+minute, and on condition that you will give your word of honor not to
+escape." "We will give our word of honor," replied the prisoners.
+"Gentlemen," continued the Commissary, "give it to me only for one
+minute, the time to drink a glass of water." "No," said General
+Lamoricière, "but the time to do the contrary," and he added, "To Louis
+Bonaparte's health." They allowed them to get out, one by one, and they
+were, able to inhale for a moment the fresh air in the open country by
+the side of the road.
+
+Then the convoy resumed its march.
+
+As the day waned they saw through their port-hole a mass of high walls,
+somewhat overtopped by a great round tower. A moment afterwards the
+carriages entered beneath a low archway, and then stopped in the centre
+of a long courtyard, steeply embanked, surrounded by high walls, and
+commanded by two buildings, of which one had the appearance of a
+barrack, and the other, with bars at all the windows, had the appearance
+of a prison. The doors of the carriages were opened. An officer who wore
+a captain's epaulets was standing by the steps. General Changarnier came
+down first. "Where are we?" said he. The officer answered, "You are at
+Ham."
+
+This officer was the Commandant of the Fort. He had been appointed to
+this post by General Cavaignac.
+
+The journey from Noyon to Ham had lasted three hours and a half. They
+had spent thirteen hours in the police van, of which ten were on the
+railway.
+
+They led them separately into the
+prison, each to the room that was allotted to him. However, General
+Lamoricière having been taken by mistake into Cavaignac's room, the two
+generals could again exchange a shake of the hand. General Lamoricière
+wished to write to his wife; the only letter which the Commissaries of
+Police consented to take charge of was a note containing this line: "I
+am well."
+
+The principal building of the prison of Ham is composed of a story above
+the ground floor. The ground floor is traversed by a dark and low
+archway, which leads from the principal courtyard into a back yard, and
+contains three rooms separated by a passage; the first floor contains
+five rooms. One of the three rooms on the ground floor is only a little
+ante-room, almost uninhabitable; there they lodged M. Baze. In the
+remaining lower chambers they installed General Lamoricière and General
+Changarnier. The five other prisoners were distributed in the five rooms
+of the first floor.
+
+The room allotted to General Lamoricière had been occupied in the time
+of the captivity of the Ministers of Charles X. by the ex-Minister of
+Marine, M. d'Haussez. It was a low, damp room, long uninhabited, and
+which had served as a chapel, adjoining the dreary archway which led
+from one courtyard to the other, floored with great planks slimy and
+mouldy, to which the foot adhered, papered with a gray paper which had
+turned green, and which hung in rags, exuding saltpetre from the floor
+to the ceiling, lighted by two barred windows looking on to the
+courtyard, which had always to be left open on account of the smoky
+chimney. At the bottom of the room was the bed, and between the windows
+a table and two straw-bottomed chairs. The damp ran down the walls. When
+General Lamoricière left this room he carried away rheumatism with him;
+M. de Haussez went out crippled.
+
+When the eight prisoners had entered their rooms, the doors were shut
+upon them; they heard the bolts shot from outside, and they were told:
+"You are in close confinement."
+
+General Cavaignac occupied on the first floor the former room of M. Louis
+Bonaparte, the best in the prison. The first thing which struck the eye
+of the General was an inscription traced on the well, and stating the day
+when Louis Bonaparte had entered this fortress, and the day when he had
+left it, as is well known, disguised as a mason, and with a plank on his
+shoulder. Moreover, the choice of this building was an attention on the
+part of M. Louis Bonaparte, who having in 1848 taken the place of General
+Cavaignac in power; wished that in 1851 General Cavaignac should take his
+place in prison.
+
+"Turn and turn about!" Morny had said, smiling.
+
+The prisoners were guarded by the 48th of the Line, who formed the
+garrison at Ham. The old Bastilles are quite impartial. They obey those
+who make _coups d'état_ until the day when they clutch them. What do
+these words matter to them, Equity, Truth, Conscience, which moreover in
+certain circles do not move men any more than stones? They are the cold
+and gloomy servants of the just and of the unjust. They take whatever is
+given them. All is good to them. Are they guilty? Good! Are they
+innocent? Excellent! This man is the organizer of an ambush. To prison!
+This man is the victim of an ambush! Enter him in the prison register!
+In the same room. To the dungeon with all the vanquished!
+
+These hideous Bastilles resemble that old human justice which possessed
+precisely as much conscience as they have, which condemned Socrates and
+Jesus, and which also takes and leaves, seizes and releases, absolves
+and condemns, liberates and incarcerates, opens and shuts, at the will
+of whatever hand manipulates the bolt from outside.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+
+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 Théâtre Français, 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 Hôtel 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 Hôtel 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.
+
+
+
+
+THE THIRD DAY--THE MASSACRE.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+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 Hôtel 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 Théâtre Français, 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+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."
+
+
+[13] The above is a free rendering of the original, which is as follows:--
+
+    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?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+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.
+
+
+[14] Better known afterwards as Persigny.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+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_."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+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 François 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+ITEMS AND INTERVIEWS
+
+Lamoricière on the same morning found means to convey to me by Madame de
+Courbonne[15] 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,
+Leflô, 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 Leflô, 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 Leflô were invited, and had made an
+appointment there with General Canrobert. But the ball did not form a
+part of Madame Leflô'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 Leflô 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 Leflô, "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_."
+
+
+[15] No. 16, Rue d'Anjou, Saint Honoré.
+
+[16] The author still has in his possession the note written by
+Lamoricière.
+
+[17] Later on, the wound having got worse, he was obliged to have his
+leg taken off.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+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
+letter[18] 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 Hôtel 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 Hôtel 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 Hôtel 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 Hôtel 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.
+
+
+[18] The original of this note is in the hands of the author of this
+book. It was handed to us by M. Avenel on the part of M. Bocage.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+
+MY VISIT TO THE BARRICADE
+
+My coachman deposited me at the corner of Saint Eustache, and said to
+me, "Here you are in the hornets' nest."
+
+He added, "I will wait for you in the Rue de la Vrillière, near the
+Place des Victoires. Take your time."
+
+I began walking from barricade to barricade.
+
+In the first I met De Flotte, who offered to serve me as a guide. There
+is not a more determined man than De Flotte. I accepted his offer; he
+took me everywhere where my presence could be of use.
+
+On the way he gave me an account of the steps taken by him to print our
+proclamations; Boulé's printing-office having failed him, he had applied
+to a lithographic press, at No. 30, Rue Bergère, and at the peril of
+their lives two brave men had printed 500 copies of our decrees. These
+two true-hearted workmen were named, the one Rubens, the other Achille
+Poincellot.
+
+While walking I made jottings in pencil (with Baudin's pencil, which I
+had with me); I registered facts at random; I reproduce this page here.
+These living facts are useful for History; the _coup d'état_ is there,
+as though freshly bleeding.
+
+"Morning of the 4th. It looks as if the combat was suspended. Will it
+burst forth again? Barricades visited by me: one at the corner of
+Saint Eustache. One at the Oyster Market. One in the Rue Mauconseil.
+One in the Rue Tiquetonne. One in the Rue Mandar (Rocher de Cancale).
+One barring the Rue du Cadran and the Rue Montorgueil. Four closing
+the Petit-Carreau. The beginning of one between the Rue des Deux
+Portes and the Rue Saint Sauveur, barring the Rue Saint Denis. One,
+the largest, barring the Rue Saint Denis, at the top of the Rue
+Guérin-Boisseau. One barring the Rue Grenetat. One farther on in the
+Rue Grenetat, barring the Rue Bourg-Labbé (in the centre an overturned
+flour wagon; a good barricade). In the Rue Saint Denis one barring the
+Rue de Petit-Lion-Saint-Sauveur. One barring the Rue du Grand
+Hurleur, with its four corners barricaded. This barricade has already
+been attacked this morning. A combatant, Massonnet, a comb-maker of
+154, Rue Saint Denis, received a ball in his overcoat; Dupapet, called
+'the man with the long beard,' was the last to stay on the summit of
+the barricade. He was heard to cry out to the officers commanding the
+attack, 'You are traitors!' He is believed to have been shot. The
+troops retired--strange to say without demolishing the barricade. A
+barricade is being constructed in the Rue du Renard. Some National
+Guards in uniform watch its construction, but do not work on it. One
+of them said to me, 'We are not against you, you are on the side of
+Right.' They add that there are twelve or fifteen barricades in the
+Rue Rambuteau. This morning at daybreak the cannon had fired
+'steadily,' as one of them remarks, in the Rue Bourbon-Villeneuve. I
+visit a powder manufactory improvised by Leguevel at a chemist's
+opposite the Rue Guérin-Boisseau.
+
+"They are constructing the barricades amicably, without angering any
+one. They do what they can not to annoy the neighborhood. The combatants
+of the Bourg-Labbé barricades are ankle-deep in mud on account of the
+rain. It is a perfect sewer. They hesitate to ask for a truss of straw.
+They lie down in the water or on the pavement.
+
+"I saw there a young man who was ill, and who had just got up from his
+bed with the fever still on him. He said to me, 'I am going to my death'
+(he did so).
+
+"In the Rue Bourbon-Villeneuve they had not even asked a mattress of the
+'shopkeepers,' although, the barricade being bombarded, they needed them
+to deaden the effect of the balls.
+
+"The soldiers make bad barricades, because they make them too well. A
+barricade should be tottering; when well built it is worth nothing; the
+paving-stones should want equilibrium, 'so that they may roll down on
+the troopers,' said a street-boy to me, 'and break their paws.' Sprains
+form a part of barricade warfare.
+
+"Jeanty Sarre is the chief of a complete group of barricades. He
+presented his first lieutenant to me, Charpentier, a man of thirty-six,
+lettered and scientific. Charpentier busies himself with experiments
+with the object of substituting gas for coal and wood in the firing of
+china, and he asks permission to read a tragedy to me 'one of these
+days.' I said to him, 'We shall make one.'
+
+"Jeanty Sarre is grumbling at Charpentier; the ammunition is failing.
+Jeanty Sarre, having at his house in the Rue Saint Honoré a pound of
+fowling-powder and twenty army cartridges, sent Charpentier to get them.
+Charpentier went there, and brought back the fowling-powder and the
+cartridges, but distributed them to the combatants on the barricades
+whom he met on the way. 'They were as though famished,' said he.
+Charpentier had never in his life touched a fire-arm. Jeanty Sarre
+showed him how to load a gun.
+
+"They take their meals at a wine-seller's at the corner, and they warm
+themselves there. It is very cold. The wine-seller says, 'Those who are
+hungry, go and eat.' A combatant asked him, 'Who pays?' 'Death,' was the
+answer. And in truth some hours afterwards he had received seventeen
+bayonet thrusts.
+
+"They have not broken the gas-pipes--always for the sake of not doing
+unnecessary damage. They confine themselves to requisitioning the
+gasmen's keys, and the lamplighters' winches in order to open the pipes.
+In this manner they control the lighting or extinguishing.
+
+"This group of barricades is strong, and will play an important part. I
+had hoped at one moment that they would attack it while I was there. The
+bugle had approached, and then had gone away again. Jeanty Sarre tells
+me 'it will be for this evening.'
+
+"His intention is to extinguish the gas in the Rue du Petit-Carreau and
+all the adjoining streets, and to leave only one jet lighted in the Rue
+du Cadran. He has placed sentinels as far as the corner of the Rue Saint
+Denis; at that point there is an open side, without barricades, but
+little accessible to the troops, on account of the narrowness of the
+streets, which they can only enter one by one. Thence little danger
+exists, an advantage of narrow streets; the troops are worth nothing
+unless massed together. The soldier does not like isolated action; in
+war the feeling of elbow to elbow constitutes half the bravery. Jeanty
+Sarre has a reactionary uncle with whom he is not on good terms, and who
+lives close by at No. 1, Rue du Petit-Carreau.--'What a fright we shall
+give him presently!' said Jeanty Sarre to me, laughing. This morning
+Jeanty Sarre has inspected the Montorgueil barricade. There was only one
+man on it, who was drunk, and who put the barrel of his gun against his
+breast, saying, 'No thoroughfare.' Jeanty Sarre disarmed him.
+
+"I go to the Rue Pagevin. There at the corner of the Place des Victoires
+there is a well-constructed barricade. In the adjoining barricade in the
+Rue Jean Jacques Rousseau, the troops this morning made no prisoners.
+The soldiers had killed every one. There are corpses as far as the Place
+des Victoires. The Pagevin barricade held its own. There are fifty men
+there, well armed. I enter. 'Is all going on well?' 'Yes.' 'Courage.' I
+press all these brave hands; they make a report to me. They had seen a
+Municipal Guard smash in the head of a dying man with the butt end of
+his musket. A pretty young girl, wishing to go home, took refuge in the
+barricade. There, terrified, she remained for an hour. When all danger
+was over, the chef of the barricade caused her to be reconducted home by
+the eldest of his men.
+
+"As I was about to leave the barricade Pagevin, they brought me a
+prisoner, a police spy, they said.
+
+"He expected to be shot. I had him set at liberty."
+
+Bancel was in this barricade of the Rue Pagevin. We shook hands.
+
+He asked me,--
+
+"Shall we conquer?"
+
+"Yes," I answered.
+
+We then could hardly entertain a doubt.
+
+De Flotte and Bancel wished to accompany me, fearing that I should be
+arrested by the regiment guarding the Bank.
+
+The weather was misty and cold, almost dark. This obscurity concealed
+and helped us. The fog was on our side.
+
+As we reached the corner of the Rue de la Vrillière, a group on
+horseback passed by.
+
+It consisted of a few others, preceded by a man who seemed a soldier,
+but who was not in uniform. He wore a cloak with a hood.
+
+De Flotte nudged me with his elbow, and whispered,--
+
+"Do you know Fialin?"
+
+I answered,--
+
+"No."
+
+"Have you seen him?
+
+"No."
+
+"Do you wish to see him?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Look at him."
+
+I looked at him.
+
+This man in truth was passing before us. It was he who preceded the
+group of officers. He came out of the Bank. Had he been there to effect
+a new forced loan? The people who were at the doors looked at him with
+curiosity, and without anger. His entire bearing was insolent. He turned
+from time to time to say a word to one of his followers. This little
+cavalcade "pawed the ground" in the mist and in the mud. Fialin had the
+arrogant air of a man who caracoles before a crime. He gazed at the
+passers-by with a haughty look. His horse was very handsome, and, poor
+beast, seemed very proud. Fialin was smiling. He had in his hand the
+whip that his face deserved.
+
+He passed by. I never saw the man except on this occasion.
+
+De Flotte and Bancel did not leave me until they had seen me get into my
+vehicle. My true-hearted coachman was waiting for me in the Rue de la
+Vrillière. He brought me back to No 15, Rue Richelieu.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+
+THE BARRICADE OF THE RUE MESLAY
+
+The first barricade of the Rue Saint Martin was erected at the junction
+of the Rue Meslay. A large cart was overturned, placed across the
+street, and the roadway was unpaved; some flag-stones of the footway
+were also torn up. This barricade, the advanced work of defence of the
+whole revolted street, could only form a temporary obstacle. No portion
+of the piled-up stones was higher than a man. In a good third of the
+barricade the stones did not reach above the knee. "It will at all
+events be good enough to get killed in," said a little street Arab who
+was rolling numerous flag-stones to the barricade. A hundred combatants
+took up their position behind it. Towards nine o'clock the movements of
+the troops gave warning of the attack. The head of the column of the
+Marulaz Brigade occupied the corner of the street on the side of the
+boulevard. A piece of artillery, raking the whole of the street, was
+placed in position before the Porte Saint Martin. For some time both
+sides gazed on each other in that moody silence which precedes an
+encounter; the troops regarding the barricade bristling with guns, the
+barricade regarding the gaping cannon. After a while the order for a
+general attack was given. The firing commenced. The first shot passed
+above the barricade, and struck a woman who was passing some twenty
+paces in the rear, full in the breast. She fell, ripped open. The fire
+became brisk without doing much injury to the barricade. The cannon was
+too near; the bullets flew too high.
+
+The combatants, who had not yet lost a man, received each bullet with a
+cry of "Long live the Republic!" but without firing. They possessed few
+cartridges, and they husbanded them. Suddenly the 49th regiment
+advanced in close column order.
+
+The barricade fired.
+
+The smoke filled the street; when it cleared away, there could be seen
+a dozen men on the ground, and the soldiers falling back in disorder by
+the side of the houses. The leader of the barricade shouted, "They are
+falling back. Cease firing! Let us not waste a ball."
+
+The street remained for some time deserted. The cannon recommenced
+fining. A shot came in every two minutes, but always badly aimed. A man
+with a fowling-piece came up to the leader of the barricade, and said
+to him, "Let us dismount that cannon. Let us kill the gunners."
+
+"Why!" said the chief, smiling, "they are doing us no harm, let us do
+none to them."
+
+Nevertheless the sound of the bugle could be distinctly heard on the
+other side of the block of houses which concealed the troops echelloned
+on the Square of Saint Martin, and it was manifest that a second attack
+was being prepared.
+
+This attack would naturally be furious, desperate, and stubborn.
+
+It was also evident that, if this barricade were carried, the entire
+street would be scoured. The other barricades were still weaker than
+the first, and more feebly defended. The "middle class" had given their
+guns, and had re-entered their houses. They lent their street, that was
+all.
+
+It was therefore necessary to hold the advanced barricade as long as
+possible. But what was to be done, and how was the resistance to be
+maintained? They had scarcely two shots per man left.
+
+An unexpected source of supply arrived.
+
+A young man, I can name him, for he is dead--Pierre Tissié,[19] who was
+a workman, and who also was a poet, had worked during a portion of the
+morning at the barricades, and at the moment when the firing began he
+went away, stating as his reason that they would not give him a gun. In
+the barricade they had said, "There is one who is afraid."
+
+Pierre Tissié was not afraid, as we shall see later on.
+
+He left the barricade.
+
+Pierre Tissié had only his knife with him, a Catalan knife; he opened
+it at all hazards, he held it in his hand, and went on straight before
+him.
+
+As he came out of the Rue Saint Sauveur, he saw at the corner of a
+little lonely street, in which all the windows were closed, a soldier
+of the line standing sentry, posted there doubtlessly by the main guard
+at a little distance.
+
+This soldier was at the halt with his gun to his shoulder ready to
+fire.
+
+He heard the step of Pierre Tissié, and cried out,--
+
+"Who goes there?"
+
+"Death!" answered Pierre Tissié.
+
+The soldier fired, and missed Pierre Tissié, who sprang on him, and
+struck him down with a blow of his knife.
+
+The soldier fell, and blood spurted out of his mouth.
+
+"I did not know I should speak so truly," muttered Pierre Tissié.
+
+And he added, "Now for the ambulance!"
+
+He took the soldier on his back, picked up the gun which had fallen to
+the ground, and came back to the barricade. "I bring you a wounded
+man," said he.
+
+"A dead man," they exclaimed.
+
+In truth the soldier had just expired.
+
+"Infamous Bonaparte!" said Tissié. "Poor red breeches! All the same, I
+have got a gun."
+
+They emptied the soldier's pouch and knapsack. They divided the
+cartridges. There were 150 of them. There were also two gold pieces of
+ten francs, two days' pay since the 2d of December. These were thrown
+on the ground, no one would take them.
+
+They distributed the cartridges with shouts of "Long live the Republic!"
+
+Meanwhile the attacking party had placed a mortar in position by the
+side of the cannon.
+
+The distribution of the cartridges was hardly ended when the infantry
+appeared, and charged upon the barricade with the bayonet. This second
+assault, as had been foreseen, was violent and desperate. It was
+repulsed. Twice the soldiers returned to the charge, and twice they
+fell back, leaving the street strewn with dead. In the interval between
+the assaults, a shell had pierced and dismantled the barricade, and the
+cannon began to fire grape-shot.
+
+The situation was hopeless; the cartridges were exhausted. Some began
+to throw down their guns and go away. The only means of escape was by
+the Rue Saint Sauveur, and to reach the corner of the Rue Saint Sauveur
+it was necessary to get over the lower part of the barricade, which
+left nearly the whole of the fugitives unprotected. There was a perfect
+rain of musketry and grape-shot. Three or four were killed there, one,
+like Baudin, by a ball in his eye. The leader of the barricade suddenly
+noticed that he was alone with Pierre Tissié, and a boy of fourteen
+years old, the same who had rolled so many stones for the barricade. A
+third attack was pending, and the soldiers began to advance by the side
+of the houses.
+
+"Let us go," said the leader of the barricade.
+
+"I shall remain," said Pierre Tissié.
+
+"And I also," said the boy.
+
+And the boy added,--
+
+"I have neither father nor mother. As well this as anything else."
+
+The leader fired his last shot, and retired like the others over the
+lower part of the barricade. A volley knocked off his hat. He stooped
+down and picked it up again. The soldiers were not more than
+twenty-five paces distant.
+
+He shouted to the two who remained,--
+
+"Come along!"
+
+"No," said Pierre Tissié.
+
+"No," said the boy.
+
+A few moments afterwards the soldiers scaled the barricade already half
+in ruins.
+
+Pierre Tissié and the boy were killed with bayonet thrusts.
+
+Some twenty muskets were abandoned in this barricade.
+
+
+[19] It must not be forgotten that this has been written in exile, and
+that to name a hero was to condemn him to exile.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+
+THE BARRICADE OF THE MAIRIE OF THE FIFTH ARRONDISSEMENT
+
+National Guards in uniform filled the courtyard of the Mairie of the
+Fifth Arrondissement. Others came in every moment. An ex-drummer of the
+Garde Mobile had taken a drum from a lower room at the side of the
+guard-room, and had beaten the call to arms in the surrounding streets.
+Towards nine o'clock a group of fourteen or fifteen young men, most of
+whom were in white blouses, entered the Mairie, shouting, "Long live
+the Republic!" They were armed with guns. The National Guard received
+them with shouts of "Down with Louis Bonaparte!" They fraternized in
+the courtyard. Suddenly there was a movement. It was caused by the
+arrival of the Representatives Doutre and Pelletier.
+
+"What is to be done?" shouted the crowd.
+
+"Barricades," said Pelletier.
+
+They unharnessed the horses, which the carter led away, and they turned
+the cart round without upsetting it across the wide roadway of the
+faubourg. The barricade was completed in a moment. A truck came up.
+They took it and stood it against the wheels of the cart, just as a
+screen is placed before a fireplace.
+
+The remainder was made up of casks and paving-stones. Thanks to the
+flour-cart the barricade was lofty, and reached to the first story of
+the houses. It intersected the faubourg at the corner of the little Rue
+Saint Jean. A narrow entrance had been contrived at the barricade at
+the corner of the street.
+
+"One barricade is not sufficient," said Doutre, "we must place the
+Mairie between two barriers, so as to be able to defend both sides at
+the same time."
+
+They constructed a second barricade, facing the summit of the faubourg.
+This one was low and weakly built, being composed only of planks and of
+paving-stones. There was about a hundred paces distance between the two
+barricades.
+
+There were three hundred men in this space. Only one hundred had guns.
+The majority had only one cartridge.
+
+The firing began about ten o'clock. Two companies of the line appeared
+and fired several volleys. The attack was only a feint. The barricade
+replied, and made the mistake of foolishly exhausting its ammunition.
+The troops retired. Then the attack began in earnest. Some Chasseurs de
+Vincennes emerged from the corner of the boulevard.
+
+Following out the African mode of warfare, they glided along the side
+of the walls, and then, with a run, they threw themselves upon the
+barricade.
+
+No more ammunition in the barricade. No quarter to be expected.
+
+Those who had no more powder or balls threw down their guns. Some
+wished to reoccupy their position in the Mairie, but it was impossible
+for them to maintain any defence there, the Mairie being open and
+commanded from every side; they scaled the walls and scattered
+themselves about in the neighboring houses; others escaped by the
+narrow passage of the boulevard which led into the Rue Saint Jean; most
+of the combatants reached the opposite side of the boulevard, while
+those who had a cartridge left fired a last volley upon the troops from
+the height of the paving-stones. Then they awaited their death. All
+were killed.
+
+One of those who succeeded in slipping into the Rue Saint Jean, where
+moreover they ran the gauntlet of a volley from their assailants, was
+M.H. Coste, Editor of the _Evénement_ and of the _Avénement du Peuple_.
+
+M. Coste had been a captain in the Garde Mobile. At a bend in the
+street, which placed him out of reach of the balls, M. Conte noticed in
+front of him the drummer of the Garde Mobile, who, like him, had
+escaped by the Rue Saint Jean, and who was profiting by the loneliness
+of the street to get rid of his drum.
+
+"Keep your drum," cried he to him.
+
+"For what purpose?"
+
+"To beat the call to arms."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"At Batignolles."
+
+"I will keep it," said the drummer.
+
+These two men came out from the jaws of death, and at once consented to
+re-enter them.
+
+But how should they cross all Paris with this drum? The first patrol
+which met them would shoot them. A porter of an adjoining house, who
+noticed their predicament, gave them a packing-cloth. They enveloped
+the drum in it, and reached Batignolles by the lonely streets which
+skirt the walls.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+THE BARRICADE OF THE RUE THEVENOT
+
+Georges Biscarrat was the man who had given the signal for the looting
+in the Rue de l'Echelle.
+
+I had known Georges Biscarrat ever since June, 1848. He had taken part
+in that disastrous insurrection. I had had an opportunity of being
+useful to him. He had been captured, and was kneeling before the
+firing-party; I interfered, and I saved his life, together with that of
+some others, M., D., D., B., and that brave-hearted architect Rolland,
+who when an exile, later on, so ably restored the Brussels Palace of
+Justice.
+
+This took place on the 24th June, 1848, in the underground floor of No.
+93, Boulevard Beaumarchais, a house then in course of construction.
+
+Georges Biscarrat became attached to me. It appeared that he was the
+nephew of one of the oldest and best friends of my childhood, Félix
+Biscarrat, who died in 1828. Georges Biscarrat came to see me from time
+to time, and on occasions he asked my advice or gave me information.
+
+Wishing to preserve him from evil influences, I had given him, and he
+had accepted, this guiding maxim, "No insurrection except for Duty and
+for Right."
+
+What was this hooting in the Rue de l'Echelle? Let us relate the
+incident.
+
+On the 2d of December, Bonaparte had made an attempt to go out. He had
+ventured to go and look at Paris. Paris does not like being looked at
+by certain eyes; it considers it an insult, and it resents an insult
+more than a wound. It submits to assassination, but not to the leering
+gaze of the assassin. It took offence at Louis Bonaparte.
+
+At nine o'clock in the morning, at the moment when the Courbevoie
+garrison was descending upon Paris, the placards of the _coup d'état_
+being still fresh upon the walls, Louis Bonaparte had left the Elysée,
+had crossed the Place de la Concorde, the Garden of the Tuileries, and
+the railed courtyard of the Carrousel, and had been seen to go out, by
+the gate of the Rue de l'Echelle. A crowd assembled at once. Louis
+Bonaparte was in a general's uniform; his uncle, the ex-King Jérôme,
+accompanied him, together with Flahaut, who kept in the near. Jérôme
+wore the full uniform of a Marshal of France, with a hat with a white
+feather; Louis Bonaparte's horse was a head before Jérôme's horse.
+Louis Bonaparte was gloomy, Jérôme attentive, Flahaut beaming. Flahaut
+had his hat on one side. There was a strong escort of Lancers. Edgar
+Ney followed. Bonaparte intended to go as far as the Hôtel de Ville.
+Georges Biscarrat was there. The street was unpaved, the road was being
+macadamized; he mounted on a heap of stones, and shouted, "Down with
+the Dictator! Down with the Praetorians!" The soldiers looked at him
+with bewilderment, and the crowd with astonishment. Georges Biscarrat
+(he told me so himself) felt that this cry was too erudite, and that it
+would not be understood, so he shouted, "Down with Bonaparte! Down with
+the Lancers!"
+
+The effect of this shout was electrical. "Down with Bonaparte! Down
+with the Lancers!" cried the people, and the whole street became stormy
+and turbulent. "Down with Bonaparte!" The outcry resembled the
+beginning of an execution; Bonaparte made a sudden movement to the
+right, turned back, and re-entered the courtyard of the Louvre.
+
+Georges Biscarrat felt it necessary to complete his shout by a
+barricade.
+
+He said to the bookseller, Benoist Mouilhe, who had just opened his
+shop, "Shouting is good, action is better." He returned to his house in
+the Rue du Vert Bois, put on a blouse and a workman's cap, and went
+down into the dark streets. Before the end of the day he had made
+arrangements with four associations--the gas-fitters, the last-makers,
+the shawl-makers, and the hatters.
+
+In this manner he spent the day of the 2d of December.
+
+The day of the 3d was occupied in goings and comings "almost useless."
+So Biscarrat told Versigny, and he added, "However I have succeeded in
+this much, that the placards of the _coup d'état_ have been everywhere
+torn down, so much so that in order to render the tearing down more
+difficult the police have ultimately posted them in the public
+conveniences--their proper place."
+
+On Thursday, the 4th, early in the morning, Georges Biscarrat went to
+Ledouble's restaurant, where four Representatives of the People usually
+took their meals, Brives, Bertlhelon, Antoine Bard, and Viguier,
+nicknamed "Father Viguier." All four were there. Viguier related what
+we had done on the preceding evening, and shared my opinion that the
+closing catastrophe should be hurried on, that the Crime should be
+precipitated into the abyss which befitted it. Biscarrat came in. The
+Representatives did not know hire, and stared at him. "Who are you?"
+asked one of them. Before he could answer, Dr. Petit entered, unfolded
+a paper, and said,--
+
+"Does any one know Victor Hugo's handwriting?"
+
+"I do," said Biscarrat. He looked at the paper. It was my proclamation
+to the army. "This must be printed," said Petit. "I will undertake it,"
+said Biscarrat. Antoine Bard asked him, "Do you know Victor Hugo?" "He
+saved my life," answered Biscarrat. The Representatives shook hands
+with him.
+
+Guilgot arrived. Then Versigny. Versigny knew Biscarrat. He had seen
+him at my house. Versigny said, "Take care what you do. There is a man
+outside the door." "It is a shawl-maker," said Biscarrat. "He has come
+with me. He is following me." "But," resumed Versigny, "he is wearing a
+blouse, beneath which he has a handkerchief. He seems to be hiding
+this, and he has something in the handkerchief."
+
+"Sugar-plums," said Biscarrat.
+
+They were cartridges.
+
+Versigny and Biscarrat went to the office of the _Siècle_; at the
+_Siècle_ thirty workmen, at the risk of being shot, offered to print my
+Proclamation. Biscarrat left it with them, and said to Versigny, "Now I
+want my barricade."
+
+The shawl-maker walked behind them. Versigny and Biscarrat turned their
+steps towards the top of the Saint Denis quarter. When they drew near
+to she Porte Saint Denis they heard the hum of many voices. Biscarrat
+laughed and said to Versigny, "Saint Denis is growing angry, matters
+are improving." Biscarrat recruited forty combatants on the way,
+amongst whom was Moulin, head of the association of leather-dressers.
+Chapuis, sergeant-major of the National Guard, brought them four
+muskets and ten swords. "Do you know where there are any more?" asked
+Biscarrat. "Yes, at the Saint Sauveur Baths." They went there, and
+found forty muskets. They gave them swords and cartridge-pouches.
+Gentlemen well dressed, brought tin boxes containing powder and balls.
+Women, brave and light-hearted, manufactured cartridges. At the first
+door adjoining the Rue du Hasard-Saint-Sauveur they requisitioned iron
+bars and hammers from a large courtyard belonging to a locksmith.
+Having the arms, they had the men. They speedily numbered a hundred.
+They began to tear up the pavements. It was half-past ten. "Quick!
+quick!" cried Georges Biscarrat, "the barricade of my dreams!" It was
+in the Rue Thévenot. The barrier was constructed high and formidable.
+To abridge. At eleven o'clock Georges Biscarrat had completed his
+barricade. At noon he was killed there.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+
+OSSIAN AND SCIPIO
+
+Arrests grew more numerous.
+
+Towards noon a Commissary of Police, named Boudrot, appeared at the
+divan of the Rue Lepelletier. He was accompanied by the police agent
+Delahodde. Delahodde was that traitorous socialist writer, who, upon
+being unmasked, had passed from the Secret Police to the Public Police
+Service. I knew him, and I record this incident. In 1832 he was a
+master in the school at which were my two sons, then boys, and he had
+addressed poetry to me. At the same time he was acting the spy upon me.
+The Lepelletier divan was the place of meeting of a large number of
+Republican journalists. Delahodde knew them all. A detachment of the
+Republican Guard occupied the entrances to the café. Then ensued an
+inspection of all the ordinary customers, Delahodde walking first, with
+the Commissary behind him. Two Municipal Guards followed them. From
+time to time Delahodde looked round and said, "Lay hold of this man."
+In this manner some score of writers were arrested, among whom were
+Hennett de Kesler.[20] On the preceding evening Kesler had been on the
+Saint Antoine barricade. Kesler said to Delahodde, "You are a miserable
+wretch." "And you are an ungrateful fellow," replied Delahodde; "_I am
+saving your life_." Curious words; for it is difficult to believe that
+Delahodde was in the secret of what was to happen on the fatal day of
+the Fourth.
+
+At the head-quarters of the Committee encouraging information was
+forwarded to us from every side. Testelin, the Representative of Lille,
+is not only a learned man, but a brave man. On the morning of the 3d he
+had reached, shortly after me, the Saint Antoine barricade, where
+Baudin had just been killed. All was at an end in that direction.
+Testelin was accompanied by Charles Gambon, another dauntless man.[21]
+The two Representatives wandered through the agitated and dark streets,
+little followed, in no way understood, seeking a ferment of insurgents,
+and only finding a swarming of the curious. Testelin, nevertheless,
+having come to the Committee, informed us of the following:--At the
+corner of a street of the Faubourg Saint Antoine Gambon and himself had
+noticed a crowd. They had gone up to it. This crowd was reading a bill
+placarded on a wall. It was the Appeal to Arms signed "Victor Hugo."
+Testelin asked Gambon, "Have you a pencil?" "Yes," answered Gambon.
+Testelin took the pencil, went up to the placard, and wrote his name
+beneath mine, then he gave the pencil to Gambon, who in turn wrote his
+name beneath that of Testelin. Upon this the crowd shouted, "Bravo!
+these are true-hearted men!" "Shout 'Long live the Republic!'" cried
+Testelin. All shouted "Long live the Republic!" "And from above, from
+the open windows," added Gambon, "women clapped their hands."
+
+"The little hands of women applauding are a good sign," said Michel de
+Bourges.
+
+As has been seen, and we cannot lay too much stress upon the fact, what
+the Committee of Resistance wished was to prevent the shedding of blood
+as much as possible. To construct barricades, to let them be destroyed,
+and to reconstruct them at other points, to avoid the army, and to wear
+it out, to wage in Paris the war of the desert, always retreating,
+never yielding, to take time for an ally, to add days to days; on the
+one hand to give the people time to understand and to rise, on the
+other, to conquer the _coup d'état_ by the weariness of the army; such
+was the plan discussed and adopted.
+
+The order was accordingly given that the barricades should be but
+slightly defended.
+
+We repeated in every possible form to the combatants,--
+
+"Shed as little blood as possible! Spare the blood of the soldiers and
+husband your own."
+
+Nevertheless, the struggle once begun, it became impossible in many
+instances, during certain excited hours of fighting, to moderate their
+ardor. Several barricades were obstinately defended, particularly those
+in the Rue Rambuteau, in the Rue Montorgueil, and in the Rue Neuve
+Saint Eustache.
+
+These barricades were commanded by daring leaders.
+
+Here, for the sake of history, we will record a few of these brave men
+fighting outlines who appeared and disappeared in the smoke of the
+combat. Radoux, an architect, Deluc, Mallarmet, Félix Bony, Luneau, an
+ex-Captain of the Republican Guard, Camille Berru, editor of the
+_Avénement_, gay, warmhearted, and dauntless, and that young Eugène
+Millelot, who was destined to be condemned at Cayenne to receive 200
+lashes, and to expire at the twenty-third stroke, before the very eyes
+of his father and brother, proscribed and convicts like himself.
+
+The barricade of the Rue Aumaire was amongst those which were not
+carried without resistance. Although raised in haste, it was fairly
+constructed. Fifteen or sixteen resolute men defended it; two were
+killed.
+
+The barricade was carried with the bayonet by a battalion of the 16th
+of the line. This battalion, hurled on the barricade at the double, was
+received by a brisk fusillade; several soldiers were wounded.
+
+The first who fell in the soldiers' ranks was an officer. He was a
+young man of twenty-five, lieutenant of the first company, named Ossian
+Dumas; two balls broke both of his legs as though by a single blow.
+
+At that time there were in the army two brothers of the name of Dumas,
+Ossian and Scipio. Scipio was the elder. They were near relatives of
+the Representative, Madier de Montjau.
+
+These two brothers belonged to a poor but honored family. The elder had
+been educated at the Polytechnic School, the other at the School of
+Saint Cyr.
+
+Scipio was four years older than his brother. According to that
+splendid and mysterious law of ascent, which the French Revolution has
+created, and which, so to speak, has placed a ladder in the centre of a
+society hitherto caste-bound and inaccessible, Scipio Dumas' family had
+imposed upon themselves the most severe privations in order to develop
+his intellect and secure his future. His relations, with the touching
+heroism of the poor of the present era, denied themselves bread to
+afford him knowledge. In this manner he attained to the Polytechnic
+School, where he quickly became one of the best pupils.
+
+Having concluded his studies, he was appointed an officer in the
+artillery, and sent to Metz. It then became his turn to help the boy
+who had to mount after him. He held out his hand to his younger
+brother. He economized the modest pay of an artillery lieutenant, and,
+thanks to him, Ossian became an officer like Scipio. While Scipio,
+detained by duties belonging to his position, remained at Metz, Ossian
+was incorporated in an infantry regiment, and went to Africa. There he
+saw his first service.
+
+Scipio and Ossian were Republicans. In October, 1851, the 16th of the
+line, in which Ossian was serving, was summoned to Paris. It was one of
+the regiments chosen by the ill-omened hand of Louis Bonaparte, and on
+which the _coup d'état_ counted.
+
+The 2d of December arrived.
+
+Lieutenant Ossian Dumas obeyed, like nearly all his comrades, the order
+to take up arms; but every one round him could notice his gloomy
+attitude.
+
+The day of the 3d was spent in marches and counter-marches. On the 4th
+the combat began. The 16th, which formed part of the Herbillon Brigade,
+was told off to capture the barricades of the Rues Beaubourg,
+Trausnonain, and Aumaire. This battle-field was formidable; a perfect
+square of barricades had been raised there.
+
+It was by the Rue Aumaire, and with the regiment of which Ossian formed
+part, that the military leaders resolved to begin action.
+
+At the moment when the regiment, with arms loaded, was about to march
+upon the Rue Aumaire, Ossian Dumas went up to his captain, a brave and
+veteran officer, with whom he was a favorite, and declared that he
+would not march a step farther, that the deed of the 2d of December was
+a crime, that Louis Bonaparte was a traitor, that it was for them,
+soldiers, to maintain the oath which Bonaparte violated; and that, as
+for himself, he would not lend his sword to the butchery of the
+Republic.
+
+A halt was made. The signal of attack was awaited; the two officers,
+the old captain and the young lieutenant, conversed in a low tone.
+
+"And what do you want to do?" asked the captain.
+
+"Break my sword."
+
+"You will be taken to Vincennes."
+
+"That is all the same to me."
+
+"Most certainly dismissed."
+
+"Possibly."
+
+"Perhaps shot."
+
+"I expect it."
+
+"But there is no longer any time; you should have resigned yesterday."
+
+"There is always time to avoid committing a crime."
+
+The captain, as may be seen, was simply one of those professional
+heroes, grown old in the leather stock, who know of no country but the
+flag, and no other law but military discipline. Iron arms and wooden
+heads. They are neither citizens nor men. They only recognize honor in
+the form of a general's epaulets. It is of no use talking to them of
+political duties, of obedience to the laws, of the Constitution. What
+do they know about all this? What is a Constitution; what are the most
+holy laws, against three words which a corporal may murmur into the ear
+of a sentinel? Take a pair of scales, put in one side the Gospels, in
+the other the official instructions; now weigh them. The corporal turns
+the balance; the Deity kicks the beam.
+
+God forms a portion of the order of the day of Saint Bartholomew. "Kill
+all. He will recognized his own."
+
+This is what the priests accept, and at times glorify.
+
+Saint Bartholomew has been blessed by the Pope and decorated with the
+Catholic medal.[22]
+
+Meanwhile Ossian Dumas appeared determined. The captain made a last
+effort.
+
+"You will ruin yourself," said he.
+
+"I shall save my honor."
+
+"It is precisely your honor that you are sacrificing."
+
+"Because I am going away?"
+
+"To go away is to desert."
+
+This seemed to impress Ossian Dumas. The captain continued,--
+
+"They are about to fight. In a few minutes the barricade will be
+attacked. Your comrades will fall, dead or wounded. You are a young
+officer--you have not yet been much under fire."
+
+"At all events," warmly interrupted Ossian Dumas, "I shall not have
+fought against the Republic; they will not say I am a traitor."
+
+"No, but they will say that you are a coward."
+
+Ossian made no reply.
+
+A moment afterwards the command was given to attack.
+
+The regiment started at the double. The barricade fired.
+
+Ossian Dumas was the first who fell.
+
+He had not been able to bear that word "coward," and he had remained in
+his place in the first rank.
+
+They took him to the ambulance, and from thence to the hospital.
+
+Let us at once state the conclusion of this touching incident.
+
+Both of his legs were broken. The doctors thought that it would be
+necessary to amputate them both.
+
+General Saint-Arnaud sent him the Cross of Honor.
+
+As is known, Louis Bonaparte hastened to discharge his debt to his
+praetorian accomplices. After having massacred, the sword voted.
+
+The combat was still smoking when the army was brought to the
+ballot-box.
+
+The garrison of Paris voted "Yes." It absolved itself.
+
+With the rest of the army it was otherwise. Military honor was
+indignant, and roused the civic virtue. Notwithstanding the pressure
+which was exercised, although the regiments deposited their votes in
+the shakos of their colonels, the army voted "No" in many districts of
+France and Algeria.
+
+The Polytechnic School voted "No" in a body. Nearly everywhere the
+artillery, of which the Polytechnic School is the cradle, voted to the
+same effect as the school.
+
+Scipio Dumas, it may be remembered, was at Metz.
+
+By some curious chance it happened that the feeling of the artillery,
+which everywhere else had pronounced against the _coup d'état_,
+hesitated at Metz, and seemed to lean towards Bonaparte.
+
+Scipio Dumas, in presence of this indecision set an example. He voted
+in a loud voice, and with an open voting paper, "No."
+
+Then he sent in his resignation. At the same time that the Minister at
+Paris received the resignation of Scipio Dumas, Scipio Dumas at Metz,
+received his dismissal, signed by the Minister.
+
+After Scipio Dumas' vote, the same thought had come at the same time to
+both the Government and to the officer, to the Government that the
+officer was a dangerous man, and that they could no longer employ him,
+to the officer that the Government was an infamous one, and that he
+ought no longer to serve it.
+
+The resignation and the dismissal crossed on the way. By this word
+"dismissal" must be understood the withdrawal of employment.
+
+According to our existing military laws it is in this manner that they
+now "break" an officer. Withdrawal of employment, that is to say, no
+more service, no more pay; poverty.
+
+Simultaneously with his dismissal, Scipio Dumas learnt the news of the
+attack on the barricade of the Rue Aumaire, and that his brother had
+both his legs broken. In the fever of events he had been a week without
+news of Ossian. Scipio had confined himself to writing to his brother
+to inform him of his vote and of his dismissal, and to induce him to do
+likewise.
+
+His brother wounded! His brother at the Val-de. Grâce! He left
+immediately for Paris.
+
+He hastened to the hospital. They took him to Ossian's bedside. The
+poor young fellow had had both his legs amputated on the preceding day.
+
+At the moment when Scipio, stunned, appeared at his bedside, Ossian
+held in his hand the cross which General Saint-Arnaud had just sent
+him.
+
+The wounded man turned towards the aide-de-camp who had brought it, and
+said to him,--
+
+"I will not have this cross. On my breast it would be stained with the
+blood of the Republic."
+
+And perceiving his brother, who had just entered, he held out the cross
+to him, exclaiming,--
+
+"You take it. You have voted "No," and you have broken your sword! It
+is you who have deserved it!"
+
+
+[20] Died in exile in Guernsey. See the "Pendant l'Exil," under the
+heading _Actes et Paroles_, vol. ii.
+
+[21] Died in exile at Termonde.
+
+[22] Pro Hugonotorum strage. Medal struck at Rome in 1572.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+
+THE QUESTION PRESENTS ITSELF
+
+It was one o'clock in the afternoon.
+
+Bonaparte had again become gloomy.
+
+The gleams of sunshine on such countenances as these last very short
+time.
+
+He had gone back to his private room, had seated himself before the
+fire, with his feet on the hobs, motionless, and no one any longer
+approached him except Roquet.
+
+What was he thinking of?
+
+The twistings of the viper cannot be foreseen.
+
+What this man achieved on this infamous day I have told at length in
+another book. See "Napoleon the Little."
+
+From time to time Roquet entered and informed him of what was going on.
+Bonaparte listened in silence, deep in thought, marble in which a
+torrent of lava boiled.
+
+He received at the Elysée the same news that we received in the Rue
+Richelieu; bad for him, good for us. In one of the regiments which had
+just voted, there were 170 "Noes:" This regiment has since been
+dissolved, and scattered abroad in the African army.
+
+They had counted on the 14th of the line which had fired on the people
+in February. The Colonel of the 14th of the line had refused to
+recommence; he had just broken his sword.
+
+Our appeal had ended by being heard. Decidedly, as we have seen, Paris
+was rising. The fall of Bonaparte seemed to be foreshadowed. Two
+Representatives, Fabvier and Crestin, met in the Rue Royale, and
+Crestin, pointing to the Palace of the Assembly, said to Fabvier, "We
+shall be there to-morrow."
+
+One noteworthy incident. Mazes became eccentric, the prison unbent
+itself; the interior experienced an undefinable reverberation from the
+outside. The warders, who the preceding evening had been insolent to
+the Representatives when going for their exercise in the courtyard, now
+saluted them to the ground. That very morning of Thursday, the 4th, the
+governor of the prison had paid a visit to the prisoners, and had said
+to them, "It is not my fault." He brought them books and writing-paper,
+a thing which up to that time he had refused. The Representative
+Valentin was in solitary confinement; on the morning of the 4th his
+warder suddenly became amiable, and offered to obtain for him news from
+outside, through his wife, who, he said, had been a servant in General
+Leflô's household. These were significant signs. When the jailer smiles
+it means that the jail is half opening.
+
+We may add, what is not a contradiction, that at the same time the
+garrison at Mazas was being increased. 1200 more men were marched in,
+in detachments of 100 men each, spacing out their arrivals in "little
+doses" as an eye-witness remarked to us. Later on 400 men. 100 litres
+of brandy were distributed to them. One litre for every sixteen men.
+The prisoners could hear the movement of artillery round the prison.
+
+The agitation spread to the most peaceable quarters. But the centre of
+Paris was above all threatening. The centre of Paris is a labyrinth of
+streets which appears to be made for the labyrinth of riots. The Ligue,
+the Fronde, the Revolution--we must unceasingly recall these useful
+facts--the 14th of July, the 10th of August, 1792, 1830, 1848, have
+come out from thence. These brave old streets were awakened. At eleven
+o'clock in the morning from Notre Dame to the Porte Saint Martin there
+were seventy-seven barricades. Three of them, one in the Rue Maubuée,
+another in the Rue Bertin-Poirée, another in the Rue Guérin-Boisseau,
+attained the height of the second stories; the barricade of the Porte
+Saint Denis was almost as bristling and as formidable as the barrier of
+the Faubourg Saint Antoine in June, 1848. The handful of the
+Representatives of the People had swooped down like a shower of sparks
+on these famous and inflammable crossroads. The beginning of the fire.
+The fire had caught. The old central market quarter, that city which is
+contained in the city, shouted, "Down with Bonaparte!" They hooted the
+police, they hissed the troops. Some regiments seemed stupefied. They
+cried, "Throw up your butt ends in the air!" From the windows above,
+women encouraged the construction of the barricades. There was powder
+there, there were muskets. Now, we were no longer alone. We saw rising
+up in the gloom behind us the enormous head of the people. Hope at the
+present time was on our side. The oscillation of uncertainty had at
+length become steady, and we were, I repeat, almost perfectly
+confident.
+
+There had been a moment when, owing to the good news pouring in upon
+us, this confidence had become so great that we who had staked our
+lives on this great contest, seized with an irresistible joy in the
+presence of a success becoming hourly more certain, had risen from our
+seats, and had embraced each other. Michel de Bourges was particularly
+angered against Bonaparte, for he had believed his word, and had even
+gone so far as to say, "He is my man." Of the four of us, he was the
+most indignant. A gloomy flash of victory shone in him. He struck the
+table with his fist, and exclaimed, "Oh! the miserable wretch!
+To-morrow--" and he struck the table a second time, "to-morrow his
+head shall fall in the Place de Grève before the Hôtel de Ville."
+
+I looked at him.
+
+"No," said I, "this man's head shall not fall."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"I do not wish it."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because," said I, "if after such a crime we allow Louis Bonaparte to
+live we shall abolish the penalty of death."
+
+This generous Michel de Bourges remained thoughtful for a moment, then
+he pressed my hand.
+
+Crime is an opportunity, and always gives us a choice, and it is better
+to extract from it progress than punishment. Michel de Bourges realized
+this.
+
+Moreover this incident shows to what a pitch our hopes had been raised.
+
+Appearances were on our side, actual facts not so. Saint-Arnaud had his
+orders. We shall see them.
+
+Strange incidents took place.
+
+Towards noon a general, deep in thought, was on horseback in the Place
+de la Madeleine, at the head of his wavering troops. He hesitated.
+
+A carriage stopped, a woman stepped out and conversed in a low tone
+with the general. The crowd could see her. The Representative Raymond,
+who lived at No 4, Place de la Madeleine, saw her from his window. This
+woman was Madame K. The general stooping down on his horse, listened,
+and finally made the dejected gesture of a vanquished man. Madame K.
+got back into her carriage. This man, they said, loved that woman. She
+could, according to the side of her beauty which fascinated her victim,
+inspire either heroism or crime. This strange beauty was compounded of
+the whiteness of an angel, combined with the look of a spectre.
+
+It was the look which conquered.
+
+This man no longer hesitated. He entered gloomily into the enterprise.
+
+From twelve to two o'clock there was in this enormous city given over
+to the unknown an indescribable and fierce expectation. All was calm
+and awe-striking. The regiments and the limbered batteries quitted the
+faubourg and stationed themselves noiselessly around the boulevards.
+Not a cry in the ranks of the soldiery. An eye-witness said, "The
+soldiers march with quite a jaunty air." On the Quai de la Ferronnerie,
+heaped up with regiments ever since the morning of the 2d of December,
+there now only remained a post of Municipal Guards. Everything ebbed
+back to the centre, the people as well as the army; the silence of the
+army had ultimately spread to the people. They watched each other.
+
+Each soldier had three days' provisions and six packets of cartridges.
+
+It has since transpired that at this moment 10,000 francs were daily
+spent in brandy for each brigade.
+
+Towards one o'clock, Magnan went to the Hôtel de Ville, had the reserve
+limbered under his own eyes, and did not leave until all the batteries
+were ready to march.
+
+Certain suspicious preparations grew more numerous. Towards noon the
+State workmen and the hospital corps had established a species of huge
+ambulance at No. 2, Faubourg Montmartre. A great heap of litters was
+piled up there. "What is all this for?" asked the crowd.
+
+Dr. Deville, who had attended Espinasse when he had been wounded,
+noticed him on the boulevard, and asked him, "Up to what point are you
+going?"
+
+Espinasse's answer is historical.
+
+He replied, "To the end."
+
+At two o'clock five brigades, those of Cotte, Bourgon, Canrobert, Dulac,
+and Reybell, five batteries of artillery, 16,400 men,[23] infantry and
+cavalry, lancers, cuirassiers, grenadiers, gunners, were echelloned
+without any ostensible reason between the Rue de la Paix and the Faubourg
+Poissonnière. Pieces of cannon were pointed at the entrance of every
+street; there were eleven in position on the Boulevard Poissonnière alone.
+The foot soldiers had their guns to their shoulders, the officers their
+swords drawn. What did all this mean? It was a curious sight, well worth
+the trouble of seeing, and on both sides of the pavements, on all the
+thresholds of the shops, from all the stories of the houses, an
+astonished, ironical, and confiding crowd looked on.
+
+Little by little, nevertheless, this confidence diminished, and irony
+gave place to astonishment; astonishment changed to stupor. Those who
+have passed through that extraordinary minute will not forget it. It
+was evident that there was something underlying all this. But what?
+Profound obscurity. Can one imagine Paris in a cellar? People felt as
+though they were beneath a low ceiling. They seemed to be walled up in
+the unexpected and the unknown. They seemed to perceive some mysterious
+will in the background. But after all they were strong; they were the
+Republic, they were Paris; what was there to fear! Nothing. And they
+cried, "Down with Bonaparte!" The troops continued to keep silence, but
+the swords remained outside their scabbards, and the lighted matches of
+the cannon smoldered at the corners of the streets. The cloud grew
+blacker every minute, heavier and more silent. This thickening of the
+darkness was tragical. One felt the coming crash of a catastrophe, and
+the presence of a villain; snake-like treason writhed during this
+night, and none can foresee where the downward slide of a terrible
+design will stop when events are on a steep incline.
+
+What was coming out of this thick darkness?
+
+
+[23] 16,410 men, the figures taken from the Ministry of War.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+
+THE MASSACRE
+
+Suddenly a window was opened.
+
+Upon Hell.
+
+Dante, had he leaned over the summit of the shadow, would have been able
+to see the eighth circle of his poem; the funereal Boulevard Montmartre.
+
+Paris, a prey to Bonaparte; a monstrous spectacle. The gloomy armed men
+massed together on this boulevard felt an appalling spirit enter into
+them; they ceased to be themselves, and became demons.
+
+There was no longer a single French soldier, but a host of indefinable
+phantoms, carrying out a horrible task, as though in the glimmering
+light of a vision.
+
+There was no longer a flag, there was no longer law, there was no longer
+humanity, there was no longer a country, there was no longer France;
+they began to assassinate.
+
+The Schinderhannes division, the brigades of Mandrin, Cartouche,
+Poulailler, Trestaillon, and Tropmann appeared in the gloom, shooting
+down and massacring.
+
+No; we do not attribute to the French army what took place during this
+mournful eclipse of honor.
+
+There have been massacres in history, abominable ones assuredly, but
+they have possessed some show of reason; Saint Bartholomew and the
+Dragonnades are explained by religion, the Sicilian Vespers and the
+butcheries of September are explained by patriotism; they crush the
+enemy or annihilate the foreigner; these are crimes for a good cause;
+but the carnage of the Boulevard Montmartre is a crime without an
+ostensible reason.
+
+The reason exists, however. It is hideous.
+
+Let us give it.
+
+Two things stand erect in a State, the Law and the People.
+
+A man murders the Law. He feels the punishment approaching, there only
+remains one thing for him to do, to murder the People. He murders the
+People.
+
+The Second of December was the Risk, the Fourth was the Certainty.
+
+Against the indignation which arose they opposed the Terror.
+
+The Fury, Justice, halted petrified before the Fury, Extermination.
+Against Erinnyes they set up Medusa.
+
+To put Nemesis to flight, what a terrifying triumph!
+
+To Louis Napoleon pertains this glory, which is the summit of his shame.
+
+Let us narrate it.
+
+Let us narrate what History had never seen before.
+
+The assassination of a people by a man.
+
+Suddenly, at a given signal, a musket shot being fired, no matter where,
+no matter by whom, the shower of bullets poured upon the crowd. A shower
+of bullets is also a crowd; it is death scattered broadcast. It does not
+know whither it goes, nor what it does; it kills and passes on.
+
+But at the same time it has a species of soul; it is premeditated, it
+executes a will. This was an unprecedented moment. It seemed as though a
+handful of lightnings was falling upon the people. Nothing simpler. It
+formed a clear solution to the difficulty; the rain of lead overwhelmed
+the multitude. What are you doing there? Die! It is a crime to be
+passing by. Why are you in the street? Why do you cross the path of the
+Government? The Government is a cut-throat. They have announced a thing,
+they must certainly carry it out; what is begun must assuredly be
+achieved; as Society is being saved, the People must assuredly be
+exterminated.
+
+Are there not social necessities? Is it not essential that Béville
+should have 87,000 francs a year and Fleury 95,000 francs? Is it not
+essential that the High Chaplain, Menjaud, Bishop of Nancy, should have
+342 francs a day, and that Bassano and Cambacérès should each have 383
+francs a day, and Vaillant 468 francs, and Saint-Arnaud 822 francs? Is
+it not necessary that Louis Bonaparte should have 76,712 francs a day?
+Could one be Emperor for less?
+
+In the twinkling of an eye there was a butchery on the boulevard a
+quarter of a league long. Eleven pieces of cannon wrecked the
+Sallandrouze carpet warehouse. The shot tore completely through
+twenty-eight houses. The baths of Jouvence were riddled. There was a
+massacre at Tortoni's. A whole quarter of Paris was filled with an
+immense flying mass, and with a terrible cry. Everywhere sudden death. A
+man is expecting nothing. He falls. From whence does this come? From
+above, say the Bishops' _Te Deum_; from below, says Truth.
+
+From a lower place than the galleys, from a lower place than Hell.
+
+It is the conception of a Caligula, carried out by a Papavoine.
+
+Xavier Durrieu comes upon the boulevard. He states,--
+
+"I have taken sixty steps, I have seen sixty corpses."
+
+And he draws back. To be in the street is a Crime, to be at home is a
+Crime. The butchers enter the houses and slaughter. In slaughter-house
+slang the soldiers cry, "Let us pole-axe the lot of them."
+
+Adde, a bookseller, of 17, Boulevard Poissonnière, is standing before his
+door; they kill him. At the same moment, for the field of murder is vast,
+at a considerable distance from there, at 5, Rue de Lancry, M. Thirion de
+Montauban, owner of the house, is at his door; they kill him. In the Rue
+Tiquetonne a child of seven years, named Boursier, is passing by; they
+kill him. Mdlle. Soulac, 196, Rue du Temple, opens her window; they kill
+her. At No. 97, in the same street, two women, Mesdames Vidal and
+Raboisson, sempstresses, are in their room; they kill them. Belval, a
+cabinet-maker, 10, Rue de la Lune, is at home; they kill him. Debaëcque,
+a merchant, 45, Rue du Sentier, is in his own house; Couvercelle,
+florist, 257, Rue Saint Denis, is in his own house; Labitte, a jeweller,
+55, Boulevard Saint Martin, is in his own house; Monpelas, perfumer, 181,
+Rue Saint Martin, is in his own house; they kill Monpelas, Labitte,
+Couvercelle, and Debaëcque. They sabre at her own home, 240, Rue Saint
+Martin, a poor embroideress, Mdlle. Seguin, who not having sufficient
+money to pay for a doctor, died at the Beaujon hospital, on the 1st of
+January, 1852, on the same day that the Sibour _Te Deum_ was chanted at
+Notre Dame. Another, a waistcoat-maker, Françoise Noël, was shot down at
+20, Rue du Faubourg Montmartre, and died in the Charité. Another, Madame
+Ledaust, a working housekeeper, living at 76, Passage du Caire, was shot
+down before the Archbishop's palace, and died at the Morgue. Passers-by,
+Mdlle. Gressier, living at 209, Faubourg Saint Martin; Madame Guilard,
+living at 77, Boulevard Saint Denis; Madame Gamier, living at 6,
+Boulevard Bonne Nouvelle, who had fallen, the first named beneath the
+volleys on the Boulevard Montmartre, the two others on the Boulevard
+Saint Denis, and who were still alive, attempted to rise, and became
+targets for the soldiers, bursting with laughter, and this time fell back
+again dead. Deeds of gallantry ware performed. Colonel Rochefort, who was
+probably created General for this, charged in the Rue do la Paix at the
+head of his Lancers a flock of nurses, who were put to flight.
+
+Such was this indescribable enterprise. All the men who took part in it
+were instigated by hidden influences; all had something which urged them
+forward; Herbillon had Zaatcha behind him; Saint-Arnaud had Kabylia;
+Renault had the affair of the Saint-André and Saint Hippolyte villages;
+Espinasse, Rome and the storming of the 30th of June; Magnan, his debts.
+
+Must we continue? We hesitate. Dr. Piquet, a man of seventy, was killed
+in his drawing-room by a ball in his stomach; the painter Jollivart, by
+a ball in the forehead, before his easel, his brains bespattered his
+painting. The English captain, William Jesse, narrowly escaped a ball
+which pierced the ceiling above his head; in the library adjoining the
+Magasins du Prophète, a father, mother, and two daughters were sabred.
+Lefilleul, another bookseller, was shot in his shop on the Boulevard
+Poissonnière; in the Rue Lepelletier, Boyer, a chemist, seated at his
+counter, was "spitted" by the Lancers. A captain, killing all before
+him, took by storm the house of the Grand Balcon. A servant was killed
+in the shop of Brandus. Reybell through the volleys said to Sax, "And I
+also am discoursing sweet music." The Café Leblond was given over to
+pillage. Billecoq's establishment was bombarded to such a degree that it
+had to be pulled down the next day. Before Jouvain's house lay a heap of
+corpses, amongst them an old man with his umbrella, and a young man with
+his eye-glass. The Hôtel de Castille, the Maison Dorée, the Petite
+Jeannette, the Café de Paris, the Café Anglais became for three hours
+the targets of the cannonade. Raquenault's house crumbled beneath the
+shells; the bullets demolished the Montmartre Bazaar.
+
+None escaped. The guns and pistols were fired at close quarters.
+
+New Year's-day was not far off, some shops were full of New Year's
+gifts. In the passage du Saumon, a child of thirteen, flying before the
+platoon-firing, hid himself in one of these shops, beneath a heap of
+toys. He was captured and killed. Those who killed him laughingly
+widened his wounds with their swords. A woman told me, "The cries of the
+poor little fellow could be heard all through the passage." Four men
+were shot before the same shop. The officer said to them, "This will
+teach you to loaf about." A fifth named Mailleret, who was left for dead,
+was carried the next day with eleven wounds to the Charité. There he
+died.
+
+They fired into the cellars by the air-holes.
+
+A workman, a currier, named Moulins, who had taken refuge in one of
+these shot-riddled cellars, saw through the cellar air-hole a passer-by,
+who had been wounded in the thigh by a bullet, sit down on the pavement
+with the death rattle in his throat, and lean against a shop. Some
+soldiers who heard this rattle ran up and finished off the wounded man
+with bayonet thrusts.
+
+One brigade killed the passer-by from the Madeleine to the Opera,
+another from the Opera to the Gymmase; another from the Boulevard Bonne
+Nouvelle to the Porte Saint Denis; the 75th of the line having carried
+the barricade of the Porte Saint Denis, it was no longer a fight, it was
+a slaughter. The massacre radiated--a word horribly true--from the
+boulevard into all the streets. It was a devil-fish stretching out its
+feelers. Flight? Why? Concealment? To what purpose? Death ran after you
+quicker than you could fly. In the Rue Pagevin a soldier said to a
+passer-by, "What are you doing here?" "I am going home." The soldier
+kills the passer-by. In the Rue des Marais they kill four young men in
+their own courtyard. Colonel Espinasse exclaimed, "After the bayonet,
+cannon!" Colonel Rochefort exclaimed, "Thrust, bleed, slash!" and he
+added, "It is an economy of powder and noise." Before Barbedienne's
+establishment an officer was showing his gun, an arm of considerable
+precision, admiringly to his comrades, and he said, "With this gun I can
+score magnificent shots between the eyes." having said this, he aimed at
+random at some one, and succeeded. The carnage was frenzied. While the
+butchering under the orders of Carrelet filled the boulevard, the
+Bourgon brigade devastated the Temple, the Marulaz brigade devastated
+the Rue Rambuteau; the Renault division distinguished itself on the
+"other side of the water." Renault was that general, who, at Mascara,
+had given his pistols to Charras. In 1848 he had said to Charras,
+"Europe must be revolutionized." And Charras had said, "Not quite so
+fast!" Louis Bonaparte had made him a General of Division in July, 1851.
+The Rue aux Ours was especially devastated. Morny that evening said to
+Louis Bonaparte, "The 15th Light Infantry have scored a success. They
+have cleaned out the Rue aux Ours."
+
+At the corner of the Rue du Sentier an officer of Spahis, with his sword
+raised, cried out, "This is not the sort of thing! You do not understand
+at all. Fire on the women." A woman was flying, she was with child, she
+falls, they deliver her by the means of the butt-ends of their muskets.
+Another, perfectly distracted, was turning the corner of a street. She
+was carrying a child. Two soldiers aimed at her. One said, "At the
+woman!" And he brought down the woman. The child rolled on the pavement.
+The other soldier said, "At the child!" And he killed the child.
+
+A man of high scientific repute, Dr. Germain Sée, declares that in one
+house alone, the establishment of the Jouvence Baths, there were at six
+o'clock, beneath a shed in the courtyard, about eighty wounded, nearly
+all of whom (seventy, at least) were old men, women, and children. Dr.
+Sée was the first to attend to them.
+
+In the Rue Mandar, there was, stated an eye-witness, "a rosary of
+corpses," reaching as far as the Rue Neuve Saint Eustache. Before the
+house of Odier twenty-six corpses. Thirty before the hotel Montmorency.
+Fifty-two before the Variétés, of whom eleven were women. In the Rue
+Grange-Batelière there were three naked corpses. No. 19, Faubourg
+Montmartre, was full of dead and wounded.
+
+A woman, flying and maddened, with dishevelled hair and her arms raised
+aloft, ran along the Rue Poissonnière, crying, "They kill! they kill!
+they kill! they kill! they kill!"
+
+The soldiers wagered. "Bet you I bring down that fellow there." In this
+manner Count Poninsky was killed whilst going into his own house, 52,
+Rue de la Paix.
+
+I was anxious to know what I ought to do. Certain treasons, in order to
+be proved, need to be investigated. I went to the field of murder.
+
+In such mental agony as this, from very excess of feeling one no longer
+thinks, or if one thinks, it is distractedly. One only longs for some
+end or other. The death of others instills in you so much horror that
+your own death becomes an object of desire; that is to say, if by dying,
+you would be in some degree useful! One calls to mind deaths which have
+put an end to angers and to revolts. One only retains this ambition, to
+be a useful corpse.
+
+I walked along terribly thoughtful.
+
+I went towards the boulevards; I saw there a furnace; I heard there a
+thunderstorm.
+
+I saw Jules Simon coming up to me, who during these disastrous days
+bravely risked a precious life. He stopped me. "Where are you going?" he
+asked me. "You will be killed. What do you want?" "That very thing,"
+said I.
+
+We shook hands.
+
+I continued to go on.
+
+I reached the boulevard; the scene was indescribable. I witnessed this
+crime, this butchery, this tragedy. I saw that reign of blind death, I
+saw the distracted victims fall around me in crowds. It is for this that
+I have signed myself in this book AN EYE-WITNESS.
+
+Destiny entertains a purpose. It watches mysteriously over the future
+historian. It allows him to mingle with exterminations and carnages, but
+it does not permit him to die, because it wishes him to relate them.
+
+In the midst of this inexpressible Pandemonium, Xavier Durrieu met me as
+I was crossing the bullet-swept boulevard. He said to me, "Ah, here you
+are. I have just met Madame D. She is looking for you." Madame D.[24]
+and Madame de la R.,[25] two noble and brave women, had promised Madame
+Victor Hugo, who was ill in bed, to ascertain where I was, and to give
+her some news of me. Madame D. had heroically ventured into this carnage.
+The following incident happened to her. She stopped before a heap of
+bodies, and had had the courage to manifest her indignation; at the cry
+of horror to which she gave vent, a cavalry soldier had run up behind
+her with a pistol in his hand, and had it not been for a quickly opened
+door through which she threw herself, and which saved her, she would
+have been killed.
+
+It is well known that the total slaughter in this butchery is
+unrecorded. Bonaparte has kept these figures hidden in darkness. Such is
+the habit of those who commit massacres. They are scarcely likely to
+allow history to certify the number of the victims. These statistics are
+an obscure multitude which quickly lose themselves in the gloom. One of
+the two colonels of whom we have had a glimpse in pages 223-225 of this
+work, has stated that his regiment alone had killed "at least 2,500
+persons." This would be more than one person per soldier. We believe
+that this zealous colonel exaggerates. Crime sometimes boasts of its
+blackness.
+
+Lireux, a writer, arrested in order to be shot, and who escaped by a
+miracle, declares that he saw "more than 800 corpses."
+
+Towards four o'clock the post-chaises which were in the courtyard of the
+Elysée were unhorsed and put up.
+
+This extermination, which an English witness, Captain William Jesse,
+calls "a wanton fusillade," lasted from two till five o'clock. During
+these three terrible hours, Louis Bonaparte carried out what he had been
+premeditating, and completed his work. Up to that time the poor little
+"middle-class" conscience was almost indulgent. Well, what of it? It was
+a game at Prince, a species of state swindling, a conjuring feat on a
+large scale; the sceptics and the knowing men said, "It is a good joke
+played upon those idiots." Suddenly Louis Bonaparte grew uneasy and
+revealed all his policy. "Tell Saint-Arnaud to execute my orders."
+Saint-Arnaud obeyed, the _coup d'état_ acted according to its own code
+of laws, and from that appalling moment an immense torrent of blood
+began to flow across this crime.
+
+They left the corpses lying on the pavements, wild-looking, livid,
+stupefied, with their pockets turned inside out. The military murderer
+is thus condemned to mount the villainous scale of guilt. In the morning
+an assassin, in the evening a thief.
+
+When night came enthusiasm and joy reigned at the Elysée. These men
+triumphed. Conneau has ingeniously related the scene. The familiar
+spirits were delirious with joy. Fialin addressed Bonaparte in
+hail-fellow-well-met style. "You had better break yourself of that,"
+whispered Vieillard. In truth this carnage made Bonaparte Emperor. He
+was now "His Majesty." They drank, they smoked like the soldiers on the
+boulevards; for having slaughtered throughout the day, they drank
+throughout the night; wine flowed upon the blood. At the Elysée they
+were amazed at the result. They were enraptured; they loudly expressed
+their admiration. "What a capital idea the Prince had had! How well the
+thing had been managed! This was much better than flying the country, by
+Dieppe, like D'Haussez; or by Membrolle, like Guernon-Ranville; or being
+captured, disguised as a footboy, and blacking the boots of Madame de
+Saint Fargeau, like poor Polignac!" "Guizot was no cleverer than
+Polignac," exclaimed Persigny. Fleury turned to Morny: "Your theorists
+would not have succeeded in a _coup d'état_." "That is true, they were
+not particularly vigorous," answered Morny. He added, "And yet they were
+clever men,--Louis Philippe, Guizot, Thiers--" Louis Bonaparte, taking
+his cigarette from his lips, interrupted, "If such are clever men, I
+would rather be an ass--"
+
+"A hyena in an ass's skin," says History.
+
+
+[24] No. 20, Cité Rodier.
+
+[25] Rue Caumartin. See pages 142, 145-148.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+
+THE APPOINTMENT MADE WITH THE WORKMEN'S SOCIETIES
+
+What had become of our Committee during these tragic events, and what
+was it doing? It is necessary to relate what took place.
+
+Let us go back a few hours.
+
+At the moment when this strange butchery began, the seat of the
+Committee was still in the Rue Richelieu. I had gone back to it after
+the exploration which I had thought it proper to make at several of the
+quarters in insurrection, and I gave an account of what I had seen to my
+colleagues. Madier de Montjau, who also arrived from the barricades,
+added to my report details of what he had seen. For some time we heard
+terrible explosions, which appeared to be close by, and which mingled
+themselves with our conversation. Suddenly Versigny came in. He told us
+that horrible events were taking place on the Boulevards; that the
+meaning of the conflict could not yet be ascertained, but that they were
+cannonading, and firing volleys of musket-balls, and that the corpses
+bestrewed the pavement; that, according to all appearances, it was a
+massacre,--a sort of Saint Bartholomew improvised by the coup d'état;
+that they were ransacking the houses at a few steps from us, and that
+they were killing every one. The murderers were going from door to door,
+and were drawing near. He urged us to leave Grévy's house without delay.
+It was manifest that the Insurrectionary Committee would be a "find" for
+the bayonets. We decided to leave, whereupon M. Dupont White, a man
+distinguished for his noble character and his talent, offered us a
+refuge at his house, 11, Rue Monthabor. We went out by the back-door of
+Grévy's house, which led into 1, Rue Fontaine Molière, but leisurely,
+and two by two, Madier de Montjau with Versigny, Michel de Bourges with
+Carnot, myself arm-in-arm with Jules Favre. Jules Favre, dauntless and
+smiling as ever, wrapped a comforter over his mouth, and said, "I do not
+much mind being shot, but I do mind catching cold."
+
+Jules Favre and I reached the rear of Saint Roch, by the Rue des
+Moulins. The Rue Veuve Saint Roch was thronged with a mass of affrighted
+passers-by, who came from the Boulevards flying rather than walking. The
+men were talking in a loud voice, the women screaming. We could hear the
+cannon and the ear-piercing rattle of the musketry. All the shops were
+being shut. M. de Falloux, arm-in-arm with M. Albert de Rességuier, was
+striding down the Rue de Saint Roch and hurrying to the Rue Saint
+Honoré. The Rue Saint Honoré presented a scene of clamorous agitation.
+People were coming and going, stopping, questioning one another,
+running. The shopkeepers, at the threshold of their half-opened doors,
+asked the passers-by what was taking place, and were only answered by
+this cry, "Oh, my God!" People came out of their houses bareheaded and
+mingled with the crowd. A fine rain was falling. Not a carriage in the
+street. At the corner of the Rue Saint Roch and Rue Saint Honoré we
+heard voices behind us saying, "Victor Hugo is killed."
+
+"Not yet," said Jules Favre, continuing to smile, and pressing my arm.
+
+They had said the same thing on the preceding day to Esquiros and to
+Madier de Montjau. And this rumor, so agreeable to the Reactionaries,
+had even reached my two sons, prisoners in the Concièrgerie.
+
+The stream of people driven back from the Boulevards and from the Rue
+Richelieu flowed towards the Rue de la Paix. We recognized there some of
+the Representatives of the Right who had been arrested on the 2d, and
+who were already released. M. Buffet, an ex-minister of M. Bonaparte,
+accompanied by numerous other members of the Assembly, was going towards
+the Palais Royal. As he passed close by us he pronounced the name of
+Louis Bonaparte in a tone of execration.
+
+M. Buffet is a man of some importance; he is one of the three political
+advisers of the Right; the two others are M. Fould and M. Molé.
+
+In the Rue Monthabor, two steps from the Rue Saint Honoré, there was
+silence and peace. Not one passer-by, not a door open, not a head out of
+window.
+
+In the apartment into which we were conducted, on the third story, the
+calm was not less perfect. The windows looked upon an inner courtyard.
+Five or six red arm-chairs were drawn up before the fire; on the table
+could be seen a few books which seemed to me works on political economy
+and executive law. The Representatives, who almost immediately joined us
+and who arrived in disorder, threw down at random their umbrellas and
+their coats streaming with water in the corner of this peaceful room. No
+one knew exactly what was happening; every one brought forward his
+conjectures.
+
+The Committee was hardly seated in an adjoining little room when our
+ex-colleague, Leblond, was announced. He brought with him King the
+delegate of the working-men's societies. The delegate told us that the
+committee of the societies were sitting in permanent session, and had
+sent him to us. According to the instructions of the Insurrectionary
+Committee, they had done what they could to lengthen the struggle by
+evading too decisive encounters. The greater part of the associations
+had not yet given battle; nevertheless the plot was thickening. The
+combat had been severe during the morning. The Association of the Rights
+of Man was in the streets; the ex-constituent Beslay had assembled, in
+the Passage du Caire, six or seven hundred workmen from the Marais, and
+had posted them in the streets surrounding the Bank. New barricades
+would probably be constructed during the evening, the forward movement
+of the resistance was being precipitated, the hand-to-hand struggle
+which the Committee had wished to delay seemed imminent, all was rushing
+forward with a sort of irresistible impulse. Should we follow it, or
+should we stop? Should we run the risk of bringing matters to an end
+with one blow, which should be the last, and which would manifestly
+leave one adversary on the ground--either the Empire or the Republic?
+The workmen's societies asked for our instructions; they still held in
+reserve their three or four thousand combatants; and they could,
+according to the order which the Committee should give them, either
+continue to restrain them or send them under fire without delay. They
+believed themselves curtain of their adherents; they would do whatever
+we should decide upon, while not hiding from us that the workmen wished
+for an immediate conflict, and that it would be somewhat hazardous to
+leave them time to become calm.
+
+The majority of the members of the Committee were still in favor of a
+certain slackening of action which should tend to prolong the struggle;
+and it was difficult to say that they were in the wrong. It was certain
+that if they could protract the situation in which the _coup d'état_ had
+thrown Paris until the next week, Louis Bonaparte was lost. Paris does
+not allow herself to be trampled upon by an army for a whole week.
+Nevertheless, I was for my own part impressed with the following:--The
+workmen's societies offered us three or four thousand combatants, a
+powerful assistance;--the workman does not understand strategy, he lives
+on enthusiasm, abatements of ardor discourage him; his zeal is not
+extinguished, but it cools:--three thousand to-day would be five hundred
+to-morrow. And then some serious incident had just taken place on the
+Boulevards. We were still ignorant of what it actually was: we could not
+foresee what consequences it might bring about; but seemed to me
+impossible that the still unknown, but yet violent event, which had just
+taken place would not modify the situation, and consequently change our
+plan of battle. I began to speak to this effect. I stated that we ought
+to accept the offer of the associations, and to throw them at once into
+the struggle; I added that revolutionary warfare often necessitates
+sudden changes of tactics, that a general in the open country and before
+the enemy operates as he wishes; it is all clear around him; he knows
+the effective strength of his soldiers, the number of his regiments; so
+many men, so many horses, so many cannons, he knows his strength, and
+the strength of his enemy, he chooses his hour and his ground, he has a
+map under his eyes, he sees what he is doing. He is sure of his
+reserves, he possesses them, he keeps them back, he utilizes them when
+he wishes, he always has them by him. "But for ourselves," cried I, "we
+are in an undefined and inconceivable position. We are stepping at a
+venture upon unknown risks. Who is against us? We hardly know. Who is
+with us? We are ignorant. How many soldiers? How many guns? How many
+cartridges? Nothing! but the darkness. Perhaps the entire people,
+perhaps no one. Keep a reserve! But who would answer for this reserve?
+It is an army to-day, it will be a handful of dust to-morrow. We only
+can plainly distinguish our duty, as regards all the rest it is black
+darkness. We are guessing at everything. We are ignorant of everything.
+We are fighting a blind battle! Let us strike all the blows that can be
+struck, let us advance straight before us at random, let us rush upon
+the danger! And let us have faith, for as we are Justice and the Law,
+God must be with us in this obscurity. Let us accept this glorious and
+gloomy enterprise of Right disarmed yet still fighting."
+
+The ex-constituent Leblond and the delegate King being consulted by the
+Committee, seconded my advice. The Committee decided that the societies
+should be requested in our name to come down into the streets
+immediately, and to call out their forces. "But we are keeping nothing
+for to-morrow," objected a member of the Committee, "what ally shall we
+have to-morrow?" "Victory," said Jules Favre. Carnot and Michel de
+Bourges remarked that it would be advisable for those members of the
+association who belonged to the National Guard to wear their uniforms.
+This was accordingly settled.
+
+The delegate King rose,--"Citizen Representatives," said he, "these
+orders will be immediately transmitted, our friends are ready, in a few
+hours they will assemble. To-night barricades and the combat!"
+
+I asked him, "Would it be useful to you if a Representative, a member of
+the Committee, were with you to-night with his sash girded?"
+
+"Doubtless," he answered.
+
+"Well, then," resumed I, "here I am! Take me."
+
+"We will all go," exclaimed Jules Favre.
+
+The delegate observed that it would suffice for one of us to be there at
+the moment when the societies should make their appearance, and that he
+could then notify the other members of the Committee to come and join
+him. It was settled that as soon as the places of meeting and the
+rallying-points should be agreed upon, he would send some one to let me
+know, and to take me wherever the societies might be. "Before an hour's
+time you shall hear from me," said he on leaving us.
+
+As the delegates were going away Mathieu de la Drôme arrived. On coming
+in he halted on the threshold of the door, he was pale, he cried out to
+us, "You are no longer in Paris, you are no longer under the Republic;
+you are in Naples and under King Bomba."
+
+He had come from the boulevards.
+
+Later on I again saw Mathieu de la Drôme. I said to him, "Worse than
+Bomba,--Satan."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+
+THE VERIFICATION OF MORAL LAWS
+
+The carnage of the Boulevard Montmartre constitutes the originality of
+the _coup d'état_. Without this butchery the 2d of December would only
+be an 18th Brumaire. Owing to the massacre Louis Bonaparte escapes the
+charge of plagiarism.
+
+Up to that time he had only been an imitator. The little hat at Boulogne,
+the gray overcoat, the tame eagle appeared grotesque. What did this parody
+mean? people asked. He made them laugh; suddenly he made
+them tremble.
+
+He who becomes detestable ceases to be ridiculous.
+
+Louis Bonaparte was more than detestable, he was execrable.
+
+He envied the hugeness of great crimes; he wished to equal the worst.
+This striving after the horrible has given him a special place to
+himself in the menagerie of tyrants. Petty rascality trying to emulate
+deep villainy, a little Nero swelling himself to a huge Lacénaire; such
+is this phenomenon. Art for art, assassination for assassination.
+
+Louis Bonaparte has created a special genus.
+
+It was in this manner that Louis Bonaparte made his entry into the
+Unexpected. This revealed him.
+
+Certain brains are abysses. Manifestly for a long time past Bonaparte
+had harbored the design of assassinating in order to reign.
+Premeditation haunts criminals, and it is in this manner that treason
+begins. The crime is a long time present in them, but shapeless and
+shadowy, they are scarcely conscious of it; souls only blacken
+gradually. Such abominable deeds are not invented in a moment; they do
+not attain perfection at once and at a single bound; they increase and
+ripen, shapeless and indecisive, and the centre of the ideas in which
+they exist keeps them living, ready for the appointed day, and vaguely
+terrible. This design, the massacre for a throne, we feel sure, existed
+for a long time in Louis Bonaparte's mind. It was classed among the
+possible events of this soul. It darted hither and thither like a
+_larva_ in an aquarium, mingled with shadows, with doubts, with desires,
+with expedients, with dreams of one knows not what Caesarian socialism,
+like a Hydra dimly visible in a transparency of chaos. Hardly was he
+aware that he was fostering this hideous idea. When he needed it, he
+found it, armed and ready to serve him. His unfathomable brain had
+darkly nourished it. Abysses are the nurseries of monsters.
+
+Up to this formidable day of the 4th December, Louis Bonaparte did not
+perhaps quite know himself. Those who studied this curious Imperial
+animal did not believe him capable of such pure and simple ferocity.
+They saw in him an indescribable mongrel, applying the talents of a
+swindler to the dreams of an Empire, who, even when crowned, would be a
+thief, who would say of a parricide, What roguery! Incapable of gaining
+a footing on any height, even of infamy, always remaining half-way
+uphill, a little above petty rascals, a little below great malefactors.
+They believed him clever at effecting all that is done in gambling-hells
+and in robbers' caves, but with this transposition, that he would cheat
+in the caves, and that he would assassinate in the gambling-hells.
+
+The massacre of the Boulevards suddenly unveiled this spirit. They saw it
+such as it really was: the ridiculous nicknames "Big-beak," "Badinguet,"
+vanished; they saw the bandit, they saw the true _contraffatto_ hidden
+under the false Bonaparte.
+
+There was a shudder! It was this then which this man held in reserve!
+
+Apologies have been attempted, they could but fail. It is easy to praise
+Bonaparte, for people have praised Dupin; but it is an exceedingly
+complicated operation to cleanse him. What is to be done with the 4th
+of December? How will that difficulty be surmounted? It is far more
+troublesome to justify than to glorify; the sponge works with greater
+difficulty than the censer; the panegyrists of the _coup d'état_ have
+lost their labor. Madame Sand herself, although a woman of lofty
+intellect, has failed miserably in her attempt to rehabilitate
+Bonaparte, for the simple reason that whatever one may do, the
+death-roll reappears through this whitewashing.
+
+No! no! no extenuation whatever is possible. Unfortunate Bonaparte. The
+blood is drawn. It must be drunk.
+
+The deed of the 4th of December is the most colossal dagger-thrust that
+a brigand let loose upon civilization has ever effected, we will not say
+upon a people, but upon the entire human race. The stroke was most
+monstrous, and struck Paris to the ground. Paris on the ground is
+Conscience, is Reason, is all human liberty on the ground; it is the
+progress of centuries lying on the pavement; it is the torch of Justice,
+of Truth, and of Life reversed and extinguished. This is what Louis
+Bonaparte effected the day when he effected this.
+
+The success of the wretch was complete. The 2d of December was lost;
+the 4th of December saved the 2d of December. It was something like
+Erostratus saving Judas. Paris understood that all had not yet been told
+as regards deeds of horror, and that beneath the oppressor there was the
+garbage-picker. It was the case of a swindler stealing César's mantle.
+This man was little, it is true, but terrifying. Paris consented to this
+terror, renounced the right to have the last word, went to bed and
+simulated death. Suffocation had its share in the matter. This crime
+resembled, too, no previous achievements. Even after centuries have
+passed, and though he should be an Aeschylus or a Tacitus, any one
+raising the cover would smell the stench. Paris resigned herself, Paris
+abdicated, Paris surrendered; the novelty of the treason proved its
+chief strength; Paris almost ceased to be Paris; on the next day the
+chattering of this terrified Titan's teeth could be heard in the
+shadows.
+
+Let us lay a stress upon this, for we must verify the laws of morality.
+Louis Bonaparte remained, even after the 4th of December, Napoleon the
+Little. This enormity still left him a dwarf. The size of the crime does
+not change the stature of the criminal, and the pettiness of the
+assassin withstands the immensity of the assassination.
+
+Be that as it may, the Pigmy had the better of the Colossus. This
+avowal, humiliating as it is, cannot be evaded.
+
+Such are the blushes to which History, that greatly dishonored one, is
+condemned.
+
+
+
+
+THE FOURTH DAY--THE VICTORY.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+WHAT HAPPENED DURING THE NIGHT--THE RUE TIQUETONNE
+
+Just as Mathieu de la Drôme had said, "You are under King Bomba,"
+Charles Gambon entered. He sank down upon a chair and muttered, "It is
+horrible." Bancel followed him. "We have come from it," said Bancel.
+Gambon had been able to shelter himself in the recess of a doorway. In
+front of Barbedienne's alone he had counted thirty-seven corpses. What
+was the meaning of it all? To what purpose was this monstrous
+promiscuous murder? No one could understand it. The Massacre was a
+riddle.
+
+We were in the Sphinx's Grotto.
+
+Labrousse came in. It was urgently necessary that we should leave Dupont
+White's house. It was on the point of being surrounded. For some moments
+the Rue Monthabor, ordinarily so deserted, was becoming thronged with
+suspicious figures. Men seemed to be attentively watching number Eleven.
+Some of these men, who appeared to be acting in concert, belonged to the
+ex-"Club of Clubs," which, owing to the manoeuvres of the Reactionists,
+exhaled a vague odor of the police. It was necessary that we should
+disperse. Labrousse said to us, "I have just seen Longe-pied roving
+about."
+
+We separated. We went away one by one, and each in his own direction. We
+did not know where we should meet again, or whether we should meet
+again. What was going to happen and what was about to become of us all?
+No one knew. We were filled with a terrible dread.
+
+I turned up towards the Boulevards, anxious to see what was taking
+place.
+
+What was taking place I have just related.
+
+Bancel and Versigny had rejoined me.
+
+As I left the Boulevards, mingled with the whirl of the terrified crowd,
+not knowing where I was going, returning towards the centre of Paris, a
+voice suddenly whispered in my ear, "There is something over there which
+you ought to see." I recognized the voice. It was the voice of E.P.
+
+E.P. is a dramatic author, a man of talent, for whom under Louis
+Philippe I had procured exemption from military service. I had not seen
+him for four or five years. I met him again in this tumult. He spoke to
+me as though we had seen each other yesterday. Such are these times of
+bewilderment. There is no time to greet each other "according to the
+rules of society." One speaks as though all were in full flight.
+
+"Ah! it is you!" I exclaimed. "What do you want with me?"
+
+He answered me, "I live in a house over there."
+
+And he added,-
+
+"Come."
+
+He drew me into a dark street. We could hear explosions. At the bottom
+of the street could be seen the ruins of a barricade. Versigny and
+Bancel, as I have just said, were with me. E.P. turned to them.
+
+"These gentlemen can come," said he.
+
+I asked him,--
+
+"What street is this?"
+
+"The Rue Tiquetonne."
+
+We followed him.
+
+I have elsewhere told this tragical event.[26]
+
+E.P. stopped before a tall and gloomy house. He pushed open a
+street-door which was not shut, then another door and we entered into a
+parlor perfectly quiet and lighted by a lamp.
+
+This room appeared to adjoin a shop. At the end could be distinguished
+two beds side by side, one large and one small. Above the little bed
+hung a woman's portrait, and above the portrait a branch of holy
+box-tree.
+
+The lamp was placed over the fireplace, where a little fire was burning.
+
+Near the lamp upon a chair there was an old woman leaning forward,
+stooping down, folded in two as though broken, over something which was
+in the shadow, and which she held in her arms. I drew near. That which
+she held in her arms was a dead child.
+
+The poor woman was silently sobbing.
+
+E.P., who belonged to the house, touched her on the shoulder, and
+said,--
+
+"Let us see it."
+
+The old woman raised her head, and I saw on her knees a little boy, pale,
+half-undressed, pretty, with two red holes in his forehead.
+
+The old woman stared at me, but she evidently did not see me, she
+muttered, speaking to herself,--
+
+"And to think that he called me 'Granny' this morning!"
+
+E.P. took the child's hand, the hand fell back again.
+
+"Seven years old," he said to me.
+
+A basin was on the ground. They had washed the child's face; two tiny
+streams of blood trickled from the two holes.
+
+At the end of the room, near a half-opened clothes-press, in which could
+be seen some linen, stood a woman of some forty years, grave, poor, clean,
+fairly good-looking.
+
+"A neighbor," E.P. said to me.
+
+He explained to me that a doctor lived in the house, that the doctor had
+come down and had said, "There is nothing to be done." The child had
+been hit by two balls in the head while crossing the street to "get out
+of the way." They had brought him back to his grandmother, who "had no
+one left but him."
+
+The portrait of the dead mother hung above the little bed.
+
+The child had his eyes half open, and that inexpressible gaze of the
+dead, where the perception of the real is replaced by the vision of the
+infinite. The grandmother spoke through her sobs by snatches: "God! is
+it possible? Who would have thought it?--What brigands!"
+
+She cried out,--
+
+"Is this then the Government?"
+
+"Yes," I said to her.
+
+We finished undressing the child. He had a top in his pocket. His head
+rolled from one shoulder to the other; I held him and I kissed him on
+the brow; Versigny and Bancel took off his stockings. The grandmother
+suddenly started up.
+
+"Do not hurt him!" she cried.
+
+She took the two little white and frozen feet in her old hands, trying
+to warm them.
+
+When the poor little body was naked, they began to lay it out. They took
+a sheet from the clothes-press.
+
+Then the grandmother burst into bitter lamentation.
+
+She cried out,--
+
+"They shall give him back to me!"
+
+She drew herself up and gazed at us, and began to pour forth incoherent
+utterances, in which were mingled Bonaparte, and God, and her little
+one, and the school to which he went, and her daughter whom she had
+lost, and even reproaches to us. She was livid, haggard, as though
+seeing a vision before her, and was more of a phantom than the dead
+child.
+
+Then she again buried her face in her hands, placed her folded arms on
+her child, and once more began to sob.
+
+The woman who was there came up to me, and without saying a word, wiped
+my mouth with a handkerchief. I had blood upon my lips.
+
+What could be done? Alas! We went out overwhelmed.
+
+It was quite dark. Bancel and Versigny left me.
+
+
+[26] "Les Châtiments."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+WHAT HAPPENED DURING THE NIGHT--THE MARKET QUARTER
+
+I came back to my lodging, 19, Rue Richelieu.
+
+The massacre seemed to be at an end; the fusillades were heard no
+longer. As I was about to knock at the door I hesitated for a moment; a
+man was there who seemed to be waiting. I went straight up to this man,
+and I said to him,--
+
+"You seem to be waiting for somebody?"
+
+He answered,--
+
+"Yes."
+
+"For whom?"
+
+"For you."
+
+And he added, lowering his voice, "I have come to speak to you."
+
+I looked at this man. A street-lamp shone on him. He did not avoid the
+light.
+
+He was a young man with a fair beard, wearing a blue blouse, and who had
+the gentle bearing of a thinker and the robust hands of a workman.
+
+"Who are you?" I asked him.
+
+He answered,--"I belong to the Society of the Last-makers. I know you
+very well, Citizen Victor Hugo."
+
+"From whom do you come?" I resumed.
+
+He answered still in a whisper,--
+
+"From Citizen King."
+
+"Very good," said I.
+
+He then told me his name. As he has survived the events of the night of
+the 4th, and as he since escaped the denunciations, it can be understood
+that we will not mention his name here, and that we shall confine
+ourselves to terming him throughout the course of this story by his
+trade, calling him the "last-maker."[27]
+
+"What do you want to say to me?" I asked him.
+
+He explained that matters were not hopeless, that he and his friends
+meant to continue the resistance, that the meeting-places of the
+Societies had not yet been settled, but that they would be during the
+evening, that my presence was desired, and that if I would be under the
+Colbert Arcade at nine o'clock, either himself or another of their men
+would be there, and would serve me as guide. We decided that in order to
+make himself known, the messenger, when accosting me, should give the
+password, "What is Joseph doing?"
+
+I do not know whether he thought he noticed any doubt or mistrust on my
+part. He suddenly interrupted himself, and said,--
+
+"After all, you are not bound to believe me. One does not think of
+everything: I ought to have asked them to give me a word in writing. At
+a time like this one distrusts everybody."
+
+"On the contrary," I said to him, "one trusts everybody. I will be in
+the Colbert Arcade at nine o'clock."
+
+And I left him.
+
+I re-entered my asylum. I was tired, I was hungry, I had recourse to
+Charamaule's chocolate and to a small piece of bread which I had still
+left. I sank down into an arm-chair, I ate and I slept. Some slumbers
+are gloomy. I had one of those slumbers, full of spectres; I again saw
+the dead child and the two red holes in his forehead, these formed two
+mouths: one said "Morny," and the other "Saint-Arnaud." History is not
+made, however, to recount dreams. I will abridge. Suddenly I awoke. I
+started: "If only it is not past nine o'clock!" I had forgotten to wind
+up my watch. It had stopped. I went out hastily. The street was lonely,
+the shops were shut. In the Place Louvos I heard the hour striking
+(probably from Saint Roch); I listened. I counted nine strokes. In a few
+moments I was under the Colbert Arcade. I peered into the darkness. No
+one was under the Arcade.
+
+I felt that it was impossible to remain there, and have the appearance
+of waiting about; near the Colbert Arcade there is a police-station, and
+the patrols were passing every moment. I plunged into the street. I
+found no one there. I went as far as the Rue Vivienne. At the corner of
+the Rue Vivienne a man was stopping before a placard and was trying to
+deface it or to tear it down. I drew near this man, who probably took me
+for a police agent, and who fled at the top of his speed. I retraced my
+steps. Near the Colbert Arcade, and just as I reached the point in the
+street where they post the theatrical bills, a workman passed me, and
+said quickly, "What is Joseph doing?"
+
+I recognized the last-maker.
+
+"Come," he said to me.
+
+We set out without speaking and without appearing to know each other, he
+walking some steps before me.
+
+We first went to two addresses, which I cannot mention here without
+pointing out victims for the proscription. In these two houses we got no
+news; no one had come there on the part of the societies.
+
+"Let us go to the third place," said the last-maker, and he explained to
+me that they had settled among them three successive meeting-places, in
+case of need, so as to be always sure of finding each other if,
+perchance, the police discovered the first or even the second
+meeting-place, a precaution which for our part we adopted as much as
+possible with regard to our meetings of the Left end of the Committee.
+
+We had reached the market quarter. Fighting had been going on there
+throughout the day. There were no longer any gas-lamps in the streets.
+We stopped from time to time, and listened so as not to run headlong
+into the arms of a patrol. We got over a paling of planks almost
+completely destroyed, and of which barricades had probably been made,
+and we crossed the extensive area of half-demolished houses which at
+that epoch encumbered the lower portions of the Rue Montmartre and Rue
+Montorgueil. On the peaks of the high dismantled gables could be seen a
+flickering red glow, doubtless the reflection of the bivouac-fires of the
+soldiers encamped in the markets and in the neighborhood of Saint
+Eustache. This reflection lighted our way. The last-maker, however,
+narrowly escaped falling into a deep hole, which was no less than the
+cellar of a demolished house. On coming out of this region, covered with
+ruins, amongst which here and there a few trees might be perceived, the
+remains of gardens which had now disappeared, we entered into narrow,
+winding, and completely dark streets, where it was impossible to
+recognize one's whereabouts. Nevertheless the last-maker walked on as
+much at his ease as in broad daylight, and like a man who is going
+straight to his destination. Once he turned round to me, and said to
+me,--
+
+"The whole of this quarter is barricaded; and if, as I hope, our friends
+come down, I will answer that they will hold it for a long time."
+
+Suddenly he stopped. "Here is one," said he. In truth, seven or eight
+paces before us was a barricade entirely constructed of paving-stones,
+not exceeding a man's height, and which in the darkness appeared like a
+ruined wall. A narrow passage had been formed at one end. We passed
+through it. There was no one behind the barricade.
+
+"There has already been fighting here a short time ago," said the
+last-maker in a low voice; and he added, after a pause, "We are getting
+near."
+
+The unpaving had left holes, of which we had to be careful. We strode,
+and sometimes jumped, from paving-stone to paving-stone. Notwithstanding
+the intense darkness, there yet hovered about an indefinable glimmer; on
+our way we noticed before us on the ground, close to the foot-pavement,
+something which looked like a stretched-out form. "The devil!" muttered
+my guide, "we were just going to walk upon it." He took a little wax
+match from his pocket and struck it on his sleeve; the flame flashed
+out. The light fell upon a pallid face, which looked at us with fixed
+eyes. It was a corpse lying there; it was an old man. The last-maker
+rapidly waved the match from his head to his feet. The dead man was
+almost in the attitude of a crucified man; his two arms were stretched
+out; his white hair, red at the ends, was soaking in the mud; a pool of
+blood was beneath him; a large blackish patch on his waistcoat marked
+the place where the ball had pierced his breast; one of his braces was
+undone; he had thick laced boots on his feet. The last-maker lifted up
+one of his arms, and said, "His collar-bone is broken." The movement
+shook the head, and the open mouth turned towards us as though about to
+speak to us. I gazed at this vision; I almost listened. Suddenly it
+disappeared.
+
+This face re-entered the gloom; the match had just gone out.
+
+We went away in silence. After walking about twenty paces, the
+last-maker, as though talking to himself, said in a whisper, "Don't know
+him."
+
+We still pushed forward. From the cellars to the roofs, from the
+ground-floors to the garrets, there was not a light in the house. We
+appeared to be groping in an immense tomb.
+
+A man's voice, firm and sonorous, suddenly issued out of the darkness,
+and shouted to us, "Who goes there?"
+
+"Ah, there they are!" said the last-maker, and he uttered a peculiar
+whistle.
+
+"Come on," resumed the voice.
+
+It was another barricade. This one, a little higher than the first, and
+separated from it by a distance of about a hundred paces, was, as far as
+could be seen, constructed of barrels filled with paving-stones. On the
+top could be seen the wheels of a truck entangled between the barrels;
+planks and beams were intermingled. A passage had been contrived still
+narrower than the gangway of the other barricade.
+
+"Citizens," said the last-maker, as he went into the barricade, "how
+many of you are there here?"
+
+The voice which had shouted, "Who goes there?" answered,--
+
+"There are two of us."
+
+"Is that all?"
+
+"That is all."
+
+They were in truth two,--two men who alone during that night, in that
+solitary street, behind that heap of paving-stones, awaited the
+onslaught of a regiment.
+
+Both wore blouses; they were two workmen; with a few cartridges in their
+pockets, and a musket upon each of their shoulders.
+
+"So then," resumed the last-maker, in an impatient tone, "our friends
+have not yet come!"
+
+"Well, then," I said to him, "let us wait for them."
+
+The last-maker spoke for a short time in a low tone, and probably told
+my name to one of the two defenders of the barricade, who came up to me
+and saluted me. "Citizen Representative," said he, "it will be very warm
+here shortly."
+
+"In the meantime," answered I laughingly, "it is cold."
+
+It was very cold, in truth. The street which was completely unpaved
+behind the barricade, was nothing better than a sewer, ankle deep in
+water.
+
+"I say that it will be warm," resumed the workman, "and that you would
+do well to go farther off."
+
+The last-maker put his hand on his shoulder: "Comrade, it is necessary
+that we should remain here. The meeting-place is close by, in the
+ambulance."
+
+"All the same," resumed the other workman, who was very short, and who
+stood up on a paving-stone; "the Citizen Representative would do well to
+go farther off."
+
+"I can very well be where you are," said I to him.
+
+The street was quite dark, nothing could be seen of the sky. Inside the
+barricade on the left, on the side where the passage was, could be seen
+a high paling of badly joined planks, through which shone in places a
+feeble light. Above the paling rose out, lost in the darkness, a house
+of six or seven storys; the ground floor, which was being repaired, and
+which was under-pinned, being closed in by these planks. A ray of light
+issuing from between the planks fell on the opposite wall, and lighted
+up an old torn placard, on which could be read, "Asnières. Water
+tournaments. Grand ball."
+
+"Have you another gun?" asked the last-maker of the taller of the two
+workmen.
+
+"If we had three guns we should be three men," answered the workman.
+
+The little one added, "Do you think that the good will is wanting? There
+are plenty of musicians, but there are no clarionets."
+
+By the side of the wooden paling could be seen a little, narrow and low
+door, which looked more like the door of a stall than the door of a
+shop. The shop to which this door belonged was hermetically sealed. The
+door seemed to be equally closed. The last-maker went up to it and
+pushed it gently. It was open.
+
+"Let us go in," he said.
+
+I went in first, he followed me, and shut the door behind me. We were in
+a room on the ground floor. At the end, on the left, a half-opened door
+emitted the reflection of a light. The room was only lighted by this
+reflection. A counter and a species of stove, painted in black and
+white, could be dimly distinguished.
+
+A short, half-suffocated, intermittent gurgling could be heard, which
+seemed to come from an adjoining room on the same side as the light. The
+last-maker walked quickly to the half-opened door. I crossed the room
+after him, and we found ourselves in a sort of vast shed, lighted by one
+candle. We were on the other side of the plank paling. There was only
+the plank paling between ourselves and the barricade.
+
+This species of shed was the ground floor in course of demolition. Iron
+columns, painted red, and fixed into stone sockets at short distances
+apart, supported the joists of the ceiling; facing the street, a huge
+framework standing erect, and denoting the centre of the surrounding
+paling, supported the great cross-beam of the first story, that is to
+say, supported the whole house. In a corner were lying some masons'
+tools, a heap of rubbish, and a large double ladder. A few straw-bottomed
+chairs were scattered here and there. The damp ground served for the
+flooring. By the side of a table, on which stood a candle in the midst
+of medicine bottles, an old woman and a young girl of about eight years
+old--the woman seated, the child squatting before a great basketful of
+old linen--were making lint. The end of the room, which was lost in the
+darkness, was carpeted with a litter of straw, on which three mattresses
+had been thrown. The gurgling noise came from there.
+
+"It is the ambulance," said the last-maker.
+
+The old woman turned her head, and seeing us, shuddered convulsively,
+and then, reassured probably by the blouse of the last-maker, she got up
+and came towards us.
+
+The last-maker whispered a few words in her ear. She answered, "I have
+seen nobody."
+
+Then she added, "But what makes me uneasy is that my husband has not yet
+come back. They have done nothing but fire muskets the whole evening."
+
+Two men were lying on two of the mattresses at the end of the room. A
+third mattress was unoccupied and was waiting.
+
+The wounded man nearest to me had received a musket ball in his stomach.
+He it was who was gurgling. The old woman came towards the mattress with
+a candle, and whispered to us, showing us her fist, "If you could only
+see the hole that that has made! We have stuffed lint as large as this
+into his stomach."
+
+She resumed, "He is not above twenty-five years old. He will be dead
+to-morrow morning."
+
+The other was still younger. He was hardly eighteen. "He has a handsome
+black overcoat," said the woman. "He is most likely a student." The
+young man had the whole of the lower part of his face swathed in
+blood-stained linen. She explained to us that he had received a ball in
+the mouth, which had broken his jaw. He was in a high fever, and gazed
+at us with lustrous eyes. From time to time he stretched his right arm
+towards a basin full of water in which a sponge was soaking; he took the
+sponge, carried it to his face, and himself moistened his bandages.
+
+It seemed to me that his gaze fastened upon me in a singular manner. I
+went up to him, I stooped down, and I gave him my hand, which he took in
+his own. "Do you know me?" I asked him. He answered "Yes," by a pressure
+of the hand which went to my heart.
+
+The last-maker said to me, "Wait a minute for me here, I shall be back
+directly; I want to see in this neighborhood, if there is any means of
+getting a gun."
+
+He added,--
+
+"Would you like one for yourself?"
+
+"No," answered I. "I shall remain here without a gun. I only take a half
+share in the civil war; I am willing to die, I am not willing to kill."
+
+I asked him if he thought his friends were going to come. He declared
+that he could not understand it, that the men from the societies ought
+to have arrived already, that instead of two men in the barricade there
+should be twenty, that instead of two barricades in the street there
+should have been ten, and that something must have happened; he added,--
+
+"However, I will go and see; promise to wait for me here."
+
+"I promise you," I answered, "I will wait all night if necessary."
+
+He left me.
+
+The old woman had reseated herself near the little girl, who did not
+seem to understand much of what was passing round her, and who from time
+to time raised great calm eyes towards me. Both were poorly clad, and it
+seemed to me that the child had stockingless feet. "My man has not yet
+come back," said the old woman, "my poor man has not yet come back. I
+hope nothing has happened to him!" With many heart-rending "My God's,"
+and all the while quickly picking her lint, she wept. I could not help
+thinking with anguish of the old man we had seen stretched on the
+pavement at a few paces distant.
+
+A newspaper was lying on the table. I took it up, and I unfolded it. It
+was the _P----_, the rest of the title had been torn off. A
+blood-stained hand was plainly imprinted on it. A wounded man on
+entering had probably placed his hand on the table on the spot where the
+newspaper lay. My eyes fell upon these lines:--
+
+"M. Victor Hugo has just published an appeal to pillage and
+assassination."
+
+In these terms the journal of the Elysée described the proclamation
+which I had dictated to Baudin, and which may be read in page 103 of
+this History.
+
+As I threw back the paper on the table one of the two defenders of the
+barricade entered. It was the short man.
+
+"A glass of water," said he. By the side of the medicine bottles there
+was a decanter and a glass. He drank, greedily. He held in his hand a
+morsel of bread and a sausage, which he was biting.
+
+Suddenly we heard several successive explosions, following one after
+another, and which seemed but a short distance off. In the silence of
+this dark night it resembled the sound of a load of wood being shot on
+to the pavement.
+
+The calm and serious voice of the other combatant shouted from outside,
+"It is beginning."
+
+"Have I time to finish my bread?" asked the little one.
+
+"Yes," said the other.
+
+The little one then turned to me.
+
+"Citizen Representative," said he to me, "those are volleys. They are
+attacking the barricades over there. Really you must go away."
+
+I answered him, "But you yourselves are going to stay here."
+
+"As for us, we are armed," resumed he; "as for you, you are not. You
+will only get yourself killed without benefiting any one. If you had a
+gun, I should say nothing. But you have not. You must go away."
+
+"I cannot," I answered him. "I am waiting for some one."
+
+He wished to continue and to urge me. I pressed his hand.
+
+"Let me do as I like," said I.
+
+He understood that my duty was to remain, and no longer persisted.
+
+There was a pause. He again began to bite his bread. The gurgling of the
+dying man alone was audible. At that moment a sort of deep and hollow
+booming reached us. The old woman started from her chair, muttering, "It
+is the cannon!"
+
+"No," said the little man, "it is the slamming of a street-door." Then
+he resumed, "There now! I have finished my bread," and he dusted one
+hand against the other, and went out.
+
+In the meantime the explosions continued, and seemed to come nearer. A
+noise sounded in the shop. It was the last-maker who was coming back. He
+appeared on the threshold of the ambulance. He was pale.
+
+"Here I am," said he, "I have come to fetch you. We must go home. Let us
+be off at once."
+
+I arose from the chair where I had seated myself. "What does this mean?
+Will they not come?"
+
+"No," he answered, "no one will come. All is at an end."
+
+Then he hastily explained that he had gone through the whole of the
+quarter in order to find a gun, that it was labor lost, that he had
+spoken to "two or three," that we must abandon all hope of the
+societies, _that they would not come down_, that what had been done
+during the day had appalled every one, that the best men were terrified,
+that the boulevards were "full of corpses," that the soldiers had
+committed "horrors," that the barricade was about to be attacked, that
+on his arrival he had heard the noise of footsteps in the direction of
+the crossway, that it was the soldiers who were advancing, that we could
+do nothing further there, that we must be off, that this house was
+"stupidly chosen," that there was no outlet in the rear, that perhaps we
+should already find it difficult to get out of the street, and that we
+had only just time.
+
+He told this all panting, briefly, jerkily, and interrupted at every
+moment with this ejaculation, "And to think that they have no arms, and
+to think that I have no gun!"
+
+As he finished we heard from the barricade a shout of "Attention!" and
+almost immediately a shot was fired.
+
+A violent discharge replied to this shot.
+
+Several balls struck the paling of the ambulance, but they were too
+obliquely aimed, and none pierced it. We heard the glass of several
+broken windows falling noisily into the street.
+
+"There is no longer time," said the last-maker calmly; "the barricade is
+attacked."
+
+He took a chair and sat down. The two workmen were evidently excellent
+marksmen. Two volleys assailed the barricade, one after the other. The
+barricade answered with animation. Then the fire ceased. There was a
+pause.
+
+"Now they are coming at us with the bayonet! They are coming at the
+double!" said a voice in the barricade.
+
+The other voice said, "Let us be off." A last musket-shot was fired.
+Then a violent blow which we interpreted as a warning shook our wooden
+wall. It was in reality one of the workmen who had thrown down his gun
+when going away; the gun in falling had struck the paling of the
+ambulance. We heard the rapid steps of the two combatants, as they ran
+off.
+
+Almost at the same moment a tumult of voices, and of butt ends of
+muskets striking the paving-stones, filled the barricade.
+
+"It is taken," said the last-maker, and he blew out the candle.
+
+To the silence which enveloped this street a moment before succeeded a
+sort of ill-omened tumult. The soldiers knocked at the doors of the
+houses with the butt-ends of their muskets. It was by a miracle that the
+shop-door escaped them. If they had merely pushed against it, they would
+have seen that it was not shut, and would have entered.
+
+A voice, probably the voice of an officer, cried out, "Light up the
+windows!" The soldiers swore. We heard them say, "Where are those
+blackguard Reds? Let us search the houses." The ambulance was plunged in
+darkness. Not a word was spoken, not a breath could be heard; even the
+dying man, as though he divined the danger, had ceased to gurgle. I felt
+the little girl pressing herself against my legs.
+
+A soldier struck the barrels, and said laughingly,--
+
+"Here is something to make a fire with to-night."
+
+Another resumed,--
+
+"Which way have they gone? They were at least thirty. Let us search the
+houses."
+
+We heard one raising objections to this,--
+
+"Nonsense! What do you want to do on a night like this? Enter the houses
+of the 'middle classes' indeed! There is some waste ground over yonder.
+They have taken refuge there."
+
+"All the same," repeated the others, "let us search the houses."
+
+At this moment a musket-shot was fired from the end of the street.
+
+This shot saved us.
+
+In fact, it was probably one of the two workmen who had fired in order
+to draw off their attention from us.
+
+"That comes from over there," cried the soldiers, "They are over there!"
+and all starting off at once in the direction from which the shot had
+been fired, they left the barricade and ran down the street at the top
+of their speed.
+
+The last-maker and myself got up.
+
+"They are no longer there," whispered he. "Quick! let us be off."
+
+"But this poor woman," said I. "Are we going to leave her here?"
+
+"Oh," she said, "do not be afraid, I have nothing to fear; as for me, I
+am an ambulance. I am taking care of the wounded. I shall even relight
+my candle when you are gone. What troubles me is that my poor husband
+has not yet come back!"
+
+We crossed the shop on tiptoe. The last-maker gently opened the door and
+glanced out into the street. Some inhabitants had obeyed the order to
+light up their windows, and four or five lighted candles here and there
+flickered in the wind upon the sills of the windows. The street was no
+longer completely dark.
+
+"There is no one about now," said the last-maker; "but let us make
+haste, for they will probably come back."
+
+We went out: the old woman closed the door behind us, and we found
+ourselves in the street. We got over the barricade and hurried away as
+quickly as possible. We passed by the dead old man. He was still there,
+lying on the pavement indistinctly revealed by the flickering glimmer
+from the windows; he looked as though he was sleeping. As we reached the
+second barricade we heard behind us the soldiers, who were returning.
+
+We succeeded in regaining the streets in course of demolition. There we
+were in safety. The sound of musketry still reached us. The last-maker
+said, "They are fighting in the direction of the Rue de Cléry." Leaving
+the streets in course of demolition, we went round the markets, not
+without risk of falling into the hands of the patrols, by a number of
+zigzags, and from one little street to another little street. We reached
+the Rue Saint Honoré.
+
+At the corner of the Rue de l'Arbre Sec the last-maker and I separated,
+"For in truth," said he to me, "two run more danger than one." And I
+regained No. 19, Rue Richelieu.
+
+While crossing the rue des Bourdonnais we had noticed the bivouac of the
+Place Saint Eustache. The troops who had been dispatched for the attack
+had not yet come back. Only a few companies were guarding it. We could
+hear shouts of laughter. The soldiers were warming themselves at large
+fires lighted here and there. In the fire which was nearest to us we
+could distinguish in the middle of the brazier the wheels of the
+vehicles which had served for the barricades. Of some there only
+remained a great hoop of red-hot iron.
+
+
+[27] We may now, after twenty-six years, give the name of this loyal
+and courageous man. His name was Galoy (and not Galloix, as certain
+historians of the _coup d'état_ have printed it while recounting, after
+their fashion, the incidents which we are about to read).
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+WHAT HAPPENED DURING THE NIGHT.--THE PETIT CARREAU
+
+On the same night, almost at the same moment, at a few paces distant, a
+villainous deed was being perpetrated.
+
+After the taking of the barricade, where Pierre Tissié was killed,
+seventy or eighty combatants had retired in good order by the Rue Saint
+Sauveur. They had reached the Rue Montorgueil, and had rejoined each
+other at the junction of the Rue du Petit Carreau and the Rue du Cadran.
+At this point the street rises. At the corner of the Rue du Petit
+Carreau and the Rue de Cléry there was a deserted barricade, fairly high
+and well built. There had been fighting there during the morning. The
+soldiers had taken it, but had not demolished it. Why? As we have said,
+there were several riddles of this nature during this day.
+
+The armed band which came from the Rue Saint Denis had halted there and
+had waited. These men were astonished at not being pursued. Had the
+soldiers feared to follow them into the little narrow streets, where
+each corner of the houses might conceal an ambuscade? Had a counter
+order been given? They hazarded various conjectures. Moreover they heard
+close by, evidently on the boulevard, a terrific noise of musketry, and
+a cannonade which resembled continuous thunder. Having no more
+ammunition, they were reduced to listen. If they had known what was
+taking place there, they would have understood why they were not
+pursued. The butchery of the boulevard was beginning. The generals
+employed in the massacre had suspended fighting for awhile.
+
+The fugitives of the boulevard streamed in their direction, but when
+they perceived the barricade they turned back. Some, however, joined
+them indignant, and crying out for vengeance. One who lived in the
+neighborhood ran home and brought back a little tin barrel full of
+cartridges.
+
+These were sufficient for an hour's fighting. They began to construct a
+barricade at the corner of the Rue du Cadran. In this manner the Rue du
+Petit Carreau, closed by two barricades, one towards the Rue de Cléry,
+the other at the corner of the Rue du Cadran, commanded the whole of the
+Rue Montorgueil. The space between these two barricades formed a perfect
+citadel. The second barricade was stronger than the first.
+
+These men nearly all wore coats. Some of them rolled the paving-stones
+with gloves on.
+
+Few workmen were amongst them, but those who were there were intelligent
+and energetic. These workmen were what might be termed the "pick of the
+crowd."
+
+Jeanty Sarre had rejoined them; he at once became their leader.
+
+Charpentier accompanied him, too brave to abandon the enterprise, but
+too much a dreamer to become a commander.
+
+Two barricades, enclosing in the same manner some forty yards of the Rue
+Montorgueil, had just been constructed at the top of the Rue Mauconseil.
+
+Three other barricades, extremely feebly constructed, again intersected
+the Rue Montorgueil in the space which separates the Rue Mauconseil from
+Saint Eustache.
+
+Evening was closing in. The fusillade was ceasing upon the boulevard. A
+surprise was possible. They established a sentry-post at the corner of
+the Rue du Cadran, and sent a main-guard in the direction of the Rue
+Montmartre. Their scouts came in to report some items of information. A
+regiment seemed to be preparing to bivouac in the Place des Victoires.
+
+Their position, to all appearance strong, was not so in reality. There
+were too few in number to defend at the same time the two barricades on
+the Rue de Cléry and the Rue Montorgueil, and the soldiers arriving in
+the rear hidden by the second barricade would have been upon them
+without being even noticed. This determined them to establish a post in
+the Rue de Cléry. They put themselves in communication with the
+barricades of the Rue du Cadran and with the two Mauconseil barricades.
+These two last barricades were only separated from them by a space of
+about 150 paces. They were about six feet high, fairly solid, but only
+guarded by six workmen who had built them.
+
+Towards half-past four, in the twilight--the twilight begins early in
+December--Jeanty Sarre took four men with him and went out to
+reconnoitre. He thought also of raising an advanced barricade in one of
+the little neighboring streets. On the way they found one which had been
+abandoned, and which had been built with barrels. The barrels, however,
+were empty, only one contained any paving-stones, and the barricade
+could not have been held for two minutes. As they left this barricade
+they were assailed by a sharp discharge of musketry. A company of
+infantry, hardly visible in the dusk, was close upon them.
+
+They fell back hastily; but one of them, who was a shoemaker of the
+Faubourg du Temple, was hit, and had remained on the pavement. They went
+back and brought him away. He had the thumb of the right hand smashed.
+"Thank God!" said Jeanty Sarre, "they have not killed him." "No," said
+the poor man, "it is my bread which they have killed."
+
+And he added, "I can no longer work; who will maintain my children?"
+
+They went back, carrying the wounded man. One of them, a medical
+student, bound up his wound.
+
+The sentries, whom it was necessary to post in every direction, and who
+were chosen from the most trustworthy men, thinned and exhausted the
+little central land. There were scarcely thirty in the barricade itself.
+
+There, as in the Quarter of the Temple, all the streetlamps were
+extinguished; the gas-pipes cut; the windows closed and unlighted; no
+moon, not even stars. The night was profoundly dark.
+
+They could hear distant fusillades. The soldiers were firing from around
+Saint Eustache, and every three minutes sent a ball in their direction,
+as much as to say, "We are here." Nevertheless they did not expect an
+attack before the morning.
+
+Dialogues like the following took place amongst them:--
+
+"I wish I had a truss of straw," said Charpentier; "I have a notion that
+we shall sleep here to-night."
+
+"Will you be able to get to sleep?" asked Jeanty Sarre.
+
+"I? Certainly I shall go to sleep."
+
+He did go to sleep, in fact, a few moments later.
+
+In this gloomy network of narrow streets, intersected with barricades,
+and blockaded by soldiers, two wine-shops had remained open. They made
+more lint there, however, than they drank wine; the orders of the chiefs
+were only to drink reddened water.
+
+The doorway of one of these wine-shops opened exactly between the two
+barricades of the Petit Cancan. In it was a clock by which they
+regulated the sentries' relief. In a back room they had locked up two
+suspicious-looking persons who had intermingled with the combatants. One
+of these men at the moment when he was arrested said, "I have come to
+fight for Henri V." They kept them under lock and key, and placed a
+sentry at the door.
+
+An ambulance had been established in an adjoining room. There the
+wounded shoemaker was lying upon a mattress thrown upon the ground.
+
+They had established, in case of need, another ambulance in the Rue du
+Cadran. An opening had been effected at the corner of the barricade on
+this side, so that the wounded could be easily carried away.
+
+Towards half-past nine in the evening a man came up to the barricade.
+
+Jeanty Sarre recognized him.
+
+"Good day, Denis," said he.
+
+"Call me, Gaston," said the man.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because--"
+
+"Are you your brother?"
+
+"Yes, I am my brother. For to-day."
+
+"Very well. Good-day, Gaston."
+
+They heartily shook hands.
+
+It was Denis Dussoubs.
+
+He was pale, calm, and bleeding; he had already been fighting during the
+morning. At the barricade of the Faubourg Saint Martin a ball had grazed
+his breast, but had been turned off by some money in his pocket, and had
+only broken the skin. He had had the rare good fortune of being
+scratched by a ball. It was like the first touch from the claws of
+death. He wore a cap, his hat having been left behind in the barricade
+where he had fought: and he had replaced his bullet-pierced overcoat,
+which was made of Belleisle cloth, by a pea-jacket bought at a
+slop-shop.
+
+How had he reached the barricade of the Petit Carreau? He could not say.
+He had walked straight before him. He had glided from street to street.
+Chance takes the predestined by the hand, and leads them straight to
+their goal through the thick darkness.
+
+At the moment when he entered the barricade they cried out to him, "Who
+goes there?" He answered, "The Republic!"
+
+They saw Jeanty Sarre shake him by the hand. They asked Jeanty Sarre,--
+
+"Who is he?"
+
+Jeanty Sarre answered,--
+
+"It is some one."
+
+And he added,--
+
+"We were only sixty a short time since. We are a hundred now."
+
+All pressed round the new-comer. Jeanty Sarre offered him the command.
+
+"No," said he, "I do not understand the tactics of barricade fighting. I
+should be a bad chief, but I am a good soldier. Give me a gun."
+
+They seated themselves on the paving-stones. They exchanged their
+experiences of what had been done. Denis described to them the fighting
+on the Faubourg Saint Martin. Jeanty Sarre told Denis of the fighting in
+the Rue Saint Denis.
+
+During all this time the generals were preparing a final assault,--what
+the Marquis of Clermont-Tonnerre, in 1822, called the "Coup de Collier,"
+and what, in 1789, the Prince of Lambese had called the "Coup de Bas."
+Throughout all Paris there was now only this point which offered any
+resistance. This knot of barricade, this labyrinth of streets, embattled
+like a redoubt, was the last citadel of the People and of Right. The
+generals invested it leisurely, step by step, and on all sides. They
+concentrated their forces. They, the combatants of this fateful hour,
+knew nothing of what was being done. Only from time to time they
+interrupted their recital of events and they listened. From the right
+and from the left, from the front, from the rear, from every side, at
+the same time, an unmistakable murmur, growing every moment louder, and
+more distinct, hoarse, piercing, fear-inspiring, reached them through
+the darkness. It was the sound of the battalions marching and charging
+at the trumpet-command in all the adjoining streets. They resumed their
+gallant conversation, and then in another moment they stopped again and
+listened to that species of ill-omened chant, chanted by Death, which
+was approaching.
+
+Nevertheless some still thought that they would not be attacked till the
+next morning. Night combats are rare in street-warfare. They are more
+"risky" than all the other conflicts. Few generals venture upon them.
+But amongst the old hands of the barricade, from certain never-failing
+signs, they believed that an assault was imminent.
+
+In fact, at half-past ten at night, and not at eight o'clock as General
+Magnan has said in the despicable document which he calls his report--a
+special movement was heard in the direction of the markets. This was the
+marching of the troops. Colonel de Lourmel had determined to make the
+attack. The 51st of the Line, posted at Saint Eustache, entered the Rue
+Montorgueil. The 2d battalion formed the advanced guard. The Grenadiers
+and the Light Infantry, hurled forward at the double, quickly carried
+the three little barricades which were on the other side of the vacant
+space of the Rue Mauconseil, and the feebly defended barricades of the
+adjoining streets. It was at that very moment that the barricade near
+which I was happened to be carried.
+
+From the barricade of the Petit Carreau they heard the night-strife draw
+near through the darkness, with a fitful noise, strange and appalling.
+First a great tumult, then volleys, then silence, and then all began
+again. The flashing of the fusillades suddenly delineated in the darkness
+the outlines of the houses, which appeared as though they themselves
+were affrighted.
+
+The decisive moment drew near.
+
+The outpost had fallen back upon the barricades. The advanced posts of
+the Rue de Cléry and the Rue du Cadran had come back. They called over
+the roll. Not one of those of the morning was missing.
+
+They were, as we have said, about sixty combatants, and not a hundred,
+as the Magnan report has stated.
+
+From the upper extremity of the street where they were stationed it was
+difficult to ascertain what was happening. They did not exactly know how
+many barricades they were in the Rue Montorgueil between them and Saint
+Eustache, whence the troops were coming. They only knew that their
+nearest point of resistance was the double Mauconseil barricade, and
+that, when all was at an end there, it would be their turn.
+
+Denis had posted himself on the inner side of the barricade in such a
+manner that half his body was above the top, and from there he watched.
+The glimmer which came from the doorway of the wine-shop rendered his
+gestures visible.
+
+Suddenly he made a sign. The attack on the Mauconseil redoubt was
+beginning.
+
+The soldiers, in fact, after having some time hesitated before this
+double wall of paving-stones, lofty, well-built, and which they supposed
+was well defended, had ended by rushing upon it, and attacking it with
+blows of their guns.
+
+They were not mistaken. It was well defended. We have already said that
+there were only six men in this barricade, the six workmen who had built
+it. Of the six one only had three cartridges, the others had only two
+shots to fire. These six men heard the regiment advancing and the roll
+of the battery which was followed on it, and did not stir. Each remained
+silent at his post of battle, the barrel of his gun between two
+paving-stones. When the soldiers were within range they fired, and the
+battalion replied.
+
+"That is right. Rage away, Red Breeches," said, laughingly, the man who
+had three shots to fire.
+
+Behind them, the men of the Petit Carreau were crowded round Denis and
+Jeanty Sarre, and leaning on the crest of their barricade, stretching
+their necks towards the Mauconseil redoubt, they watched them like the
+gladiators of the next combat.
+
+The six men of this Mauconseil redoubt resisted the onslaught of the
+battalion for nearly a quarter of an hour. They did not fire together,
+"in order," one of them said, "to make the pleasure last the longer."
+The pleasure of being killed for duty; a noble sentence in this
+workman's mouth. They did not fall back into the adjoining streets until
+after having exhausted their ammunition. The last, he who had three
+cartridges, did not leave until the soldiers were actually scaling the
+summit of the barricade.
+
+In the barricade of the Petit Carreau not a word was spoken; they
+followed all the phases of this struggle, and they pressed each other's
+hands.
+
+Suddenly the noise ceased, the last musket-shot was fired. A moment
+afterwards they saw the lighted candles being placed in all the windows
+which looked on on the Mauconseil redoubt. The bayonets and the brass
+ornaments on the shakos sparkled there. The barricade was taken.
+
+The commander of the battalion, as is always the custom in similar
+circumstances, had sent orders into the adjoining houses to light up all
+the windows.
+
+This was done at the Mauconseil redoubt.
+
+Seeing that their hour had come, the sixty combatants of the barricade
+of the Petit Carreau mounted their heap of paving-stones, and shouted
+with one voice, in the midst of the darkness, this piercing cry, "Long
+live the Republic!"
+
+No one answered them.
+
+They could only hear the battalion loading their guns.
+
+This acted upon them as a species of signal for action. They were all
+worn out with fatigue, having been on their feet since the preceding
+day, carrying paving-stones or fighting, the greater part had neither
+eaten nor slept.
+
+Charpentier said to Jeanty Sarre,--
+
+"We shall all be killed."
+
+"Shall we really!" said Jeanty Sarre.
+
+Jeanty Sarre ordered the door of the wine-shop to be closed, so that
+their barricade, completely shrouded in darkness, would give them some
+advantage over the barricade which was occupied by the soldiers and
+lighted up.
+
+In the meantime the 51st searched the streets, carried the wounded into
+the ambulances, and took up their position in the double barricade of
+the Rue Mauconseil. Half an hour thus elapsed.
+
+Now, in order to clearly understand what is about to follow, the reader
+must picture to himself in this silent street, in this darkness of the
+night, at from sixty to eighty yards apart, within speaking distance,
+these two redoubts facing each other, and able as in an Iliad to address
+each other.
+
+On one side the Army, on the other side the People, the darkness over
+all.
+
+The species of truce which always precedes decisive encounters drew to a
+close. The preparations were completed on both sides. The soldiers could
+be heard forming into order of battle, and the captains giving out their
+commands. It was evident that the struggle was at hand.
+
+"Let us begin," said Charpentier; and he raised his gun.
+
+Denis held his arm back. "Wait," he said.
+
+Then an epic incident was seen.
+
+Denis slowly mounted the paving-stones of the barricade, ascended to the
+top, and stood there erect, unarmed and bareheaded.
+
+Thence he raised his voice, and, facing the soldiers, he shouted to
+them, "Citizens!"
+
+At this word a sort of electric shudder ensued which was felt from one
+barricade to the other. Every sound was hushed, every voice was silent,
+on both sides reigned a deep religious and solemn silence. By the
+distant glimmer of a few lighted windows the soldiers could vaguely
+distinguish a man standing above a mass of shadows, like a phantom who
+was speaking to them in the night.
+
+Denis continued,--
+
+"Citizens of the Army! Listen to me!"
+
+The silence grew still more profound.
+
+He resumed,--
+
+"What have you come to do here? You and ourselves, all of us who are in
+this street, at this hour, with the sword or gun in hand, what are we
+about to do? To kill each other! To kill each other, citizens! Why?
+Because they have raised a misunderstanding between us! Because we
+obey--you your discipline--we our Right! You believe that you are
+carrying out your instructions; as for us, we know that we are doing our
+duty. Yes! it is Universal Suffrage, it is the Right of the Republic, it
+is our Right that we are defending, and our Right, soldiers, is your
+Right. The Army is the People, as the People is the Army. We are the
+same nation, the some country, the same men. My God! See, is there any
+Russian blood in my veins, in me who am speaking to you? Is there any
+Prussian blood in your veins, in you who are listening to me? No! Why
+then should we fight? It is always an unfortunate thing for a man to
+fire upon a man. Nevertheless, a gun-shot between a Frenchman and an
+Englishman can be understood; but between a Frenchman and a Frenchman,
+ah! that wounds Reason, that wounds France, that wounds our mother!"
+
+All anxiously listened to him. At this moment from the opposite
+barricade a voice shouted to him,--
+
+"Go home, then!"
+
+At this coarse interruption an angry murmur ran through Denis's
+companions, and several guns could be heard being loaded. Denis
+restrained them by a sign.
+
+This sign possessed a strange authority.
+
+"Who is this man?" the combatants behind the barricade asked each other.
+Suddenly they cried out,--
+
+"He is a Representative of the People!"
+
+Denis had, in fact, suddenly assumed his brother Gaston's sash.
+
+What he had premeditated was about to be accomplished; the hour of the
+heroic falsehood had arrived. He cried out,--
+
+"Soldiers, do you know what the man is who is speaking to you at this
+moment? He is not only a citizen, he is a Legislator! He is a
+Representative chosen by Universal Suffrage! My name is Dussoubs, and I
+am a Representative of the People. It is in the name of the National
+Assembly, it is in the name of the Sovereign Assembly, it is in the name
+of the People, and in the name of the Law, that I summon you to hear me.
+Soldiers, you are the armed force. Well, then, when the Law speaks, the
+armed force listens."
+
+This time the silence was not broken.
+
+We reproduce these words almost literally; such as they are, and such as
+they have remained graven on the memory of those who heard them; but
+what we cannot reproduce, and what should be added to these words, in
+order to realize the effect, is the attitude, the accent, the thrill of
+emotion, the vibration of the words issuing from this noble breast, the
+intense impression produced by the terrible hour and place.
+
+Denis Dussoubs continued: "He spoke for some twenty minutes," an
+eye-witness has told me. Another has said, "He spoke with a loud voice;
+the whole street heard him." He was vehement, eloquent, earnest; a judge
+for Bonaparte, a friend for the soldiers. He sought to rouse them by
+everything which could still vibrate in them; he recalled to them their
+true wars, their true victories, the national glory, the ancient
+military honor, the flag. He told them that all this was about to be
+slain by the bullets from their guns. He adjured them, he ordered them
+to join themselves to the People and to the Law; and then suddenly
+coming back to the first words which he had pronounced, carried away by
+that fraternity with which his soul overflowed, he interrupted himself
+in the middle of a half-completed sentence, and cried out:--
+
+"But to what purpose are all these words? It is not all this that is
+wanted, it is a shake of the hand between brothers! Soldiers, you are
+there opposite us, at a hundred paces from us, in a barricade, with the
+sword drawn, with guns pointed; you are aiming directly at me; well
+then, all of us who are here love you! There is not one of us who would
+not give his life for one of you. You are the peasants of the fields of
+France; we are the workmen of Paris. What, then, is in question? Simply
+to see each other, to speak to each other, and not to cut each other's
+throats. Shall we try this? Say! Ah! as for myself in this frightful
+battle-field of civil war, I would rather die than kill. Look now, I am
+going to get off this barricade and come to you. I am unarmed; I only
+know that you are my brothers. I am confident, I am calm; and if one of
+you presents his bayonet at me, I will offer him my hand."
+
+He finished speaking.
+
+A voice cried out from the opposite barricade, "Advance in order!"
+
+Then they saw him slowly descend the dimly-lighted crest of the
+barricade, paving-stone by paving-stone, and plunge with head erect into
+the dark street.
+
+From the barricade all eyes followed him with an inexpressible anxiety.
+Hearts ceased beating, mouths no longer breathed.
+
+No one attempted to restrain Denis Dussoubs. Each felt that he was going
+where he ought to go. Charpentier wished to accompany him. "Would you
+like me to go with you?" he cried out to him. Dussoubs refused, with a
+shake of the head.
+
+Dussoubs, alone and grave, advanced towards the Mauconseil Barricade.
+The night was so dark that they lost sight of him immediately. They
+could distinguish only for a few seconds his peaceable and intrepid
+bearing. Then he disappeared. They could no longer see anything. It was
+an inauspicious moment. The night was dark and dumb. There could only be
+heard in this thick darkness the sound of a measured and firm step dying
+away in the distance.
+
+After some time, how long no one could reckon, so completely did emotion
+eclipse thought amongst the witnesses of this marvellous scene, a
+glimmer of light appeared in the barricade of the soldiers; it was
+probably a lantern which was being brought or taken away. By the flash
+they again saw Dussoubs, he was close to the barricade, he had almost
+reached it, he was walking towards it with his arms stretched out like
+Christ.
+
+Suddenly the word of command, "Fire!" was heard.
+
+A fusillade burst forth.
+
+They had fired upon Dussoubs when he was at the muzzles of their guns.
+
+Dussoubs fell.
+
+Then he raised himself and cried, "Long live the Republic!"
+
+Another bullet struck him, he fell again. Then they saw him raise
+himself once more, and heard him shout in a loud voice, "I die with the
+Republic."
+
+These were his last words.
+
+In this manner died Denis Dussoubs.
+
+It was not vainly that he had said to his brother, "Your sash will be
+there."
+
+He was anxious that this sash should do its duty. He determined in the
+depths of his great soul that this sash should triumph either through
+the law or through death.
+
+That is to say, in the first case it would save Right, in the second
+save Honor.
+
+Dying, he could say, "I have succeeded."
+
+Of the two possible triumphs of which he had dreamed, the gloomy triumph
+was not the less splendid.
+
+The insurgent of the Elysée thought that he had killed a Representative
+of the People, and boasted of it. The sole journal published by the
+_coup d'état_ under these different titles _Patrie_, _Univers_,
+_Moniteur_, _Parisien_, etc., announced on the next day, Friday, the
+5th, "that the ex-Representative Dussoubs (Gaston) had been killed at
+the barricade of the Rue Neuve Saint Eustache, and that he bore 'a red
+flag in his hand.'"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+WHAT WAS DONE DURING THE NIGHT--THE PASSAGE DU SAUMON
+
+When those on the barricade of the Petit Carreau saw Dussoubs fall, so
+gloriously for his friends, so shamefully for his murderers, a moment of
+stupor ensued. Was it possible? Did they really see this before them?
+Such a crime committed by our soldiers? Horror filled every soul.
+
+This moment of surprise did not last long. "Long live the Republic!"
+shouted the barricade with one voice, and it replied to the ambuscade by
+a formidable fire.
+
+The conflict began. A mad conflict on the part of the _coup d'état_, a
+struggle of despair on the side of the Republic. On the side of the
+soldiers an appalling and cold blooded resolution, a passive and
+ferocious obedience, numbers, good arms, absolute chiefs, pouches filled
+with cartridges. On the side of the People no ammunition, disorder,
+weariness, exhaustion, no discipline, indignation serving for a leader.
+
+It appears that while Dussoubs was speaking, fifteen grenadiers,
+commanded by a sergeant named Pitrois, had succeeded in gliding in the
+darkness along the houses, and, unperceived and unheard, had taken up
+their position close to the barricade. These fifteen men suddenly formed
+themselves together with lowered bayonets at twenty paces from the
+barricade ready to scale it. A volley received them. They fell back,
+leaving several corpses in the gutter. Major Jeannin cried out, "Finish
+them off." The entire battalion which occupied the Mauconseil barricade,
+then appeared with raised bayonets upon the uneven crest of this
+barricade, and from there without breaking their line, with a sudden,
+but regulated and inexorable movement, sprang into the street. The four
+companies, in close order, and as though mingled and hardly visible,
+seemed like a wave precipitating itself with a great noise from the
+height of the barricade.
+
+At the barricade of the Petit Carreau they noted the manoeuvre, and had
+paused in their fire. "Present," cried Jeanty Sarre, "but do not fire;
+wait for the order."
+
+Each put his gun to his shoulder, then placed the barrels between the
+paving-stones, ready to fire, and waited.
+
+As soon as it had quitted the Mauconseil redoubt, the battalion rapidly
+formed itself into an attacking column, and a moment afterwards they
+heard the intermittent sound of an advance at the double. It was the
+battalion which was coming upon them.
+
+"Charpentier," said Jeanty Sarre, "you have good eyes. Are they midway?"
+
+"Yes," said Charpentier.
+
+"Fire," said Jeanty Sarre.
+
+The barricade fired. The whole street was filled with smoke. Several
+soldiers fell. They could hear the cries of the wounded. The battalion,
+riddled with balls, halted and replied by platoon firing.
+
+Seven or eight combatants whose bodies reached above the barricade,
+which had been made hastily and was too low were hit. Three were killed
+on the spot. One fell wounded by a ball in his stomach, between Jeanty
+Sarre and Charpentier. He shrieked out with pain.
+
+"Quick, to the ambulance:" said Jeanty Sarre.
+
+"Where?"
+
+"In the Rue du Cadran."
+
+Jeanty Sarre and Charpentier picked up the wounded man, the one by the
+feet, the other by the head, and carried him to the du Cadran
+through the passage in the barricade.
+
+During all this time there was continued file firing. There no longer
+seemed anything in the street but smoke, the balls whistling and
+crossing each other, the brief and repeated commands, some plaintive
+cries, and the flash of the guns lighting up the darkness.
+
+Suddenly a loud void died out, "Forwards!" The battalion resumed its
+double-quick march and threw itself upon the barricade.
+
+Then ensued a horrible scene. They fought hand to hand, four hundred on
+the one side, fifty on the other. They seized each other by the collar,
+by the throat, by the mouth, by the hair. There was no longer a
+cartridge in the barricade, but there remained despair. A workman,
+pierced through and through, snatched the bayonet from his belly, and
+stabbed a soldier with it. They did not see each other, but they
+devoured each other. It was a desperate scuffle in the dark.
+
+The barricade did not hold out for two minutes. In several places, it
+may be remembered, it was low. It was rather stridden over than scaled.
+That was all the more heroic. One of the survivors[28] told the writer
+of these lines, "The barricade defended itself very badly, but the men
+died very well."
+
+All this took place while Jeanty Sarre and Charpentier were carrying the
+wounded man to the ambulance in the Rue du Cadran. His wounds having
+been attended to, they came back to the barricade. They had just reached
+it when they heard themselves called by name. A feeble voice close by
+said to them, "Jeanty Sarre! Charpentier!" They turned round and saw one
+of their men who was dying leaning against a wall, and his knees giving
+way beneath him. He was a combatant who had left the barricade. He had
+only been able to take a few steps down the street. He held his hand
+over his breast, where he had received a ball fired at close quarters.
+He said to them in a scarcely audible voice, "The barricade is taken,
+save yourselves."
+
+"No," said Jeanty Sarre, "I must unload my gun." Jeanty Sarre re-entered
+the barricade, fired a last shot and went away.
+
+Nothing could be more frightful than the interior of the captured
+barricade.
+
+The Republicans, overpowered by numbers, no longer offered any
+resistance. The officers cried out, "No prisoners!" The soldiers billed
+those who were standing, and despatched those who had fallen. Many
+awaited their death with their heads erect. The dying raised themselves
+up, and shouted, "Long live the Republic!" Some soldiers ground their
+heels upon the faces of the dead, so that they should not be recognized.
+There, stretched out amongst the corpses, in the middle of the
+barricade, with his hair in the gutter, was seen the all-but namesake of
+Charpentier, Carpentier, the delegate of the committee of the Tenth
+Arrondissement, who had been killed, and had fallen backwards, with two
+balls in his breast. A lighted candle which the soldiers had taken from
+the wine-shop was placed on a paving stone.
+
+The soldiers were infuriated. One would say that they were revenging
+themselves. On whom? A workman, named Paturel, received three balls and
+six bayonet-thrusts, four of which were in the head. They thought that
+he was dead, and they did not renew the attack. He felt them search him.
+They took ten francs which he had about him. He did not die till six
+days later, and he was able to relate the details which are given here.
+We may note, by the way, that the name of Paturel does not figure upon
+any of the lists of the corpses published by M. Bonaparte.
+
+Sixty Republicans were shut up in this redoubt of the Petit Carreau.
+Forty-six were killed there. These men had come there that morning free,
+proud to fight, and joyous to die. At midnight all was at an end. The
+night wagons carried away on the next day nine corpses to the hospital
+cemetery, and thirty-seven to Montmartre.
+
+Jeanty Sarre escaped by a miracle, as well as Charpentier, and a third
+whose name we have not been able to ascertain. They glided along the
+houses and reached the Passage du Saumon. The grated doors which closed
+the Passage during the night only reached to the centre of the archway.
+They climbed it and got over the spikes, at the risk of tearing
+themselves. Jeanty Sarre was the first to climb it; having reached the
+summit, one of the spikes pierced his trousers, hooked them, and Jeanty
+Sarre fell headforemost upon the pavement. He got up again, he was only
+stunned. The other two followed him, and gliding along the bars, all
+three found themselves in the Passage. It was dimly lighted by a lamp
+which shone at one end. In the meanwhile, they heard the soldiers, who
+were pursuing them, coming up. In order to escape by the Rue Montmartre,
+they would have to climb the grated gateway at the other end of the
+Passage; their hands were grazed, their knees were bleeding; they were
+dying of weariness; they were in no condition to recommence a similar
+ascent.
+
+Jeanty Sarre knew where the keeper of the Passage lived. He knocked at
+his window, and begged him to open. The keeper refused.
+
+At this moment the detachment which had been sent in pursuit of them
+reached the grated gateway which they had just climbed. The soldiers,
+hearing a noise in the Passage, passed the barrels of their guns through
+the bars. Jeanty Sarre squeezed himself against the wall behind one of
+those projecting columns which decorate the Passage; but the column was
+very thin, and only half covered him. The soldiers fired, and smoke
+filled the Passage. When it cleared away, Jeanty Sarre saw Charpentier
+stretched on the stones, with his face to the ground. He had been shot
+through the heart. Their other companion lay a few paces from him,
+mortally wounded.
+
+The soldiers did not scale the grated gateway, but they posted a
+sentinel before it. Jeanty Sarre heard them going away by the Rue
+Montmartre. They would doubtless come back.
+
+No means of flight. He felt all the doors round his prison successively.
+One of them at length opened. This appeared to him like a miracle.
+Whoever could have forgotten to shut the door? Providence, doubtless. He
+hid himself behind it, and remained there for more than an hour,
+standing motionless, scarcely breathing. He no longer heard any sound;
+he ventured out. The sentinel was no longer there. The detachment had
+rejoined the battalion.
+
+One of his old friends, a man to whom he had rendered services such as
+are not forgotten, lived in this very Passage du Saumon. Jeanty Sarre
+looked for the number, woke the porter, told him the name of his friend,
+was admitted, went up the stairs, and knocked at the door. The door was
+opened, his friend appeared in his nightshirt, with a candle in his
+hand.
+
+He recognized Jeanty Sarre, and cried out, "You here! What a state you
+are in! Where hove you come from? From what riot? from what madness? And
+then you come to compromise us all here? To have us murdered? To have us
+shot? Now then, what do you want with me?"
+
+"I want you to give me a brush down," said Jeanty Sarre.
+
+His friend took a brush and brushed him, and Jeanty Sarre went away.
+While going down the stairs, Jeanty Sarre cried out to his friend,
+"Thanks!"
+
+Such is the kind of hospitality which we have since received in Belgium,
+in Switzerland, and even in England.
+
+The next day, when they took up the bodies they found on Charpentier a
+note-book and a pencil, and upon Denis Dussoubs a letter. A letter to a
+woman. Even these stoic souls love.
+
+On the 1st of December, Denis Dussoubs began this letter. He did not
+finish it. Here it is:--
+
+  "MY DEAR MARIE,
+
+  "Have you experienced that sweet pain of feeling regret for him who
+  regrets you? For myself since I left you I have known no other
+  affliction than that of thinking of you. Even in my affliction itself
+  there was something sweet and tender, and although I was troubled, I
+  was nevertheless happy to feel in the depths of my heart how greatly
+  I loved you by the regret which you cost me. Why are we separated?
+  Why have I been forced to fly from you? For we were so happy! When I
+  think of our little evenings so free from constraint, of our gay
+  country chats with your sisters, I feel myself seized with a bitter
+  regret. Did we not love each other clearly, my darling? We had no
+  secret from each other because we had no need to have one, and our
+  lips uttered the thoughts of our hearts without our thinking to keep
+  anything back.
+
+  "God has snatched away from us all these blessings, and nothing will
+  console me for having lost them; do you not lament with me the evils
+  of absence?
+
+  "How seldom we see those whom we love! Circumstances take us far from
+  them, and our soul tormented and attracted out of ourselves lives in
+  a perpetual anguish. I feel this sickness of absence. I imagine
+  myself wherever you are. I follow your work with my eyes, or I listen
+  to your words, seated beside you and seeking to divine the word which
+  you are about to utter; your sisters sew by our side. Empty
+  dreams--illusions of a moment--my hand seeks yours; where are you, my
+  beloved one?
+
+  "My life is an exile. Far from those whom I love and by whom I am
+  loved, my heart calls them and consumes away in its grief. No, I do
+  not love the great cities and their noise, towns peopled with
+  strangers where no one knows you and where you know no one, where
+  each one jostles and elbows the other without ever exchanging a
+  smile. But I love our quiet fields, the peace of home, and the voice
+  of friends who greet you. Up to the present I have always lived in
+  contradiction with my nature; my fiery blood, my nature so hostile to
+  injustice, the spectacle of unmerited miseries have thrown me into a
+  struggle of which I do not foresee the issue, a struggle in which
+  will remain to the end without fear and without reproach, that which
+  daily breaks me down and consumes my life.
+
+  "I tell you, my much-loved darling, the secret miseries of my heart;
+  no, I do not blush for what my hand has just written, but my heart is
+  sick and suffering, and I tell it to you. I suffer... I wish to blot
+  out these lines, but why? Could they offend you? What do they contain
+  that could wound my darling? Do I not know your affection, and do I
+  not know that you love me? Yes, you have not deceived me, I did not
+  kiss a lying mouth; when seated on my knees you lulled me with the
+  charm of your words, I believed you. I wished to bind myself to a
+  burning iron bar; weariness preys upon me and devours me. I feel a
+  maddening desire to recover life. Is it Paris that produces this
+  effect upon me? I always yearn to be in places where I am not. I live
+  here to a complete solitude. I believe you, Marie...."
+
+Charpentier's note-book only contained this line, which he had written
+in the darkness at the foot of the barricade while Denis Dussoubs was
+speaking:--
+
+  Admonet et magna testatur voce per umbras.
+
+
+[28] February 18. Louvain.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+OTHER DEEDS OF DARKNESS
+
+Yvan had again seen Conneau. He corroborated the information given in
+the letter of Alexandre Dumas to Bocage; with the fact we had the names.
+On the 3d of December at M. Abbatucci's house, 31, Rue Caumartin, in the
+presence of Dr. Conneau and of Piétri, a Corsican, born at Vezzani,
+named Jacques François Criscelli,[29] a man attached to the secret and
+personal service of Louis Bonaparte, had received from Piétri's own
+mouth the offer of 25,000 francs "to take or kill Victor Hugo." He had
+accepted, and said, "That is all very well if I am alone. But suppose
+there are two of us?"
+
+Piétri had answered,--
+
+"Then there will be 50,000 francs."
+
+This communication, accompanied by urgent prayers, had been made to me
+by Yvan in the Rue de Monthabor, while we were still at Dupont White's.
+
+This said, I continue my story.
+
+The massacre of the 4th did not produce the whole of its effect until
+the next day, the 5th. The impulse given by us to the resistance still
+lasted for some hours, and at nightfall, in the labyrinth of houses
+ranging from the Rue du Petit Carreau to the Rue du Temple, there was
+fighting. The Pagevin, Neuve Saint Eustache, Montorgueil, Rambuteau,
+Beaubourg, and Transnonain barricades were gallantly defended. There,
+there was an impenetrable network of streets and crossways barricaded by
+the People, surrounded by the Army.
+
+The assault was merciless and furious.
+
+The barricade of the Rue Montorgueil was one of those which held out the
+longest. A battalion and artillery was needed to carry it. At the last
+moment it was only defended by three men, two shop-clerks and a
+lemonade-seller of an adjoining street. When the assault began the night
+was densely dark, and the three combatants escaped. But they were
+surrounded. No outlets. Not one door was open. They climbed the grated
+gateway of the Passage Verdeau as Jeanty Sarre and Charpentier had
+scaled the Passage du Saumon, had jumped over, and had fled down the
+Passage. But the other grated gateway was closed, and like Jeanty Sarre
+and Charpentier they had no time to climb it. Besides, they heard the
+soldiers corning on both sides. In a corner at the entrance of the
+Passage there were a few planks which had served to close a stall, and
+which the stall-keeper was in the habit of putting there. They hid
+themselves beneath these planks.
+
+The soldiers who had taken the barricade, after having searched the
+streets, bethought themselves of searching the Passage. They also
+climbed over the grated gateway, looked about everywhere with lanterns,
+and found nothing They were going away, when one of them perceived the
+foot of one of these three unfortunate men which was projecting from
+beneath the planks.
+
+They killed all three of them on the spot with bayonet-thrusts. They
+cried out, "Kill us at once! Shoot us! Do not prolong our misery."
+
+The neighboring shop-keepers heard these cries, but dared not open their
+doors or their windows, for fear, as one of them said the next day,
+"that they should do the same to them."
+
+The execution at an end, the executioners left the three victims lying
+in a pool of blood on the pavement of the Passage. One of those
+unfortunate men did not die until eight o'clock next morning.
+
+No one had dared to ask for mercy; no one had dared to bring any help.
+They left them to die there.
+
+One of the combatants of the Rue Beaubourg was more fortunate. They were
+pursuing him. He rushed up a staircase, reached a roof, and from there a
+passage, which proved to be the top corridor of an hotel. A key was in
+the door. He opened it boldly, and found himself face to face with a man
+who was going to bed. It was a tired-out traveller who had arrived at
+the hotel that very evening. The fugitive said to the traveller, "I am
+lost, save me!" and explained him the situation in three words.
+
+The traveller said to him, "Undress yourself, and get into my bed." And
+then he lit a cigar, and began quietly to smoke. Just as the man of the
+barricade had got into bed a knock came at the door. It was the solders
+who were searching the house. To the questions which they asked him the
+traveller answered, pointing to the bed, "We are only two here. We have
+just arrived here. I am smoking my cigar, and my brother is asleep." The
+waiter was questioned, and confirmed the traveller's statement. The
+soldiers went away, and no one was shot.
+
+We will say this, that the victorious soldiers killed less than on the
+preceding day. They did not massacre in all the captured barricades. The
+order had been given on that day to make prisoners. It might also be
+believed that a certain humanity existed. What was this humanity? We
+shall see.
+
+At eleven o'clock at night all was at an end.
+
+They arrested all those whom they found in the streets which had been
+surrounded, whether combatants or not, they had all the wine-shops and
+the _cafés_ opened, they closely searched the houses, they seized all
+the men whom they could find, only leaving the women and the children.
+Two regiments formed in a square carried away all these prisoners
+huddled together. They took them to the Tuileries, and shut them up in
+the vast cellar situated beneath the terrace at the waterside.
+
+On entering this cellar the prisoners felt reassured. They called to
+mind that in June, 1848, a great number of insurgents had been shut up
+there, and later on had been transported. They said to themselves that
+doubtless they also would be transported, or brought before the Councils
+of War, and that they had plenty of time before them.
+
+They were thirsty. Many of them had been fighting since that morning,
+and nothing parches tire mouth so much as biting cartridges. They asked
+for drink. Three pitchers of water were brought to them.
+
+A sort of security suddenly fell upon them. Amongst them were several
+who had been transported in June, 1848, and who had already been in that
+cellar, and who said, "In June they were not so humane. They left us for
+three days without food or drink." Some of them wrapped themselves up in
+their overcoats or cloaks, lay down, and slept. At one o'clock in the
+morning a great noise was heard outside. Soldiers, carrying torches,
+appeared in the cellars, the prisoners who were sleeping woke with a
+start, an officer ordered them to get up.
+
+They made them go out anyhow as they had come in. As they went out they
+coupled them two by two at random, and a sergeant counted them in a loud
+voice. They asked neither their names, nor their professions, nor their
+families, nor who they were, nor whence they came; they contented
+themselves with the numbers. The numbers sufficed for what they were
+about to do.
+
+In this manner they counted 337. The counting having come to an end,
+they ranged them in close columns, still two by two and arm-in-arm. They
+were not tied together, but on each side of the column, on the right and
+on the left, there were three files of soldiers keeping them within
+their ranks, with guns loaded; a battalion was at their head, a
+battalion in their rear. They began to march, pressed together and
+enclosed in this moving frame of bayonets.
+
+At the moment when the column set forward, a young law-student, a fair
+pale Alsatian, of some twenty years, who was in their ranks, asked a
+captain, who was marching by him with his sword drawn,--
+
+"Where are we going?"
+
+The officer made no reply.
+
+Having left the Tuileries, they turned to the right, and followed the
+quay as far as the Pont de la Concorde. They crossed the Pont de la
+Concorde, and again turned to the right. In this manner they passed
+before the esplanade of the Invalides, and reached the lonely quay of
+Gros-Caillou.
+
+As we have just said, they numbered 337, and as they walked two by two,
+there was one, the last, who walked alone. He was one of the most daring
+combatants of the Rue Pagevin, a friend of Lecomte the younger. By
+chance the sergeant, who was posted in the inner file by his side, was a
+native of the same province. On passing under a street-lamp they
+recognized each other. They exchanged quickly a few words in a whisper.
+
+"Where are we going?" asked the prisoner.
+
+"To the military school," answered the sergeant. And he added, "Ah! my
+poor lad!"
+
+And then he kept at a distance from the prisoner.
+
+As this was the end of the column, there was a certain space between the
+last rank of the soldiers who formed the line, and the first rank of the
+company which closed the procession.
+
+As they reached the lonely boulevard of Gros-Caillon, of which we have
+just spoken, the sergeant drew near to the prisoner, and said to him in
+a rapid and low tone,--
+
+"One can hardly see here. It is a dark spot. On the left there are
+trees. Be off!"
+
+"But," said the prisoner, "they will fire at me."
+
+"They will miss you."
+
+"But suppose they kill me?"
+
+"It will be no worse than what awaits you."
+
+The prisoner understood, shook the sergeant's hand, and taking advantage
+of the space between the line of soldiers and rear-ground, rushed with a
+single bound outside the column, and disappeared in the darkness beneath
+the trees.
+
+"A man is escaping!" cried out the officer who commanded the last
+company. "Halt! Fire!"
+
+The column halted. The rear-guard company fired at random in the
+direction taken by the fugitive, and, as the sergeant had foreseen,
+missed him. In a few moments the fugitive had reached the streets
+adjoining the tobacco manufactory, and had plunged into them. They did
+not pursue him. They had more pressing work on hand.
+
+Besides, confusion might have arisen in their ranks, and to recapture
+one they risked letting the 336 escape.
+
+The column continued its march. Having reached the Pont d'Iéna, they
+turned to the left, and entered into the Champ de Mars.
+
+There they shot them all.
+
+These 336 corpses were amongst those which were carried to Montmartre
+Cemetery, and which were buried there with their heads exposed.
+
+In this manner their families were enabled to recognize them. The
+Government learned who they were after killing them.
+
+Amongst these 336 victims were a large number of the combatants of the
+Rue Pagevin and the Rue Rambuteau, of the Rue Neuve Saint Eustache and
+the Porte Saint Denis. There were also 100 passers-by, whom they had
+arrested because they happened to be there, and without any particular
+reason.
+
+Besides, we will at once mention that the wholesale executions from the
+3d inst. were renewed nearly every night. Sometimes at the Champ de
+Mars, sometimes at the Prefecture of Police, sometimes at both places at
+once.
+
+When the prisons were full, M. de Maupas said "Shoot!" The fusillades at
+the Prefecture took place sometimes in the courtyard, sometimes in the
+Rue de Jérusalem. The unfortunate people whom they shot were placed
+against the wall which bears the theatrical notices. They had chosen
+this spot because it is close by the sewer-grating of the gutter, so
+that the blood would run down at once, and would leave fewer traces. On
+Friday, the 5th, they shot near this gutter of the Rue de Jérusalem 150
+prisoners. Some one[30] said to me, "On the next day I passed by there,
+they showed the spot; I dug between the paving-stones with the toe of my
+boot, and I stirred up the mud. I found blood."
+
+This expression forms the whole history of the _coup d'état_, and will
+form the whole history of Louis Bonaparte. Stir up this mud, you will
+find blood.
+
+Let this then be known to History:--
+
+The massacre of the boulevard had this infamous continuation, the secret
+executions. The _coup d'état_ after having been ferocious became
+mysterious. It passed from impudent murder in broad day to hidden murder
+at night.
+
+Evidence abounds.
+
+Esquiros, hidden in the Gros-Caillou, heard the fusillades on the Champ
+de Mars every night.
+
+At Mazas, Chambolle, on the second night of his incarceration, heard
+from midnight till five o'clock in the morning, such volleys that he
+thought the prison was attacked.
+
+Like Montferrier, Desmoulins bore evidence to blood between the
+paving-stones of the Rue de Jérusalem.
+
+Lieutenant-Colonel Cailland, of the ex-Republican Guard, is crossing the
+Pont Neuf; he sees some _sergents de ville_ with muskets to their
+shoulders, aiming at the passers-by; he says to them, "You dishonor the
+uniform." They arrest him. They search him. A _sergent de ville_ says to
+him, "If we find a cartridge upon you, we shall shoot you." They find
+nothing. They take him to the Prefecture of Police, they shut him up in
+the station-house. The director of the station-house comes and says to
+him, "Colonel, I know you well. Do not complain of being here. You are
+confided to my care. Congratulate yourself on it. Look here, I am one of
+the family, I go and I come, I see, I listen; I know what is going on; I
+know what is said; I divine what is not said. I hear certain noises
+during the night; I see contain traces in the morning. As for myself I
+am not a bad fellow. I am taking care of you. I am keeping you out of
+the way. At the present moment be contented to remain with me. If you
+were not here you would be underground."
+
+An ex-magistrate, General Leflô's brother-in-law, is conversing on the
+Pont de la Concorde with some officers before the steps of the Chamber;
+some policemen come up to him: "You are tampering with the army." He
+protests, they throw him into a vehicle, and they take him to the
+Prefecture of Police. As he arrives there he sees a young man, in a
+blouse and a cap, passing on the quay, who is being shoved along by
+three municipal guards with the butt-ends of their muskets. At an
+opening of the parapet, a guard shouts to him, "Go in there." The man
+goes in. Two guards shoot him in the back. He falls. The third guard
+despatches him with a shot in his ear.
+
+On the 13th the massacres were not yet at an end. On the morning of that
+day, in the dim light of the dawn, a solitary passer-by, going along the
+Rue Saint Honoré, saw, between two lines of horse-soldiers, three wagons
+wending their way, heavily loaded. These wagons could be traced by the
+stains of blood which dripped from them. They came from the Champ de
+Mars, and were going to the Montmartre Cemetery. They were full of
+corpses.
+
+
+[29] It was this same Criscelli, who later on at Vaugirard in the Rue du
+Trancy, killed by special order of the Prefect of Police a man named
+Kech, "suspected of plotting the assassination of the Emperor."
+
+[30] The Marquis Sarrazin de Montferrier, a relative of my eldest
+brother. I can now mention his name.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+THE CONSULTATIVE COMMITTEE
+
+Al danger being over, all scruples vanished. Prudent and wise people
+could now give their adherence to the _coup d'état_, they allowed their
+names to be posted up.
+
+Here is the placard:
+
+  "FRENCH REPUBLIC.
+
+  "_In the name of the French People_.
+
+  "The President of the Republic,
+
+  "Wishing, until the reorganization of the Legislative Body and the
+  Council of State, to be surrounded by men who justly possess the esteem
+  and the confidence of the country,
+
+  "Has created a Consultative committee, which is composed of MM.--
+
+  "Abbatucci, ex-Councillor of the Court of Cassation (of the Loiret).
+  General Achard (of the Moselle).
+  André, Ernest (of the Seine).
+  André (of the Charente).
+  D'Argout, Governor of the Bank, ex-Minister.
+  General Arrighi of Padua (of Corsica).
+  General de Bar (of the Seine).
+  General Baraguay-d'Hilliers (of Doubs).
+  Barbaroux, ex-Procureur-General (of the Réunion).
+  Baroche, ex-Minister of the Interior and of Foreign Affairs,
+      Vice-President of the Committee (of the Charente-Inférieure).
+  Barret (Ferdinand), ex-Minister (of the Seine).
+  Barthe, ex-Minister, first President (of the Cour de Comptes).
+  Bataille (of the Haute-Vienne).
+  Bavoux (Evariste) (of the Seine-et-Marne).
+  De Beaumont (of the Somme).
+  Bérard (of the Lot-et-Garonne).
+  Berger, Prefect of the Seine (of Puy-de-Dôme).
+  Bertrand (of the Yonne).
+  Bidault (of the Cher).
+  Bigrel (of the Côtes-du-Nord).
+  Billault, barrister.
+  Bineau, ex-Minister (of the Maine-et-Loire).
+  Boinvilliers, ex-President of the body of barristers (of the Seine).
+  Bonjean, Attorney-General of the Court of Cassation (of the Drome).
+  Boulatignier.
+  Bourbousson (of Vaucluse).
+  Bréhier (of the Manche).
+  De Cambacérès (Hubert).
+  De Cambacérès (of the Aisne).
+  Carlier, ex-Prefect of Police.
+  De Casabianca, ex-Minister (of Corsica).
+  General de Castellane, Commander-in-Chief at Lyons.
+  De Caulaincourt (of Calvados).
+  Vice-Admiral Cécile (of the Seine-Inférieure).
+  Chadenet (of the Meuse).
+  Charlemagne (of the Indre).
+  Chassaigne-Goyon (of Puy de Dôme).
+  General de Chasseloup-Laubat (of the Seine-Inférieure).
+  Prosper de Chasseloup-Laubat (Charente-Inférieure).
+  Chaix d'Est-Ange, Barrister of Paris (of the Marne).
+  De Chazelles, Mayor of Clermont-Ferrand (of Puy-de-Dôme).
+  Collas (of the Gironde).
+  De Crouseilhes, ex-Councillor of the Court of Cassation, ex-Minister
+      (of the Basses-Pyrénées).
+  Curial (of the Orne).
+  De Cuverville (of the Côtes-du-Nord).
+  Dabeaux (of the Haute-Garonne).
+  Dariste (of the Basses-Pyrénées).
+  Daviel, ex-Minister.
+  Delacoste, ex-Commissary-General (of the Rhône).
+  Delajus (of the Charente-Inférieure).
+  Delavau (of the Indre).
+  Deltheil (of the Lot).
+  Denjoy (of the Gironde).
+  Desjobert (of the Seine-Inférieure).
+  Desmaroux (of the Allier).
+  Drouyn de Lhuys, ex-Minister (of the Seine-et-Marne).
+  Théodore Ducos, Minister of the Marine and of the Colonies (of the
+      Seine).
+  Dumas (of the Institut) ex-Minister (of the Nord).
+  Charles Dupin, of the Institut (of the Seine-Inférieure).
+  General Durrieu (of the Landes).
+  Maurice Duval, ex-Prefect.
+  Eschassériaux (of the Charente-Inférieure).
+  Marshal Excelmans, Grand Chancellor of the Legion of Honor.
+  Ferdinand Favre (of the Loire-Inférieure) General de Flahaut,
+      ex-Ambassador.
+  Fortoul, Minister of Public Instruction (of the Basses-Alpes).
+  Achille Fould, Minister of Finance (of the Seine).
+  De Fourment (of the Somme).
+  Fouquier-d'Hérouël (of the Aisne).
+  Fremy (of the Yonne).
+  Furtado (of the Seine).
+  Gasc (of the Haute Garonne).
+  Gaslonde (of the Manche).
+  De Gasparin (ex-Minister).
+  Ernest de Girardin (of the Charente).
+  Augustin Giraud (of Maine-et-Loire).
+  Charles Giraud, of the Institut, member of the Court of Public
+      Instruction, ex-Minister.
+  Godelle (of the Aisne).
+  Goulhot de Saint-Germain (of the Manche).
+  General de Grammont (of the Loire).
+  De Grammont (of the Haute-Saône).
+  De Greslan (of the Réunion).
+  General de Grouchy (of the Gironde).
+  Kallez Claparède (of the Bas-Rhin).
+  General d'Hautpoul, ex-Minister (of the Aude).
+  Hébert (of the Aisne).
+  De Heeckeren (of the Haut-Rhin).
+  D'Hérembault (of the Pas-de-Calais).
+  Hermann.
+  Heurtier (of the Loire).
+  General Husson (of the Aube).
+  Janvier (of the Tarn-et-Garonne).
+  Lacaze (of the Hautes-Pyrénées).
+  Lacrosse, ex-Minister (of Finistère).
+  Ladoucette (of the Moselle).
+  Frédéric de Lagrange (of the Gers).
+  De Lagrange (of the Gironde).
+  General de La Hitte, ex-Minister.
+  Delangle, ex-Attorney-General.
+  Lanquetin, President of the Municipal Commission.
+  De la Riboissière (of Ille-et-Vilaine).
+  General Lawoestine.
+  Lebeuf (of the Seine-et-Marne).
+  Genéral Lebreton (of the Eure-et-Loir).
+  Le Comte (of the Yonne).
+  Le Conte (of the Côtes-du-Nord).
+  Lefebvre-Duruflé, Minister of Commerce (of the Eure).
+  Lélut (of the Haute-Saône).
+  Lemarois (of the Manche).
+  Lemercier (of the Charente). Lequien (of the Pas-de-Calais).
+  Lestiboudois (of the Nord).
+  Levavasseur (of the Seine-Inférieure).
+  Le Verrier (of the Manche).
+  Lezay de Marnésia (of Loir-et-Cher).
+  General Magnan, Commander-in-chief of the Army of Paris.
+  Magne, Minister of Public Works (of the Dordogne).
+  Edmond Maigne (of the Dordogne).
+  Marchant (of the Nord).
+  Mathieu Bodet, Barrister at the Court of Cassation.
+  De Maupas, Prefect of Police.
+  De Mérode (of the Nord).
+  Mesnard, President of the Chamber of the Court of Cassation.
+  Meynadier, ex-Prefect (of the Lozère).
+  De Montalembert (of the Doubs).
+  De Morny (of the Puy-de-Dôme).
+  De Mortemart (of the Seine-Inférieure).
+  De Mouchy (of the Oise).
+  De Moustiers (of the Doubs).
+  Lucien Murat (of the Lot).
+  General d'Ornano (of the Indre-et-Loire).
+  Pepin Lehalleur (of the Seine-et-Marne).
+  Joseph Périer, Governor of the Bank.
+  De Persigny (of the Nord).
+  Pichon, Mayor of Arras (of the Pas de Calais).
+  Portalis, First President of the Court of Cassation.
+  Pongerard, Mayor of Pennes (of the Ille-et-Vilaine).
+  General de Préval.
+  De Rancé (of Algeria).
+  General Randon, ex-Minister, Governor-General of Algeria.
+  General Regnauld de Saint-Jean-d'Angély, ex-Minister (of the
+      Charente-Inférieure).
+  Renouard de Bussière (of the Bas-Rhin).
+  Renouard (of the Lozère).
+  General Rogé.
+  Rouher, Keeper of the Seals, Minister of Justice (of the Puy-de-Dôme).
+  De Royer, ex-Minister, Attorney-General at the Court of Appeal of
+      Paris.
+  General de Saint-Arnaud, Minister of War.
+  De Saint-Arnaud, Barrister at the Court of Appeal of Paris.
+  De Salis (of the Moselle).
+  Sapey (of the Isère).
+  Schneider, ex-Minister.
+  De Ségur d'Aguesseau (of the Hautes-Pyréneés).
+  Seydoux (of the Nord).
+  Amédée Thayer.
+  Thieullen (of the Côtes-du-Nord).
+  De Thorigny, ex-Minister.
+  Toupot de Béveaux (of the Haute-Marne).
+  Tourangin, ex-Prefect. Troplong, First President of the Court of
+      Appeal.
+  De Turgot, Minister for Foreign Affairs.
+  Vaillant, Marshal of France.
+  Vaisse, ex-Minister (of the Nord).
+  De Vandeul (of the Haute-Marne).
+  General Vast-Vimeux (of the Charente-Inférieure).
+  Vauchelle, Mayor of Versailles.
+  Viard (of the Meurthe).
+  Vieillard (of the Manche).
+  Vuillefroy.
+  Vuitry, Under-Secretary of State at the Ministry of Finance De Wagram.
+
+  "The President of the Republic,
+
+  "LOUIS NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.
+
+  "Minister of the Interior, DE MORNY."
+
+The name of Bourbousson is found on this list.
+
+It would be a pity if this name were lost.
+
+At the same time as this placard appeared the protest of M. Daru, as
+follows:--
+
+  "I approve of the proceedings of the National Assembly at the Mairie
+  of the Tenth Arrondissement on the 2d of December, 1851, in which I was
+  hindered from participating by force.
+
+  "DARU."
+
+Some of these members of the Consultative Committee came from Mazas or
+from Mount Valerien. They had been detained in a cell for four-and-twenty
+hours, and then released. It may be seen that these legislators bore
+little malice to the man who had made them undergo this disagreeable
+taste of the law.
+
+Many of the personages comprised in this menagerie possessed no other
+renown but the outcry caused by their debts, clamoring around them.
+Such a one had been twice declared bankrupt, but this extenuating
+circumstance was added, "not under his own name:" Another who belonged
+to a literary or scientific circle was reputed to have sold his vote. A
+third, who was handsome, elegant, fashionable, dandified, polished,
+gilded, embroidered, owed his prosperity to a connection which indicated
+a filthiness of soul.
+
+Such people as these gave their adherence with little hesitation to the
+deed which "saved society."
+
+Some others, amongst those who composed this mosaic, possessed no
+political enthusiasm, and merely consented to figure in this list in
+order to keep their situations and their salaries; they were under the
+Empire what they had been before the Empire, neuters, and during the
+nineteen years of the reign, they continued to exercise their military,
+judicial, or administrative functions unobtrusively, surrounded with the
+right and proper respect due to inoffensive idiots.
+
+Others were genuine politicians, belonging to that learned school which
+begins with Guizot, and does not finish with Parieu, grave physicians of
+social order, who reassure the frightened middle-classes, and who
+preserve dead things.
+
+  "Shall I lose my eye?" asked Messer Pancrace.
+  "Not at all, my friend, I hold it in my hand."
+
+In this quasi Council of State there were a goodly number of men of the
+Police, a race of beings then held in esteem, Carlier, Piétri, Maupas,
+etc.
+
+Shortly after the 2d of December under the title of Mixed Commissions,
+the police substituted itself for justice, drew up judgments, pronounced
+sentences, violated every law judicially without the regular magistracy
+interposing the slightest obstacle to this irregular magistracy: Justice
+allowed the police to do what it liked with the satisfied look of a team
+of horses which had just been relieved.
+
+Some of the men inscribed on the list of this commission refused: Léon
+Faucher Goulard, Mortemart, Frédéric Granier, Marchand, Maillard
+Paravay, Beugnot. The newspapers received orders not to publish these
+refusals.
+
+M. Beugnot inscribed on his card: "Count Beugnot, who does not belong to
+the Consultative Committee."
+
+M. Joseph Périer went from corner to corner of the streets, pencil in
+hand, scratching out his name from all the placards, saying, "I shall
+take back my name wherever I find it."
+
+General Baraguay d'Hilliers did not refuse. A brave soldier nevertheless;
+he had lost an arm in the Russian war. Later on, he has been Marshall of
+France; he deserved better than to have been created a Marshal by Louis
+Bonaparte. It did not appear likely that he would have come to this.
+During the last days of November General Baraguay d'Hilliers, seated in a
+large arm-chair before the high fireplace of the Conference Hall of the
+National Assembly, was warming himself; some one, one of his colleagues,
+he who is writing these lines, sat down near him on the other side of the
+fireplace. They did not speak to each other, one belonging to the Right,
+the other to the Left; but M. Piscatory came in, who belonged a little to
+the Right and a little to the Left. He addressed himself to Baraguay
+d'Hilliers: "Well, general, do you know what they are saying?"
+
+"What?"
+
+"That one of these days the President will shut the door in our faces."
+
+General Baraguay d'Hilliers answered, and I heard the answer,--"If M.
+Bonaparte should close the door of the Assembly against us, France will
+fling it wide open again."
+
+Louis Bonaparte at one moment thought of entitling this committee the
+"Executive Commission." "No," said Morny to him, "that would be to
+credit them with courage. They will willingly be supporters; they will
+not be proscribers."
+
+General Rulhière was dismissed for having blamed the passive obedience
+of the army.
+
+Let us here mention an incident. Some days after the 4th of December,
+Emmanuel Arago met M. Dupin, who was going up the Faubourg Saint Honoré.
+
+"What!" said Arago, "are you going to the Elysée?"
+
+M. Dupin answered, "I never go to disreputable houses."
+
+Yet he went there.
+
+M. Dupin, it may be remembered, was appointed Attorney-General at the
+Court of Cessation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+THE OTHER LIST
+
+Opposite to the list of adherents should be placed the list of the
+proscribed. In this manner the two sides of the _coup d'état_ can be
+seen at a glance.
+
+  "DECREE.
+
+  "ARTICLE I.--The ex-Representatives of the Assembly, whose names are
+  found beneath, are expelled from French territory, from Algeria, and
+  from the Colonies, for the sake of public safety:--
+
+  "Edmond Valentine.          Charrassin.
+  Paul Racouchot.             Bandsept.
+  Agricol Perdiguier.         Savoye.
+  Eugène Cholat.              Joly.
+  Louis Latrade.              Combier.
+  Michel Renaud.              Boysset.
+  Joseph Benoist (du Rhône).  Duché.
+  Joseph Burgard.             Ennery.
+  Jean Colfavru.              Guilgot.
+  Joseph Faure (du Rhone).    Hochstuhl.
+  Pierre-Charles Gambon.      Michot Boutet.
+  Charles Lagrange.           Baune.
+  Martin Nadaud.              Bertholon.
+  Barthélemy Terrier.         Schoelcher.
+  Victor Hugo.                De Flotte.
+  Cassal.                     Joigneaux.
+  Signard.                    Laboulaye.
+  Viguier.                    Bruys.
+  Esquiros.                   Gaston Dussoubs.
+  Madier de Montjau.          Guiter.
+  Noël Parfait.               Lafon.
+  Emile Péan.                 Lamarque.
+  Pelletier.                  Pierre Lafranc.
+  Raspail.                    Jules Leroux.
+  Théodore Bac.               Francisque Maigne.
+  Bancel.                     Malardier.
+  Belin (Drôme).              Mathieu (de la Drôme).
+  Bosse.                      Millotte.
+  Bourzat.                    Roselli-Mollet.
+  Brive.                      Charras.
+  Chavoix.                    Saint-Ferreol.
+  Clément Dulac.              Sommier.
+  Dupout (de Bussac).         Testelin (Nord).
+
+  "ARTICLE II.--In the event, contrary to the present decree, of one of
+  the persons named in Article I. re-entering the prohibited limits, he
+  may be transported for the sake of public safety.
+
+  "Given at the Palace of the Tuileries, at the Cabinet Council assembled,
+  January 9th, 1852.
+
+  "LOUIS BONAPARTE.
+
+  "DE MORNY, Minister of the Interior."
+
+There was besides a list of the "provisionally exiled," on which figured
+Edward Quinet, Victor Chauffour, General Laidet, Pascal Duprat, Versigny,
+Antony Thouret, Thiers, Girardin, and Rémusat. Four Representatives,
+Mathé, Greppo, Marc-Dufraisse, and Richardet, were added to the list of
+the "expelled." Representative Miot was reserved for the tortures of the
+casemates of Africa. Thus in addition to the massacres, the victory of
+the _coup d'état_ was paid for by these figures: eighty-eight
+Representatives proscribed, one killed.
+
+I usually dined at Brussels in a café, called the Café des Mille
+Colonnes, which was frequented by the exiles. On the 10th of January I
+had invited Michel de Bourges to lunch, and we were sitting at the same
+table. The waiter brought me the _Moniteur Français_; I glanced over it.
+
+"Ah," said I, "here is the list of the proscribed." I ran my eye over it,
+and I said to Michel de Bourges, "I have a piece of bad news to tell
+you." Michel de Bourges turned pale. I added, "You are not on the list."
+His face brightened.
+
+Michel de Bourges, so dauntless in the face of death, was faint-hearted
+in the face of exile.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+DAVID D'ANGERS
+
+Brutalities and ferocities were mingled together. The great sculptor,
+David d'Angers, was arrested in his own house, 16, Rue d'Assas; the
+Commissary of Police on entering, said to him,--
+
+"Have you any arms in your house?"
+
+"Yes," Said David, "for my defence."
+
+And he added,--
+
+"If I had to deal with civilized people."
+
+"Where are these arms?" rejoined the Commissary. "Let us see them."
+
+David showed him his studio full of masterpieces.
+
+They placed him in a _fiacre_, and drove him to the station-house of the
+Prefecture of Police.
+
+Although there was only space for 120 prisoners, there were 700 there.
+David was the twelfth in a dungeon intended for two. No light nor air. A
+narrow ventilation hole above their heads. A dreadful tub in a corner,
+common to all, covered but not closed by a wooden lid. At noon they
+brought them soup, a sort of warm and stinking water, David told me. They
+stood leaning against the wall, and trampled upon the mattresses which
+had been thrown on the floor, not having room to lie down on them. At
+length, however, they pressed so closely to each other, that they
+succeeded in lying down at full length. Their jailers had thrown them
+some blankets. Some of them slept. At day break the bolts creaked, the
+door was half-opened and the jailers cried out to them, "Get up!" They
+went into the adjoining corridor, the jailer took up the mattresses,
+threw a few buckets of water on the floor, wiped it up anyhow, replaced
+the mattresses on the damp stones, and said to them, "Go back again."
+They locked them up until the next morning. From time to time they
+brought in 100 new prisoners, and they fetched away 100 old ones (those
+who had been there for two or three days). What became of them?--At night
+the prisoners could hear from their dungeon the sound of explosions, and
+in the morning passers-by could see, as we have stated, pools of blood in
+the courtyard of the Prefecture.
+
+The calling over of those who went out was conducted in alphabetical
+order.
+
+One day they called David d'Angers. David took up his packet, and was
+getting ready to leave, when the governor of the jail, who seemed to be
+keeping watch over him, suddenly came up and said quickly, "Stay, M.
+David, stay."
+
+One morning he saw Buchez, the ex-President of the Constituent Assembly,
+coming into his cell "Ah!" said David, "good! you have come to visit the
+prisoners?"--"I am a prisoner," said Buchez.
+
+They wished to insist on David leaving for America. He refused. They
+contented themselves with Belgium. On the 19th December he reached
+Brussels. He came to see me, and said to me, "I am lodging at the Grand
+Monarque, 89, Rue des Fripiers."[31]
+
+And he added laughing, "The Great Monarch--the King. The old
+clothesmen--the Royalists, '89. The Revolution." Chance occasionally
+furnishes some wit.
+
+
+[31] _Anglice_, "old clothes men."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+OUR LAST MEETING
+
+On the 3d of December everything was coming in in our favor. On the 5th
+everything was receding from us. It was like a mighty sea which was going
+out. The tide had come in gloriously, it went out disastrously. Gloomy
+ebb and flow of the people.
+
+And who was the power who said to this ocean, "Thou shalt go no farther?"
+Alas! a pigmy.
+
+These hiding-places of the abyss are fathomless.
+
+The abyss is afraid. Of what?
+
+Of something deeper than itself. Of the Crime.
+
+The people drew back. They drew back on the 5th; on the 6th they
+disappeared.
+
+On the horizon there could be seen nothing but the beginning of a species
+of vast night.
+
+This night has been the Empire.
+
+We found ourselves on the 5th what we were on the 2d. Alone.
+
+But we persevered. Our mental condition was this--desperate, yes;
+discouraged, no.
+
+Items of bad news came to us as good news had come to us on the evening
+of the 3d, one after another. Aubry du Nord was at the Concièrgerie. Our
+dear and eloquent Crémieux was at Mazas. Louis Blanc, who, although
+banished, was coming to the assistance of France, and was bringing to us
+the great power of his name and of his mind, had been compelled, like
+Ledru Rollin, to halt before the catastrophe of the 4th. He had not been
+able to get beyond Tournay.
+
+As for General Neumayer, he had not "marched upon Paris," but he had come
+there. For what purpose? To give in his submission.
+
+We no longer possessed a refuge. No. 15, Rue Richelieu, was watched, No.
+11, Rue Monthabor, had been denounced. We wandered about Paris, meeting
+each other here and there, and exchanging a few words in a whisper, not
+knowing where we should sleep, or whether we should get a meal; and
+amongst those heads which did not know what pillow they should have at
+night there was at least one upon which a price was set.
+
+They accosted each other, and this is the sort of conversation they
+held:--
+
+"What has became of So-and-So?"
+
+"He is arrested."
+
+"And So-and-So?"
+
+"Dead."
+
+"And So-and-So?"
+
+"Disappeared."
+
+We held, however, one other meeting. This was on the 6th, at the house of
+the Representative Raymond, in the Place de la Madeleine. Nearly all of
+us met there. I was enabled to shake the hands of Edgar Quinet, of
+Chauffour, of Clément Dulac, of Bancel, of Versigny, of Emile Péan, and I
+again met our energetic and honest host of the Rue Blanche, Coppens, and
+our courageous colleague, Pons Stande, whom we had lost sight of in the
+smoke of the battle. From the windows of the room where we were
+deliberating we could see the Place de la Madeleine and the Boulevards
+militarily occupied, and covered with a fierce and deep mass of soldiers
+drawn up in battle order, and which still seemed to face a possible
+combat. Charamaule came in.
+
+He drew two pistols from his great cloak, placed them on the table, and
+said, "All is at an end. Nothing feasible and sensible remains, except a
+deed of rashness. I propose it. Are you of my opinion, Victor Hugo?"
+
+"Yes," I answered.
+
+I did not know what he was going to say, but I knew that he would only
+say that which was noble.
+
+This was his proposition.
+
+"We number," resumed he, "about fifty Representatives of the People,
+still standing and assembled together. We are all that remains of the
+National Assembly, of Universal Suffrage, of the Law, of Right.
+To-morrow, where shall we be? We do not know. Scattered or dead. The hour
+of to-day is ours; this hour gone and past, we have nothing left but the
+shadow. The opportunity is unique. Let us profit by it."
+
+He stopped, looked at us fixedly with his steadfast gaze, and resumed,--
+
+"Let us take the advantage of this chance of being alive and the good
+fortune of being together. The group which is here is the whole of the
+Republic. Well, then; let us offer in our persons all the Republic to the
+army, and let us make the army fall back before the Republic, and Might
+fall back before Right. In that supreme moment one of the two must
+tremble, Might or Right, and if Right does not tremble Might will
+tremble. If we do not tremble the soldiers will tremble. Let us march
+upon the Crime. If the Law advances, the Crime will draw back. In either
+case we shall have done our duty. Living, we shall be preservers, dead,
+we shall be heroes. This is what I propose."
+
+A profound silence ensued.
+
+"Let us put on our sashes, and let us all go down in a procession, two by
+two, into the Place de la Madeleine. You can see that Colonel before that
+large flight of steps, with his regiment in battle array; we will go to
+him, and there, before his soldiers, I will summon him to come over to
+the side of duty, and to restore his regiment to the Republic. If he
+refuses ..."
+
+Charamaule took his two pistols in his hands.
+
+"... I will blow out his brains."
+
+"Charamaule," said I, "I will be by your side."
+
+"I knew that well," Charamaule said to me.
+
+He added,--
+
+"This explosion will awaken the people."
+
+"But," several cried out, "suppose it does not awaken them?"
+
+"We shall die."
+
+"I am on your side," said I to him.
+
+We each pressed the other's hand. But objections burst forth.
+
+No one trembled, but all criticised the proposal. Would it not be
+madness? And useless madness? Would it not be to play the last card of
+the Republic without any possible chance of success? What good fortune
+for Bonaparte! To crush with one blow all that remained of those who were
+resisting and of those who were combating! To finish with them once for
+all! We were beaten, granted, but was it necessary to add annihilation to
+defeat? No possible chance of success. The brains of an army cannot be
+blown out. To do what Charamaule advised would be to open the tomb,
+nothing more. It would be a magnificent suicide, but it would be a
+suicide. Under certain circumstances it is selfish to be merely a hero. A
+man accomplishes it at once, he becomes illustrious, he enters into
+history, all that is very easy. He leaves to others behind him the
+laborious work of a long protest, the immovable resistance of the exile,
+the bitter, hard life of the conquered who continues to combat the
+victory. Some degree of patience forms a part of politics. To know how
+to await revenge is sometimes more difficult than to hurry on its
+catastrophe. There are two kinds of courage--bravery and perseverance;
+the first belongs to the soldier, the second belongs to the citizen. A
+hap-hazard end, however dauntless, does not suffice. To extricate oneself
+from the difficulty by death, it is only too easily done: what is
+required, what is the reverse of easy, is to extricate one's country from
+the difficulty. No, said those high-minded men, who opposed Charamaule
+and myself, this to-day which you propose to us is the suppression of
+to-morrow; take care, there is a certain amount of desertion in
+suicide....
+
+The word "desertion" grievously wounded Charamaule. "Very well," said he,
+"I abandon the idea."
+
+This scene was exceedingly grand, and Quinet later on, when in exile,
+spoke to me of it with deep emotion.
+
+We separated. We did not meet again.
+
+I wandered about the streets. Where should I sleep? That was the question.
+I thought that No. 19, Rue Richelieu would probably be as much watched as
+No. 15. But the night was cold, and I decided at all hazards to re-enter
+this refuge, although perhaps a hazardous one. I was right to trust myself
+to it. I supped on a morsel of bread, and I passed a very good night. The
+next morning at daybreak on waking I thought of the duties which awaited
+me. I thought that I was abut to go out, and that I should probably not
+come back to the room; I took a little bread which remained, and I
+crumbled it on the window-sill for the birds.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+
+DUTY CAN HAVE TWO ASPECTS
+
+Had it been in the power of the Left at any moment to prevent the _coup
+d'état_?
+
+We do not think so.
+
+Nevertheless here is a fact which we believe we ought not to pass by in
+silence. On the 16th November, 1851, I was in my study at home at 37, Rue
+de la Tour d'Auvergne; it was about midnight. I was working. My servant
+opened the door.
+
+"Will you see M. ----, sir?"
+
+And he mentioned a name.
+
+"Yes," I said.
+
+Some one came in.
+
+I shall only speak reservedly of this eminent and distinguished man. Let
+it suffice to state that he had the right to say when mentioning the
+Bonapartes "my family."
+
+It is known that the Bonaparte family is divided into two branches, the
+Imperial family and the private family. The Imperial family had the
+tradition of Napoleon, the private family had the tradition of Lucien: a
+shade of difference which, however, had no reality about it.
+
+My midnight visitor took the other corner of the fireplace.
+
+He began by speaking to me of the memoirs of a very highminded and
+virtuous woman, the Princess ----, his mother, the manuscript of which he
+had confided to me, asking my advice as to the utility or the suitability
+of their publication; this manuscript, besides being full of interest,
+possessed for me a special charm, because the handwriting of the Princess
+resembled my mother's handwriting. My visitor, to whom I gave it back,
+turned over the leaves for a few moments, and then suddenly interrupting
+himself, he turned to me and said,--
+
+"The Republic is lost."
+
+I answered,--
+
+"Almost."
+
+He resumed,--
+
+"Unless you save it."
+
+"I?"
+
+"You."
+
+"How so?"
+
+"Listen to me."
+
+Then he set forth with that clearness, complicated at times with
+paradoxes, which is one of the resources of his remarkable mind, the
+situation, at the same time desperate and strong, in which we were
+placed.
+
+This situation, which moreover I realized as well as he himself, was
+this:--
+
+The Right of the Assembly was composed of about 400 members, and the Left
+of about 180. The four hundred of the majority belonged by thirds to
+three parties, the Legitimist party, the Orleanist party, the Bonapartist
+party, and in a body to the Clerical party. The 180 of the minority
+belonged to the Republic. The Right mistrusted the Left, and had taken a
+precaution against the minority.
+
+A Vigilance Committee, composed of sixteen members of the Right, charged
+with impressing unity upon this trinity of parties, and charged with the
+task of carefully watching the Left, such was this precaution. The Left
+at first had confined itself to irony, and borrowing from me a word to
+which people then attached, though wrongly, the idea of decrepitude, had
+called the sixteen Commissioners the "Burgraves." The irony subsequently
+turning into suspicion, the Left had on its side ended by creating a
+committee of sixteen members to direct the Left, and observe the Right;
+these the Right had hastened to name the "Red Burgraves." A harmless
+rejoinder. The result was that the Right watched the Left, and that the
+Left watched the Right, but that no one watched Bonaparte. They were two
+flocks of sheep so distrustful of one another that they forgot the wolf.
+During that time, in his den at the Elysée, Bonaparte was working. He was
+busily employing the time which the Assembly, the majority and the
+minority, was losing in mistrusting itself. As people feel the loosening
+of the avalanche, so they felt the catastrophe tottering in the gloom.
+They kept watch upon the enemy, but they did not turn their attention in
+the true direction. To know where to fix one's mistrust is the secret of
+a great politician. The Assembly of 1851 did not possess this shrewd
+certainty of eyesight, their perspective was bad, each saw the future
+after his own fashion, and a sort of political short-sightedness blinded
+the Left as well as the Right; they were afraid, but not where fear was
+advisable; they were in the presence of a mystery, they had an ambuscade
+before them, but they sought it where it did not exist, and they did not
+perceive where it really lay. Thus it was that these two flocks of sheep,
+the majority, and the minority faced each other affrightedly, and while
+the leaders on one side and the guides on the other, grave and attentive,
+asked themselves anxiously what could be the mewing of the grumbling, of
+the Left on the one side, of the bleatings of the Right on the other,
+they ran the risk of suddenly feeling the four claws of the _coup d'état_
+fastened in their shoulders.
+
+My visitor said to me,-
+
+"You are one of the Sixteen!"
+
+"Yes," answered I, smiling; "a 'Red Burgrave.'"
+
+"Like me, a 'Red Prince.'"
+
+And his smile responded to mine.
+
+He resumed,--
+
+"You have full powers?"
+
+"Yes. Like the others."
+
+And I added,--
+
+"Not more than the others. The Left has no leaders."
+
+He continued,--
+
+"Yon, the Commissary of Police, is a Republican?'
+
+"Yes."
+
+"He would obey an order signed by you?"
+
+"Possibly."
+
+"_I_ say, without doubt."
+
+He looked at me fixedly.
+
+"Well, then, have the President arrested this night."
+
+It was now my turn to look at him.
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"What I say."
+
+I ought to state that his language was frank, resolute, and
+self-convinced, and that during the whole of this conversation, and now,
+and always, it has given me the impression of honesty.
+
+"Arrest the President!" I cried.
+
+Then he set forth that this extraordinary enterprise was an easy matter;
+that the Army was undecided; that in the Army the African Generals
+counterpoised the President; that the National Guard favored the
+Assembly, and in the Assembly the Left; that Colonel Forestier answered
+for the 8th Legion; Colonel Gressier for the 6th, and Colonel Howyne for
+the 5th; that at the order of the Sixteen of the Left there would be an
+immediate taking up of arms; that my signature would suffice; that,
+nevertheless, if I preferred to call together the Committee, in Secret
+Session, we could wait till the next day; that on the order from the
+Sixteen, a battalion would march upon the Elysée; that the Elysée
+apprehended nothing, thought only of offensive, and not of defensive
+measures, and accordingly would be taken by surprise; that the soldiers
+would not resist the National Guard; that the thing would be done without
+striking a blow; that Vincennes would open and close while Paris slept;
+that the President would finish his night there, and that France, on
+awakening, would learn the twofold good tidings: that Bonaparte was out
+of the fight, and France out of danger.
+
+He added,--
+
+"You can count on two Generals: Neumayer at Lyons, and Lawoëstyne at
+Paris."
+
+He got up and leaned against the chimney-piece; I can still see him
+there, standing thoughtfully; and he continued:
+
+"I do not feel myself strong enough to begin exile all over again, but I
+feel the wish to save my family and my country."
+
+He probably thought he noticed a movement of surprise in me, for he
+accentuated and italicized these words.
+
+"I will explain myself. Yes; I wish to save my family and my country. I
+bear the name of Napoleon; but as you know without fanaticism. I am a
+Bonaparte, but not a Bonapartist. I respect the name, but I judge it. It
+already has one stain. The Eighteenth Brumaire. Is it about to have
+another? The old stain disappeared beneath the glory; Austerlitz covered
+Brumaire. Napoleon was absolved by his genius. The people admired him so
+greatly that it forgave him. Napoleon is upon the column, there is an end
+of it, let them leave him there in peace. Let them not resuscitate him
+through his bad qualities. Let them not compel France to remember too
+much. This glory of Napoleon is vulnerable. It has a wound; closed, I
+admit. Do not let them reopen it. Whatever apologists may say and do, it
+is none the less true that by the Eighteenth of Brumaire Napoleon struck
+himself a first blow."
+
+"In truth," said I, "it is ever against ourselves that we commit a
+crime."
+
+"Well, then," he continued, "his glory has survived a first blow, a
+second will kill it. I do not wish it. I hate the first Eighteenth
+Brumaire; I fear the second. I wish to prevent it."
+
+He paused again, and continued,--
+
+"That is why I have come to you to-night. I wish to succor this great
+wounded glory. By the advice which I am giving you, if you can carry it
+out, if the Left carries it out, I save the first Napoleon; for if a
+second crime is superposed upon his glory, this glory would disappear.
+Yes, this name would founder, and history would no longer own it. I will
+go farther and complete my idea. I also save the present Napoleon, for he
+who as yet has no glory will only have come. I save his memory from an
+eternal pillory. Therefore, arrest him."
+
+He was truly and deeply moved. He resumed,--
+
+"As to the Republic, the arrest of Louis Bonaparte is deliverance for
+her. I am right, therefore, in saying that by what I am proposing to you
+I am saving my family and my country."
+
+"But," I said to him, "what you propose to me is a _coup d'état_."
+
+"Do you think so?"
+
+"Without doubt. We are the minority, and we should commit an act which
+belongs to the majority. We are a part of the Assembly. We should be
+acting as though we were the entire Assembly. We who condemn all
+usurpation should ourselves become usurpers. We should put our hands upon
+a functionary whom the Assembly alone has the right of arresting. We, the
+defenders of the Constitution, we should break the Constitution. We, the
+men of the Law, we should violate the Law. It is a _coup d'état_."
+
+"Yes, but a _coup d'état_ for a good purpose."
+
+"Evil committed for a good purpose remains evil."
+
+"Even when it succeeds?"
+
+"Above all when it succeeds."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because it then becomes an example."
+
+"You do not then approve of the Eighteenth Fructidor?"
+
+"No."
+
+"But Eighteenth Fructidors prevent Eighteenth Brumaires."
+
+"No. They prepare the way for them."
+
+"But reasons of State exist?"
+
+"No. What exists is the Law."
+
+"The Eighteenth Fructidor has been accepted by exceedingly honest minds."
+
+"I know that."
+
+"Blanqui is in its favor, with Michelet."
+
+"I am against it, with Barbès."
+
+From the moral aspect I passed to the practical aspect.
+
+"This said," resumed I, "let us examine your plan."
+
+This plan bristled with difficulties. I pointed them out to him.
+
+"Count on the National Guard! Why, General Lawoëstyne had not yet got
+command of it. Count on the Army? Why, General Neumayer was at Lyons,
+and not at Paris. Would he march to the assistance of the Assembly?
+What did we know about this? As for Lawoëstyne, was he not double-faced?
+Were they sure of him? Call to arms the 8th Legion? Forestier was no
+longer Colonel. The 5th and 6th? But Gressier and Howyne were only
+lieutenant-colonels, would these legions follow them? Order the
+Commissary Yon? But would he obey the Left alone? He was the agent of
+the Assembly, and consequently of the majority, but not of the minority.
+These were so many questions. But these questions, supposing them
+answered, and answered in the sense of success, was success itself the
+question? The question is never Success, it is always Right. But here,
+even if we had obtained success, we should not have Right. In order to
+arrest the President an order of the Assembly was necessary; we should
+replace the order of the Assembly by an act of violence of the Left. A
+scaling and a burglary; an assault by scaling-ladders on the constituted
+authority, a burglary on the Law. Now let us suppose resistance; we
+should shed blood. The Law violated leads to the shedding of blood. What
+is all this? It is a crime."
+
+"No, indeed," he exclaimed, "it is the _salus populi_."
+
+And he added,--
+
+"_Suprema Lex_."
+
+"Not for me," I said.
+
+I continued,--
+
+"I would not kill a child to save a people."
+
+"Cato did so."
+
+"Jesus did not do so."
+
+And I added,--
+
+"You have on your side all ancient history, you are acting according to
+the uprightness of the Greeks, and according to the uprightness of the
+Romans; for me, I am acting according to the uprightness of Humanity.
+The new horizon is of wider range than the old."
+
+There was a pause. He broke it.
+
+"Then he will be the one to attack!"
+
+"Let it be so."
+
+"You are about to engage in a battle which is almost lost beforehand."
+
+"I fear so."
+
+"And this unequal combat can only end for you, Victor Hugo, in death or
+exile."
+
+"I believe it."
+
+"Death is the affair of a moment, but exile is long."
+
+"It is a habit to be learned."
+
+He continued,--
+
+"You will not only be proscribed. You will be calumniated."
+
+"It is a habit already learned."
+
+He continued,--
+
+"Do you know what they are saying already?"
+
+"What?"
+
+"They say that you are irritated against him because he has refused to
+make you a Minister."
+
+"Why you know yourself that--"
+
+"I know that it is just the reverse. It is he who has asked you, and it
+is you who have refused."
+
+"Well, then--"
+
+"They lie."
+
+"What does it matter?"
+
+He exclaimed,--
+
+"Thus, you will have caused the Bonapartes to re-enter France, and you
+will be banished from France by a Bonaparte!"[32]
+
+"Who knows," said I, "if I have not committed a fault? This injustice is
+perhaps a justice."
+
+We were both silent. He resumed,--
+
+"Could you bear exile?"
+
+"I will try."
+
+"Could you live without Paris?"
+
+"I should have the ocean."
+
+"You would then go to the seaside?"
+
+"I think so."
+
+"It is sad."
+
+"It is grand."
+
+There was another pause. He broke it.
+
+"You do not know what exile is. I do know it. It is terrible. Assuredly,
+I would not begin it again. Death is a bourne whence no one comes back,
+exile is a place whither no one returns."
+
+"If necessary," I said to him, "I will go, and I will return to it."
+
+"Better die. To quit life is nothing, but to quit one's country--"
+
+"Alas!" said I, "that is every thing."
+
+"Well, then, why accept exile when it is in your power to avoid it? What
+do you place above your country?"
+
+"Conscience."
+
+This answer made him thoughtful. However, he resumed.
+
+"But on reflection your conscience will approve of what you will have
+done."
+
+"No."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"I have told you. Because my conscience is so constituted that it puts
+nothing above itself. I feel it upon me as the headland can feel the
+lighthouse which is upon it. All life is an abyss, and conscience
+illuminates it around me."
+
+"And I also," he exclaimed--and I affirm that nothing could be more
+sincere or more loyal than his tone--"and I also feel and see my
+conscience. It approves of what I am doing. I appear to be betraying
+Louis; but I am really doing him a service. To save him from a crime is
+to save him. I have tried every means. There only remains this one, to
+arrest him. In coming to you, in acting as I do, I conspire at the same
+time against him and for him, against his power, and for his honor. What
+I am doing is right."
+
+"It is true," I said to him. "You have a generous and a lofty aim."
+
+And I resumed,--
+
+"But our two duties are different. I could not hinder Louis Bonaparte
+from committing a crime unless I committed one myself. I wish neither for
+an Eighteenth Brumaire for him, nor for an Eighteenth Fructidor for
+myself. I would rather be proscribed than be a proscriber. I have the
+choice between two crimes, my crime and the crime of Louis Bonaparte. I
+will not choose my crime."
+
+"But then you will have to endure his."
+
+"I would rather endure a crime than commit one."
+
+He remained thoughtful, and said to me,--
+
+"Let it be so."
+
+And he added,--
+
+"Perhaps we are both in the right."
+
+"I think so," I said.
+
+And I pressed his hand.
+
+He took his mother's manuscript and went away. It was three o'clock in
+the morning. The conversation had lasted more than two hours. I did not
+go to bed until I had written it out.
+
+
+[32] 14th of June, 1847. Chamber of Peers. See the work "Avant l'Exile."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+
+THE COMBAT FINISHED, THE ORDEAL BEGINS
+
+I did not know where to go.
+
+On the afternoon of the 7th I determined to go back once more to 19, Rue
+Richelieu. Under the gateway some one seized my arm. It was Madame D.
+She was waiting for me.
+
+"Do not go in," she said to me.
+
+"Am I discovered?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And taken."
+
+"No."
+
+She added,--
+
+"Come."
+
+We crossed the courtyard, and we went out by a backdoor into the Rue
+Fontaine Molière; we reached the square of the Palais Royal. The
+_fiacres_ were standing there as usual. We got into the first we came
+to.
+
+"Where are we to go?" asked the driver.
+
+She looked at me.
+
+I answered,--
+
+"I do not know."
+
+"I know," she said.
+
+Women always know where Providence lies.
+
+An hour later I was in safety.
+
+From the 4th, every day which passed by consolidated the _coup d'état_.
+Our defeat was complete, and we felt ourselves abandoned. Paris was like
+a forest in which Louis Bonaparte was making a _battue_ of the
+Representatives; the wild beast was hunting down the sportsmen. We heard
+the indistinct baying of Maupas behind us. We were compelled to
+disperse. The pursuit was energetic. We entered into the second phase of
+duty--the catastrophe accepted and submitted to. The vanquished became
+the proscribed. Each one of us had his own concluding adventures. Mine
+was what it should have been--exile; death having missed me. I am not
+going to relate it here, this book is not my biography, and I ought not
+to divert to myself any of the attention which it may excite. Besides,
+what concerns me personally is told in a narrative which is one of the
+testaments of exile.[33]
+
+Notwithstanding the relentless pursuit which was directed against us, I
+did not think it my duty to leave Paris as long as a glimmer of hope
+remained, and as long as an awakening of the people seemed possible.
+Malarmet sent me word in my refuge that a movement would take place at
+Belleville on Tuesday the 9th. I waited until the 12th. Nothing stirred.
+The people were indeed dead. Happily such deaths as these, like the
+deaths of the gods, are only for a time.
+
+I had a last interview with Jules Favre and Michel de Bourges at Madame
+Didier's in the Rue de la Ville-Lévêque. It was at night. Bastide came
+there. This brave man said to me,--
+
+"You are about to leave Paris; for myself, I remain here. Take me as
+your lieutenant. Direct me from the depths of your exile. Make use of me
+as an arm which you have in France."
+
+"I will make use of you as of a heart," I said to him.
+
+On the 14th, amidst the adventures which my son Charles relates in his
+book, I succeeded in reaching Brussels.
+
+The vanquished are like cinders, Destiny blows upon them and disperses
+them. There was a gloomy vanishing of all the combatants for Right and
+for Law. A tragical disappearance.
+
+
+[33] "Les Hommes de l'Exile," by Charles Hugo.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+
+THE EXILED
+
+The Crime having succeeded, all hastened to join it. To persist was
+possible, to resist was not possible. The situation became more and more
+desperate. One would have said that an enormous wall was rising upon the
+horizon ready to close in. The outlet: Exile.
+
+The great souls, the glories of the people, emigrated. Thus there was
+seen this dismal sight--France driven out from France.
+
+But what the Present appears to lose, the Future gains, the hand which
+scatters is also the hand which sows.
+
+The Representatives of the Left, surrounded, tracked, pursued, hunted
+down, wandered for several days from refuge to refuge. Those who escaped
+found great difficulty in leaving Paris and France. Madier de Montjan
+had very black and thick eyebrows, he shaved off half of them, cut his
+hair, and let his beard grow. Yvan, Pelletier, Gindrier, and Doutre
+shaved off their moustaches and beards. Versigny reached Brussels on the
+14th with a passport in the name of Morin. Schoelcher dressed himself up
+as a priest. This costume became him admirably, and suited his austere
+countenance and grave voice. A worthy priest helped him to disguise
+himself, and lent him his cassock and his band, made him shave off his
+whiskers a few days previously, so that he should not be betrayed by the
+white trace of his freshly-cut beard, gave him his own passport, and
+only left him at the railway station.[34]
+
+De Flotte disguised himself as a servant, and in this manner succeeded
+in crossing the frontier at Mouscron. From there he reached Ghent, and
+thence Brussels.
+
+On the night of December 26th, I had returned to the little room,
+without a fire, which I occupied (No. 9) on the second story of the
+Hôtel de la Porte-Verte; it was midnight; I had just gone to bed and was
+falling asleep, when a knock sounded at my door. I awoke. I always left
+the key outside. "Come in," I said. A chambermaid entered with a light,
+and brought two men whom I did not know. One was a lawyer, of Ghent,
+M. ----; the other was De Flotte. He took my two hands and pressed them
+tenderly. "What," I said to him, "is it you?"
+
+At the Assembly De Flotte, with his prominent and thoughtful brow, his
+deep-set eyes, his close-shorn head, and his long beard, slightly turned
+back, looked like a creation of Sebastian del Piombo wandering out of
+his picture of the "Raising of Lazarus;" and I had before my eyes a
+short young man, thin and pallid, with spectacles. But what he had not
+been able to change, and what I recognized immediately, was the great
+heart, the lofty mind, the energetic character, the dauntless courage;
+and if I did not recognize him by his features, I recognized him by the
+grasp of his hand.
+
+Edgar Quinet was brought away on the 10th by a noble-hearted Wallachian
+woman, Princess Cantacuzène, who undertook to conduct him to the
+frontier, and who kept her word. It was a troublesome task. Quinet had
+a foreign passport in the name of Grubesko, he was to personate a
+Wallachian, and it was arranged that he should not know how to speak
+French, he who writes it as a master. The journey was perilous. They ask
+for passports along all the line, beginning at the terminus. At Amiens
+they were particularly suspicious. But at Lille the danger was great.
+The gendarmes went from carriage to carriage; entered them lantern in
+hand, and compared the written descriptions of the travellers with their
+personal appearance. Several who appeared to be suspicious characters
+were arrested, and were immediately thrown into prison. Edgar Quinet,
+seated by the side of Madame Cantacuzène awaited the turn of his
+carriage. At length it came. Madame Cantacuzène leaned quickly forward
+towards the gendarmes, and hastened to present her passport, but the
+corporal waved back Madame Cantacuzène's passport saying, "It is
+useless, Madame. We have nothing to do with women's passports," and he
+asked Quinet abruptly, "Your papers?" Quinet held out his passport
+unfolded. The gendarmes said to him, "Come out of the carriage, so that
+we can compare your description." It happened, however, that the
+Wallachian passport contained no description. The corporal frowned, and
+said to his subordinates, "An irregular passport! Go and fetch the
+Commissary."
+
+All seemed lost, but Madame Cantacuzène began to speak to Quinet in the
+most Wallachian words in the world, with incredible assurance and
+volubility, so much so that the gendarme, convinced that he had to deal
+with all Wallachia in person, and seeing the train ready to start,
+returned the passport to Quinet, saying to him, "There! be off with
+you!"--a few hours afterwards Edgar Quinet was in Belgium.
+
+Arnauld de l'Ariège also had his adventures. He was a marked man, he had
+to hide himself. Arnauld being a Catholic, Madame Arnauld went to the
+priest; the Abbé Deguerry slipped out of the way, the Abbé Maret
+consented to conceal him; the Abbé Maret was honest and good. Arnauld
+d'Ariège remained hidden for a fortnight at the house of this worthy
+priest. He wrote from the Abbé Maret's a letter to the Archbishop of
+Paris, urging him to refuse the Pantheon, which a decree of Louis
+Bonaparte took away from France and gave to Rome. This letter angered
+the Archbishop. Arnauld, proscribed, reached Brussels, and there, at the
+age of eighteen months, died the "little Red," who on the 3d of December
+had carried the workman's letter to the Archbishop--an angel sent by God
+to the priest who had not understood the angel, and who no longer knew
+God.
+
+In this medley of incidents and adventures each one had his drama.
+Cournet's drama was strange and terrible.
+
+Cournet, it may be remembered, had been a naval officer. He was one of
+those men of a prompt, decisive character, who magnetized other men, and
+who on certain extraordinary occasions send an electric shock through a
+multitude. He possessed an imposing air, broad shoulders, brawny arms,
+powerful fists, a tall stature, all of which give confidence to the
+masses, and the intelligent expression which gives confidence to the
+thinkers. You saw him pass, and you recognized strength; you heard him
+speak, and you felt the will, which is more than strength. When quite a
+youth he had served in the navy. He combined in himself in a certain
+degree--and it is this which made this energetic man, when well directed
+and well employed, a means of enthusiasm and a support--he combined the
+popular fire and the military coolness. He was one of those natures
+created for the hurricane and for the crowd, who have begun their study
+of the people by their study of the ocean, and who are at their ease in
+revolutions as in tempests. As we have narrated, he took an important
+part in the combat. He had been dauntless and indefatigable, he was one
+of those who could yet rouse it to life. From Wednesday afternoon
+several police agents were charged to seek him everywhere, to arrest him
+wherever they might find him, and to take him to the Prefecture of the
+Police, where orders had been given to shoot him immediately.
+
+Cournet, however, with his habitual daring, came and went freely in
+order to carry on the lawful resistance, even in the quarters occupied
+by the troops, shaving off his moustaches as his sole precaution.
+
+On the Thursday afternoon he was on the boulevards at a few paces from a
+regiment of cavalry drawn up in order. He was quietly conversing with
+two of his comrades of the fight, Huy and Lorrain. Suddenly, he
+perceives himself and his companions surrounded by a company of
+_sergents de ville_; a man touches his arm and says to him, "You are
+Cournet; I arrest you."
+
+"Bah!" answers Cournet; "My name is Lépine."
+
+The man resumes,--
+
+"You are Cournet. Do not you recognize me? Well, then, I recognize you;
+I have been, like you, a member of the Socialist Electoral Committee."
+
+Cournet looks him in the face, and finds this countenance in his memory.
+The man was right. He had, in fact, formed part of the gathering in the
+Rue Saint Spire. The police spy resumed, laughing,--
+
+"I nominated Eugène Sue with you."
+
+It was useless to deny it, and the moment was not favorable for
+resistance. There were on the spot, as we have said, twenty _sergents de
+ville_ and a regiment of Dragoons.
+
+"I will follow you," said Cournet.
+
+A _fiacre_ was called up.
+
+"While I am about it," said the police spy, "come in all three of you."
+
+He made Huy and Lorrain get in with Cournet, placed them on the front
+seat, and seated himself on the back seat by Cournet, and then shouted
+to the driver,--
+
+"To the Prefecture!"
+
+The _sergents de ville_ surrounded the _fiacre_. But whether by chance
+or through confidence, or in the haste to obtain the payment for his
+capture, the man who had arrested Cournet shouted to the coachman, "Look
+sharp, look sharp!" and the _fiacre_ went off at a gallop.
+
+In the meantime Cournet was well aware that on arriving he would be shot
+in the very courtyard of the Prefecture. He had resolved not to go
+there.
+
+At a turning in the Rue St Antoine he glanced behind, and noticed that
+the _sergents de ville_ only followed the _fiacre_ at a considerable
+distance.
+
+Not one of the four men which the _fiacre_ was bearing away had as yet
+opened their lips.
+
+Cournet threw a meaning look at his two companions seated in front of
+him, as much as to say, "We are three; let us take advantage of this to
+escape." Both answered by an imperceptible movement of the eyes, which
+pointed out the street full of passers-by, and which said, "No."
+
+A few moments afterwards the _fiacre_ emerged from the Rue St. Antoine,
+and entered the Rue de Fourcy. The Rue de Fourcy is usually deserted, no
+one was passing down it at that moment.
+
+Cournet turned suddenly to the police spy, and asked him,--
+
+"Have you a warrant for my arrest?"
+
+"No; but I have my card."
+
+And he drew his police agent's card out of his pocket, and showed it to
+Cournet. Then the following dialogue ensued between these two men,--
+
+"This is not regular."
+
+"What does that matter to me?"
+
+"You have no right to arrest me."
+
+"All the same, I arrest you."
+
+"Look here; is it money that you want? Do you wish for any? I have some
+with me; let me escape."
+
+"A gold nugget as big as your head would not tempt me. You are my finest
+capture, Citizen Cournet."
+
+"Where are you taking me to?"
+
+"To the Prefecture."
+
+"They will shoot me there?"
+
+"Possibly."
+
+"And my two comrades?"
+
+"I do not say 'No.'"
+
+"I will not go."
+
+"You will go, nevertheless."
+
+"I tell you I will not go," exclaimed Cournet.
+
+And with a movement, unexpected as a flash of lightning, he seized the
+police spy by the throat.
+
+The police agent could not utter a cry, he struggled: a hand of bronze
+clutched him.
+
+His tongue protruded from his mouth, his eyes became hideous, and
+started from their sockets. Suddenly his head sank down, and reddish
+froth rose from his throat to his lips. He was dead.
+
+Huy and Lorrain, motionless, and as though themselves thunderstruck,
+gazed at this gloomy deed.
+
+They did not utter a word. They did not move a limb. The _fiacre_ was
+still driving on.
+
+"Open the door!" Cournet cried to them.
+
+They did not stir, they seemed to have become stone.
+
+Cournet, whose thumb was closely pressed in the neck of the wretched
+police spy, tried to open the door with his left hand, but he did not
+succeed, he felt that he could only do it with his right hand, and he
+was obliged to loose his hold of the man. The man fell face forwards,
+and sank down on his knees.
+
+Cournet opened the door.
+
+"Off with you!" he said to them.
+
+Huy and Lorrain jumped into the street and fled at the top of their
+speed.
+
+The coachman had noticed nothing.
+
+Cournet let them get away, and then, pulling the check string, stopped
+the _fiacre_, got down leisurely, reclosed the door, quietly took forty
+sous from his purse, gave them to the coachman, who had not left his
+seat, and said to him, "Drive on."
+
+He plunged into Paris. In the Place des Victoires he met the
+ex-Constituent Isidore Buvignier, his friend, who about six weeks
+previously had come out of the Madelonnettes, where he had been confined
+for the matter of the _Solidarité Républicaine_. Buvignier was one of
+the noteworthy figures on the high benches of the Left; fair,
+close-shaven, with a stern glance, he made one think of the English
+Roundheads, and he had the bearing rather of a Cromwellian Puritan than
+of a Dantonist Man of the Mountain. Cournet told his adventure, the
+extremity had been terrible.
+
+Buvignier shook his head.
+
+"You have killed a man," he said.
+
+In "Marie Tudor," I have made Fabiani answer under similar
+circumstances,--
+
+"No, a Jew."
+
+Cournet, who probably had not read "Marie Tudor," answered,--
+
+"No, a police spy."
+
+Then he resumed,--
+
+"I have killed a police spy to save three men, one of whom was myself."
+
+Cournet was right. They were in the midst of the combat, they were
+taking him to be shot; the spy who had arrested him was, properly
+speaking, an assassin, and assuredly it was a case of legitimate
+defence. I add that this wretch, a democrat for the people, a spy for
+the police, was a twofold traitor. Moreover, the police spy was the
+jackal of the _coup d'état_, while Cournet was the combatant for the
+Law.
+
+"You must conceal yourself," said Buvignier; "come to Juvisy."
+
+Buvignier had a little refuge at Juvisy, which is on the road to
+Corbeil. He was known and loved there; Cournet and he reached there that
+evening.
+
+But they had hardly arrived when some peasants said to Buvignier, "The
+police have already been here to arrest you, and are coming again
+to-night."
+
+It was necessary to go back.
+
+Cournet, more in danger than ever, hunted, wandering, pursued, hid
+himself in Paris with considerable difficulty. He remained there till
+the 16th. He had no means of procuring himself a passport. At length, on
+the 16th, some friends of his on the Northern Railway obtained for him a
+special passport, worded as follows:--
+
+"Allow M. ----, an Inspector on the service of the Company, to pass."
+
+He decided to leave the next day, and take the day train, thinking,
+perhaps rightly, that the night train would be more closely watched.
+
+On the 17th, at daybreak, favored by the dim dawn, he glided from street
+to street, to the Northern Railway Station. His tall stature was a
+special source of danger. He, however, reached the station in safety.
+The stokers placed him with them on the tender of the engine of the
+train, which was about to start. He only had the clothes which he had
+worn since the 2d; no clean linen, no trunk, a little money.
+
+In December, the day breaks late and the night closes in early, which is
+favorable to proscribed persons.
+
+He reached the frontier at night without hindrance. At Neuvéglise he was
+in Belgium; he believed himself in safety. When asked for his papers he
+caused himself to be taken before the Burgomaster, and said to him, "I
+am a political refugee."
+
+The Burgomaster, a Belgian but a Bonapartist--this breed is to be
+found--had him at once reconducted to the frontier by the gendarmes, who
+were ordered to hand him over to the French authorities.
+
+Cournet gave himself up for lost.
+
+The Belgian gendarmes took him to Armentières. If they had asked for the
+Mayor it would have been all at an end with Cournet, but they asked for
+the Inspector of Customs.
+
+A glimmer of hope dawned upon Cournet.
+
+He accosted the Inspector of Customs with his head erect, and shook
+hands with him.
+
+The Belgian gendarmes had not yet released him.
+
+"Now, sir," said Cournet to the Custom House officer, "you are an
+Inspector of Customs, I am an Inspector of Railways. Inspectors do not
+eat inspectors. The deuce take it! Some worthy Belgians have taken
+fright and sent me to you between four gendarmes. Why, I know not. I am
+sent by the Northern Company to relay the ballast of a bridge somewhere
+about here which is not firm. I come to ask you to allow me to continue
+my road. Here is my pass."
+
+He presented the pass to the Custom House officer, the Custom House
+officer read it, found it according to due form, and said to Cournet,--
+
+"Mr. Inspector, you are free."
+
+Cournet, delivered from the Belgian gendarmes by French authority,
+hastened to the railway station. He had friends there.
+
+"Quick," he said, "it is dark, but it does not matter, it is even all
+the better. Find me some one who has been a smuggler, and who will help
+me to pass the frontier."
+
+They brought him a small lad of eighteen; fair-haired, ruddy, hardy, a
+Walloon[35] and who spoke French.
+
+"What is your name?" said Cournet.
+
+"Henry."
+
+"You look like a girl."
+
+"Nevertheless I am a man."
+
+"Is it you who undertake to guide me?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You have been a smuggler?"
+
+"I am one still."
+
+"Do you know the roads?"
+
+"No. I have nothing to do with the roads."
+
+"What do you know then?"
+
+"I know the passes."
+
+"There are two Custom House lines."
+
+"I know that well."
+
+"Will you pass me across them?"
+
+"Without doubt."
+
+"Then you are not afraid of the Custom House officers?"
+
+"I'm afraid of the dogs."
+
+"In that case," said Cournet, "we will take sticks."
+
+They accordingly armed themselves with big sticks. Cournet gave fifty
+francs to Henry, and promised him fifty more when they should have
+crossed the second Custom House line.
+
+"That is to say, at four o'clock in the morning," said Henry.
+
+It was midnight.
+
+They set out on their way.
+
+What Henry called the "passes" another would have called the
+"hindrances." They were a succession of pitfalls and quagmires. It had
+been raining, and all the holes were pools of water.
+
+An indescribable footpath wound through an inextricable labyrinth,
+sometimes as thorny as a heath, sometimes as miry as a marsh.
+
+The night was very dark.
+
+From time to time, far away in the darkness, they could hear a dog bark.
+The smuggler then made bends or zigzags, turned sharply to the right or
+to the left, and sometimes retraced his steps.
+
+Cournet, jumping hedges, striding over ditches, stumbling at every
+moment, slipping into sloughs, laying hold of briers, with his clothes
+in rags, his hands bleeding, dying with hunger, battered about, wearied,
+worn out, almost exhausted, followed his guide gaily.
+
+At every minute he made a false step; he fell into every bog, and got up
+covered with mud. At length he fell into a pond. It was several feet
+deep. This washed him.
+
+"Bravo!" he said. "I am very clean, but I am very cold."
+
+At four o'clock in the morning, as Henry had promised him, they reached
+Messine, a Belgian village. The two Custom House lines had been cleared.
+Cournet had nothing more to fear, either from the Custom House nor from
+the _coup d'état_, neither from men nor from dogs.
+
+He gave Henry the second fifty francs, and continued his journey on
+foot, trusting somewhat to chance.
+
+It was not until towards evening that he reached a railway station. He
+got into a train, and at nightfall he arrived at the Southern Railway
+Station at Brussels.
+
+He had left Paris on the preceding morning, had not slept an hour, had
+been walking all night, and had eaten nothing. On searching in his
+pocket he missed his pocket book, but found a crust of bread. He was
+more delighted at the discovery of the crust than grieved at the loss of
+his pocket-book. He carried his money in a waistband; the pocket-book,
+which had probably disappeared in the pond, contained his letters, and
+amongst others an exceedingly useful letter of introduction from his
+friend M. Ernest Koechlin, to the Representatives Guilgot and Carlos
+Forel, who at that moment were refugees at Brussels, and lodged at the
+Hôtel de Brabant.
+
+On leaving the railway station he threw himself into a cab, and said to
+the coachman,--
+
+"Hôtel de Brabant."
+
+He heard a voice repeat, "Hôtel de Brabant." He put out his head and saw
+a man writing something in a notebook with a pencil by the light of a
+street-lamp.
+
+It was probably some police agent.
+
+Without a passport, without letters, without papers, he was afraid of
+being arrested in the night, and he was longing for a good sleep. A good
+bed to-night, he thought, and to-morrow the Deluge! At the Hôtel de
+Brabant he paid the coachman, but did not go into the hotel. Moreover,
+he would have asked in vain for the Representatives Forel and Guilgot;
+both were there under false names.
+
+He took to wandering about the streets. It was eleven o'clock at night,
+and for a long time he had begun to feel utterly worn out.
+
+At length he saw a lighted lamp with the inscription "Hôtel de la
+Monnaie."
+
+He walked in.
+
+The landlord came up, and looked at him somewhat askance.
+
+He then thought of looking at himself.
+
+His unshaven beard, his disordered hair, his cap soiled with mud, his
+blood-stained hands, his clothes in rags, he looked horrible.
+
+He took a double louis out of his waistband, and put it on the table of
+the parlor, which he had entered and said to the landlord,--
+
+"In truth, sir, I am not a thief, I am a proscript; money is now my only
+passport. I have just come from Paris, I wish to eat first and sleep
+afterwards."
+
+The landlord was touched, took the double louis, and gave him bed and
+supper.
+
+Next day, while he was still sleeping, the landlord came into his room,
+woke him gently, and said to him,--
+
+"Now, sir, if I were you, I should go and see Baron Hody."
+
+"Who and what is Baron Hody?" asked Cournet, half asleep.
+
+The landlord explained to him who Baron Hody was. When I had occasion to
+ask the same question as Cournet, I received from three inhabitants of
+Brussels the three answers as follows:--
+
+"He is a dog."
+
+"He is a polecat."
+
+"He is a hyena."
+
+There is probably some exaggeration in these three answers.
+
+A fourth Belgian whom I need not specify confined himself to saying to
+me,--
+
+"He is a beast."
+
+As to his public functions, Baron Hody was what they call at Brussels
+"The Administrator of Public Safety;" that is to say, a counterfeit of
+the Prefect of Police, half Carlier, half Maupas.
+
+Thanks to Baron Hody, who has since left the place, and who, moreover,
+like M. de Montalembert, was a "mere Jesuit," the Belgian police at that
+moment was a compound of the Russian and Austrian police. I have read
+strange confidential letters of this Baron Hody. In action and in style
+there is nothing more cynical and more repulsive than the Jesuit police,
+when they unveil their secret treasures. These are the contents of the
+unbuttoned cassock.
+
+At the time of which we are speaking (December, 1851), the Clerical
+party had joined itself to all the forms of Monarchy; and this Baron
+Hody confused Orleanism with Legitimate right. I simply tell the tale.
+Nothing more.
+
+"Baron Hody. Very well, I will go to him," said Cournet.
+
+He got up, dressed himself, brushed his clothes as well as he could, and
+asked the landlord, "Where is the Police office?"
+
+"At the Ministry of Justice."
+
+In fact this is the case in Brussels; the police administration forms
+part of the Ministry of Justice, an arrangement which does not greatly
+raise the police and somewhat lowers justice.
+
+Cournet went there, and was shown into the presence of this personage.
+
+Baron Hody did him the honor to ask him sharply,--
+
+"Who are you?"
+
+"A refugee," answered Cournet; "I am one of those whom the _coup d'état_
+has driven from Paris.
+
+"Your profession?"
+
+"Ex-naval officer."
+
+"Ex-naval officer!" exclaimed Baron Hody in a much gentler tone, "did
+you know His Royal Highness the Prince de Joinville?"
+
+"I have served under him."
+
+It was the truth. Cournet had served under M. de Joinville, and prided
+himself on it.
+
+At this statement the administrator of Belgian safety completely unbent,
+and said to Cournet, with the most gracious smile that the police can
+find, "That's all right, sir; stay here as long as you please; we close
+Belgium to the Men of the Mountain, but we throw it widely open to men
+like you."
+
+When Cournet told me this answer of Hody's, I thought that my fourth
+Belgian was right.
+
+A certain comic gloom was mingled at times with these tragedies.
+Barthelémy Terrier was a Representative of the people, and a proscript.
+They gave him a special passport for a compulsory route as far as
+Belgium for himself and his wife. Furnished with this passport he left
+with a woman. This woman was a man. Préveraud, a landed proprietor at
+Donjon, one of the most prominent men in the Department of Allier, was
+Terrier's brother-in-law. When the _coup d'état_ broke out at Donjon,
+Préveraud had taken up arms and fulfilled his duty, had combated the
+outrage and defended the law. For this he had been condemned to death.
+The justice of that time, as we know. Justice executed justice. For this
+crime of being an honest man they had guillotined Charlet, guillotined
+Cuisinier, guillotined Cirasse. The guillotine was an instrument of the
+reign. Assassination by the guillotine was one of the means of order of
+that time. It was necessary to save Préveraud. He was little and slim:
+they dressed him as a woman. He was not sufficiently pretty for them not
+to cover his face with a thick veil. They put the brave and sturdy hands
+of the combatant in a muff. Thus veiled and a little filled out with
+padding, Préveraud made a charming woman. He became Madame Terrier, and
+his brother-in-law took him away. They crossed Paris peaceably, and
+without any other adventure than an imprudence committed by Préveraud,
+who, seeing that the shaft-horse of a wagon had fallen down, threw aside
+his muff, lifted his veil and his petticoat, and if Terrier, in dire
+alarm, had not stopped him, he would have helped the carter to raise his
+horse. Had a _sergent de ville_ been there, Préveraud would have been
+captured. Terrier hastened to thrust Préveraud into a carriage, and at
+nightfall they left for Brussels. They were alone in the carriage, each
+in a corner and face to face. All went well as far as Amiens. At Amiens
+station the door was opened, and a gendarme entered and seated himself
+by the side of Préveraud. The gendarme asked for his passport, Terrier
+showed it him; the little woman in her corner, veiled and silent, did
+not stir, and the gendarme found all in due form. He contented himself
+with saying, "We shall travel together, I am on duty as far as the
+frontier."
+
+The train, after the ordinary delay of a few minutes, again started. The
+night was dark. Terrier had fallen asleep. Suddenly Préveraud felt a
+knee press against his, it was the knee of the policeman. A boot placed
+itself softly on his foot, it was a horse-soldier's boot. An idyll had
+just germinated in the gendarme's soul. He first tenderly pressed
+Préveraud's knee, and then emboldened by the darkness of the hour and by
+the slumbering husband, he ventured his hand as far as her dress, a
+circumstance foreseen by Molière, but the fair veiled one was virtuous.
+Préveraud, full of surprise and rage, gently pushed back the gendarme's
+hand. The danger was extreme. Too much love on the part of the gendarme,
+one audacious step further, would bring about the unexpected, would
+abruptly change the eclogue into an official indictment, would reconvert
+the amorous satyr into a stony-hearted policeman, would transform Tircis
+into Vidocq; and then this strange thing would be seen, a passenger
+guillotined because a gendarme had committed an outrage. The danger
+increased every moment. Terrier was sleeping. Suddenly the train
+stopped. A voice cried, "Quièvrain!" and the door was opened. They were
+in Belgium. The gendarme, obliged to stop here, and to re-enter France,
+rose to get out, and at the moment when he stepped on to the ground he
+heard behind him these expressive words coming from beneath the lace
+veil, "Be off, or I'll break your jaw!"
+
+
+[34] See "Les Hommes de l'Exile."
+
+[35] The name given to a population belonging to the Romanic family, and
+more particularly to those of French descent, who occupy the region
+along the frontiers of the German-speaking territory in the South
+Netherlands from Dunkirk to Malmedy in Rhenish Prussia.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+
+THE MILITARY COMMISSIONS AND THE MIXED COMMISSIONS
+
+Justice sometime meets with strange adventures.
+
+This old phrase assumed a new sense.
+
+The code ceased to be a safeguard. The law became something which had
+sworn fealty to a crime. Louis Bonaparte appointed judges by whom one
+felt oneself stopped as in the corner of a wood. In the same manner as
+the forest is an accomplice through its density, so the legislation was
+an accomplice by its obscurity. What it lacked at certain points in
+order to make it perfectly dark they added. How? By force. Purely and
+simply. By decree. _Sic jubeo_. The decree of the 17th of February was a
+masterpiece. This decree completed the proscription of the person, by
+the proscription of the name. Domitian could not have done better. Human
+conscience was bewildered; Right, Equity, Reason felt that the master
+had over them the authority that a thief has over a purse. No reply.
+Obey. Nothing resembles those infamous times.
+
+Every iniquity was possible. Legislative bodies supervened and instilled
+so much gloom into legislation that it was easy to achieve a baseness in
+this darkness.
+
+A successful _coup d'état_ does not stand upon ceremony. This kind of
+success permits itself everything.
+
+Facts abound. But we must abridge, we will only present them briefly.
+
+There were two species of Justice; the Military Commissions and the
+Mixed Commissions.
+
+The Military Commissions sat in judgment with closed doors. A colonel
+presided.
+
+In Paris alone there were three Military Commissions: each received a
+thousand bills of indictment. The Judge of Instruction sent these
+accusations to the Procureur of the Republic, Lascoux, who transmitted
+them to the Colonel President. The Commission summoned the accused to
+appear. The accused himself was his own bill of indictment. They
+searched him, that is to say, they "thumbed" him. The accusing document
+was short. Two or three lines. Such as this, for example,--
+
+Name. Christian name. Profession. A sharp fellow. Goes to the Café.
+Reads the papers. Speaks. Dangerous.
+
+The accusation was laconic. The judgment was still less prolix. It was a
+simple sign.
+
+The bill of indictment having been examined, the judges having been
+consulted, the colonel took a pen, and put at the end of the accusing
+line one of three signs:--
+
+     -     +     o
+
+     -  signified consignment to Lambessa.
+
+     +  signified transportation to Cayenne. (The dry guillotine. Death.)
+
+     o  signified acquittal.
+
+While this justice was at work, the man on whose case they were working
+was sometimes still at liberty, he was going and coming at his ease;
+suddenly they arrested him, and without knowing what they wanted with
+him, he left for Lambessa or for Cayenne.
+
+His family was often ignorant of what had become of him.
+
+People asked of a wife, of a sister, of a daughter, of a mother,--
+
+"Where is your husband?"
+
+"Where is your brother?"
+
+"Where is your father?"
+
+"Where is your son?"
+
+The wife, the sister, the daughter, the mother answered,--"I do not
+know."
+
+In the Allier eleven members of one family alone, the Préveraud family
+of Donjon, were struck down, one by the penalty of death, the others by
+banishment and transportation.
+
+A wine-seller of the Batignolles, named Brisadoux, was transported to
+Cayenne for this line in his deed of accusation: _his shop is frequented
+by Socialists_.
+
+Here is a dialogue, word for word, and taken from life, between a
+colonel and his convicted prisoner:--
+
+"You are condemned."
+
+"Indeed! Why?"
+
+"In truth I do not exactly know myself. Examine your conscience. Think
+what you have done."
+
+"I?"
+
+"Yes, you."
+
+"How I?"
+
+"You must have done something."
+
+"No. I have done nothing. I have not even done my duty. I ought to have
+taken my gun, gone down into the street, harangued the people, raised
+barricades; I remained at home stupidly like a sluggard" (the accused
+laughs); "that is the offence of which I accuse myself."
+
+"You have not been condemned for that offence. Think carefully."
+
+"I can think of nothing."
+
+"What! You have not been to the _café_?"
+
+"Yes, I have breakfasted there."
+
+"Have you not chatted there?"
+
+"Yes, perhaps."
+
+"Have you not laughed?"
+
+"Perhaps I have laughed."
+
+"At whom? At what?"
+
+"At what is going on. It is true I was wrong to laugh."
+
+"At the same time you talked?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Of whom?"
+
+"Of the President."
+
+"What did you say?"
+
+"Indeed, what may be said with justice, that he had broken his oath."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"That he had not the right to arrest the Representatives."
+
+"You said that?"
+
+"Yes. And I added that he had not the right to kill people on the
+boulevard...."
+
+Here the condemned man interrupted himself and exclaimed,--
+
+"And thereupon they send me to Cayenne!"
+
+The judge looks fixedly at the prisoner, and answers,--"Well, then?"
+
+Another form of justice:--
+
+Three miscellaneous personages, three removable functionaries, a
+Prefect, a soldier, a public prosecutor, whose only conscience is the
+sound of Louis Bonaparte's bell, seated themselves at a table and
+judged. Whom? You, me, us, everybody. For what crimes? They invented
+crimes. In the name of what laws? They invented laws. What penalties did
+they inflict? They invented penalties. Did they know the accused? No.
+Did they listen to him? No. What advocates did they listen to? None.
+What witnesses did they question? None. What deliberation did they enter
+upon? None. What public did they call in? None. Thus, no public, no
+deliberation, no counsellors, no witnesses, judges who are not
+magistrates, a jury where none are sworn in, a tribunal which is not a
+tribunal, imaginary offences, invented penalties, the accused absent,
+the law absent; from all these things which resembled a dream there came
+forth a reality: the condemnation of the innocent.
+
+Exile, banishment, transportation, ruin, home-sickness, death, and
+despair for 40,000 families.
+
+That is what History calls the Mixed Commissions.
+
+Ordinarily the great crimes of State strike the great heads, and content
+themselves with this destruction; they roll like blocks of stone, all in
+one piece, and break the great resistances; illustrious victims suffice
+for them. But the Second of December had its refinements of cruelty; it
+required in addition petty victims. Its appetite for extermination
+extended to the poor and to the obscure, its anger and animosity
+penetrated as far as the lowest class; it created fissures in the social
+subsoil in order to diffuse the proscription there; the local
+triumvirates, nicknamed "mixed mixtures," served it for that. Not one
+head escaped, however humble and puny. They found means to impoverish
+the indigent, to ruin those dying of hunger, to spoil the disinherited;
+the _coup d'état_ achieved this wonderful feat of adding misfortune to
+misery. Bonaparte, it seems, took the trouble to hate a mere peasant;
+the vine-dresser was torn from his vine, the laborer from his furrow,
+the mason from his scaffold, the weaver from his loom. Men accepted this
+mission of causing the immense public calamity to fall, morsel by
+morsel, upon the humblest walks of life. Detestable task! To crumble a
+catastrophe upon the little and on the weak.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+
+A RELIGIOUS INCIDENT
+
+A little religion can be mingled with this justice. Here is an example.
+
+Frederick Morin, like Arnauld de l'Ariège, was a Catholic Republican. He
+thought that the souls of the victims of the 4th of December, suddenly
+cast by the volleys of the _coup d'état_ into the infinite and the
+unknown, might need some assistance, and he undertook the laborious task
+of having a mass said for the repose of these souls. But the priests
+wished to keep the masses for their friends. The group of Catholic
+Republicans which Frederick Morin headed applied successively to all the
+priests of Paris; but met with a refusal. They applied to the
+Archbishop: again a refusal. As many masses for the assassin as they
+liked, but far the assassinated not one. To pray for dead men of this
+sort would be a scandal. The refusal was determined. How should it be
+overcome? To do without a mass would have appeared easy to others, but
+not to these staunch believers. The worthy Catholic Democrats with great
+difficulty at length unearthed in a tiny suburban parish a poor old
+vicar, who consented to mumble in a whisper this mass in the ear of the
+Almighty, while begging Him to say nothing about it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+
+HOW THEY CAME OUT OF HAM
+
+On the night of the 7th and 8th of January, Charras was sleeping. The
+noise of his bolts being drawn awoke him.
+
+"So then!" said he, "they are going to put us in close confinement." And
+he went to sleep again.
+
+An hour afterwards the door was opened. The commandant of the fort
+entered in full uniform, accompanied by a police agent carrying a torch.
+
+It was about four o'clock in the morning.
+
+"Colonel," said the Commandant, "dress yourself at once."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"You are about to leave."
+
+"Some more rascality, I suppose!"
+
+The Commandant was silent. Charras dressed himself.
+
+As he finished dressing, a short young man, dressed in black, came in.
+This young man spoke to Charras.
+
+"Colonel, you are about to leave the fortress, you are about to quit
+France. I am instructed to have you conducted to the frontier."
+
+Charras exclaimed,--
+
+"If I am to quit France I will not leave the fortress. This is yet
+another outrage. They have no more the right to exile me than they had
+the right to imprison me. I have on my side the Law, Right, my old
+services, my commission. I protest. Who are you, sir?"
+
+"I am the Private Secretary of the Minister of the Interior."
+
+"Ah! it is you who are named Léopold Lehon."
+
+The young man cast down his eyes.
+
+Charras continued,--
+
+"You come on the part of some one whom they call 'Minister of the
+Interior,' M. de Morny, I believe. I know M. de Morny. A bald young man;
+he has played the game where people lose their hair; and now he is
+playing the game where people risk their heads."
+
+The conversation was painful. The young man was deeply interested in the
+toe of his boot.
+
+After a pause, however, he ventured to speak,--
+
+"M. Charras, I am instructed to say that if you want money--"
+
+Charras interrupted him impetuously.
+
+"Hold your tongue, sir! not another word. I have served my country
+five-and-twenty years as an officer, under fire, at the peril of my
+life, always for honor, never for gain. Keep your money for your own
+set!"
+
+"But, sir--"
+
+"Silence! Money which passes through your hands would soil mine."
+
+Another pause ensued, which the private secretary again broke,--
+
+"Colonel, you will be accompanied by two police agents who have special
+instructions, and I should inform you that you are ordered to travel
+with a false passport, and under the name of Vincent."
+
+"Good heavens!" said Charras; "this is really too much. Who is it
+imagines that they will make me travel by order with a false passport,
+and under a false name?" And looking steadily at M. Léopold Lehon,
+"Know, sir, that my name is Charras and not Vincent, and that I belong
+to a family whose members have always borne the name of their father."
+
+They set out.
+
+They journeyed by carriage as far as Creil, which is on the railway.
+
+At Creil station the first person whom Charras saw was General
+Changarnier.
+
+"Ah! it is you, General."
+
+The two proscripts embraced each other. Such is exile.
+
+"What the deuce are they doing with you?" asked the General.
+
+"What they are probably doing with you. These vagabonds are making me
+travel under the name of Vincent."
+
+"And me," said Changarnier, "under the name of Leblanc."
+
+"In that case they ought at least to have called me Lerouge," said
+Charras, with a burst of laughter.
+
+In the meantime a group, kept at a distance by the police agents, had
+formed round them. People had recognized them and saluted them. A little
+child, whose mother could not hold him back, ran quickly to Charras and
+took his hand.
+
+They got into the train apparently as free as other travellers. Only
+they isolated them in empty compartments, and each was accompanied by
+two men, who sat one at the side and the other facing him, and who never
+took their eyes off him. The keepers of General Changarnier were of
+ordinary strength and stature. Those of Charras were almost giants.
+Charras is exceedingly tall; they topped him by an entire head. These
+men who were galley sergeants, had been carabineers; these spies had
+been heroes.
+
+Charras questioned them. They had served when quite young, from 1813.
+Thus they had shared the bivouac of Napoleon; now they ate the same
+bread as Vidocq. The soldier brought to such a sorry pass as this is a
+sad sight.
+
+The pocket of one of them was bulged out with something which he was
+hiding there.
+
+When this man crossed the station in company with Charras, a lady
+traveller said,--
+
+"Has he got M. Thiers in his pocket?"
+
+What the police agent was hiding was a pair of pistols. Under their
+long, buttoned-up and doubled-breasted frock coats these men were armed.
+They were ordered to treat "those gentlemen" with the most profound
+respect, but in certain circumstances to blow out their brains.
+
+The prisoners had each been informed that in the eyes of the different
+authorities whom they would meet on the road they would pass for
+foreigners, Swiss or Belgians, expelled on account of their political
+opinions, and that the police agents would keep their title of police
+agents, and would represent themselves as charged with reconducting
+these foreigners to the frontier.
+
+Two-thirds of the journey were accomplished without any hindrance. At
+Valenciennes an incident occurred.
+
+The _coup d'état_ having succeeded, zeal reigned paramount. No task was
+any longer considered despicable. To denounce was to please; zeal is one
+of the forms of servitude towards which people lean the most willingly.
+The general became a common soldier, the prefect became a commissary of
+police, the commissary of police became a police spy.
+
+The commissary of police at Valenciennes himself superintended the
+inspection of passports. For nothing in the world would he have deputed
+this important office to a subordinate inspector. When they presented
+him the passport of the so-called Leblanc, he looked the so-called
+Leblanc full in the face, started, and exclaimed,--
+
+"You are General Changarnier!"
+
+"That is no affair of mine," said the General.
+
+Upon this the two keepers of the General protested and exhibited their
+papers, perfectly drawn up in due form.
+
+"Mr. Commissary, we are Government agents. Here are our proper
+passports."
+
+"Improper ones," said the General.
+
+The Commissary shook his head. He had been employed in Paris, and had
+been frequently sent to the headquarters of the staff at the Tuileries,
+to General Changarnier. He knew him very well.
+
+"This is too much!" exclaimed the police agents. They blustered,
+declared that they were police functionaries on a special service, that
+they had instructions to conduct to the frontier this Leblanc, expelled
+for political reasons, swore by all the gods, and gave their word of
+honor that the so-called Leblanc was really named Leblanc.
+
+"I do not much believe in words of honor," said the Commissary.
+
+"Honest Commissary," muttered Changarnier, "you are right. Since the 2d
+of December words of honor and oaths are no more than worthless paper
+money."
+
+And then he began to smile.
+
+The Commissary became more and more perplexed. The police agents ended
+by invoking the testimony of the prisoner himself.
+
+"Now, sir, tell him your name yourself."
+
+"Get out of the difficulty yourselves," answered Changarnier.
+
+All this appeared most irregular to the mind of a provincial alguazil.
+
+It seemed evident to the Commissary of Valenciennes that General
+Changarnier was escaping from Ham under a false name with a false
+passport, and with false agents of police, in order to mislead the
+authorities, and that it was a plot to escape which was on the point of
+succeeding.
+
+"Come down, all three of you!" exclaimed the Commissary.
+
+The General gets down, and on putting foot to the ground notices Charras
+in the depths of his compartment between his two bullies.
+
+"Oho! Charras, you are there!" he cries.
+
+"Charras!" exclaimed the Commissary. "Charras there! Quick! the
+passports of these gentlemen!" And looking Charras in the face,--
+
+"Are you Colonel Charras?"
+
+"Egad!" said Charras.
+
+Yet another complication. It was now the turn of Charras's bullies to
+bluster. They declared that Charras was the man called Vincent,
+displayed passports and papers, swore and protested. The Commissary's
+suspicions were fully confirmed.
+
+"Very well," said he, "I arrest everybody."
+
+And he handed over Changarnier, Charras, and the four police agents to
+the gendarmes. The Commissary saw the Cross of Honor shining in the
+distance. He was radiant.
+
+The police arrested the police. It happens sometimes that the wolf
+thinks he has seized a victim and bites his own tail.
+
+The six prisoners--for now there were six prisoners--were taken into a
+parlor at the railway station. The Commissary informed the town
+authorities. The town authorities hastened hither, headed by the
+sub-prefect.
+
+The sub-prefect, who was named Censier, comes in, and does not know
+whether he ought to salute or to question, to grovel in the dust or to
+keep his hat on his head. These poor devils of magistrates and local
+officials were very much exercised in their minds. General Changarnier
+had been too near the Dictatorship not to make them thoughtful. Who can
+foresee the course of events? Everything is possible. Yesterday called
+itself Cavaignac, to-day calls itself Bonaparte, to-morrow may call
+itself Changarnier. Providence is really cruel not to let sub-prefects
+have a peep at the future.
+
+It is sad for a respectable functionary, who would ask for nothing
+better than to be servile or arrogant according to circumstances, to be
+in danger of lavishing his platitudes on a person who is perhaps going
+to rot forever in exile, and who is nothing more than a rascal, or to
+risk being insolent to a vagabond of a postscript who is capable of
+coming back a conqueror in six months' time, and of becoming the
+Government in his turn. What was to be done? And then they were spied
+upon. This takes place between officials. The slightest word would be
+maliciously interpreted, the slightest gesture would be laid to their
+discredit. How should he keep on good terms at the same time this
+Cabbage, which is called To-day, and that Goat, which is called
+To-morrow? To ask too many questions would offend the General, to render
+to many salutations would annoy the President. How could he be at the
+same time very much a sub-prefect, and in some degree a lacquey? How
+could he combine the appearance of obsequiousness, which would please
+Changarnier, with the appearance of authority, which would please
+Bonaparte?
+
+The sub-prefect thought to get out of the difficulty by saying,
+"General, you are my prisoner," and by adding, with a smile, "Do me the
+honor of breakfasting with me?" He addressed the same words to Charras.
+
+The General refused curtly.
+
+Charras looked at him fixedly, and did not answer him.
+
+Doubts regarding the identity of the prisoners came to the mind of the
+sub-prefect. He whispered to the Commissary "Are you quite sure?"
+"Certainly," said the Commissary.
+
+The sub-prefect decided to address himself to Charras, and dissatisfied
+with the manner in which his advances had been received, asked him
+somewhat sharply, "But, in short, who are you?"
+
+Charras answered, "We are packages."
+
+And turning to his keepers who were now in their turn in keeping:--
+
+"Apply to our exporters. Ask our Custom House officers. It is a mere
+matter of goods traffic."
+
+They set the electric telegraph to work. Valenciennes, alarmed,
+questioned Paris. The sub-prefect informed the Minister of the Interior
+that, thanks to a strict supervision, which he had trusted to no one but
+himself, he had just effected an important capture, that he had just
+discovered a plot, had saved the President, had saved society, had saved
+religion, etc., that in one word he had just arrested General
+Changarnier and Colonel Charras, who had escaped that morning from the
+fort of Ham with false passports, doubtless for the purpose of heading a
+rising, etc., and that, in short, he asked the Government what was to be
+done with the two prisoners.
+
+At the end of an hour the answer arrived:--"Let them go on their way."
+
+The police perceived that in a burst of zeal they had pushed profundity
+to the point of stupidity. That sometimes happens.
+
+The next train carried away the prisoners, restored, not to liberty, but
+to their keepers.
+
+They passed Quiévrain.
+
+They got down from the carriage, and got in again.
+
+When the train again started Charras heaved the deep, joyous sigh of a
+freed man, and said, "At last!"
+
+He raised his eyes, and perceived his two jailers by his side.
+
+They had got up behind him into the carriage.
+
+"Ah, indeed!" he said to them; "you there!"
+
+Of these two men there was only one who spoke, that one answered,--
+
+"Yes, Colonel."
+
+"What are you doing here?"
+
+"We are keeping watch over you."
+
+"But we are in Belgium."
+
+"Possibly."
+
+"Belgium is not France."
+
+"Ah, that may be."
+
+"But suppose I put my head out of the carriage? Suppose I call out?
+Suppose I had you arrested? Suppose I reclaimed my liberty?"
+
+"You will not do all that, Colonel."
+
+"How will you prevent me?"
+
+The police agent showed the butt-end of his pistol and said "Thus."
+
+Charras burst out laughing, and asked them, "Where then are you going to
+leave me?"
+
+"At Brussels."
+
+"That is to say, that at Brussels you will salute me with your cap; but
+that at Mons you will salute me with your pistol."
+
+"As you say, Colonel."
+
+"In truth," said Charras, "it does not matter to me. It is King
+Leopold's business. The Bonaparte treats countries as he has treated the
+Representatives. He has violated the Assembly, he violates Belgium. But
+all the same, you are a medley of strange rascals. He who is at the top
+is a madman, those who are beneath are blockheads. Very well, my
+friends, let me go to sleep."
+
+And he went to sleep.
+
+Almost the same incident happened nearly at the same moment to Generals
+Changarnier and Lamoricière and to M. Baze.
+
+The police agents did not leave General Changarnier until they had
+reached Mons. There they made him get down from the train, and said to
+him, "General, this is your place of residence. We leave you free."
+
+"Ah!" said he, "this is my place of residence, and I am free? Well,
+then, good-night."
+
+And he sprang lightly back into the carriage just as the train was
+starting, leaving behind him two galley sergeants dumfounded.
+
+The police released Charras at Brussels, but did not release General
+Lamoricière. The two police agents wished to compel him to leave
+immediately for Cologne. The General, who was suffering from rheumatism
+which he had caught at Ham, declared that he would sleep at Brussels.
+
+"Be it so," said the police agents.
+
+They followed him to the Hôtel de Bellevue. They spent the night there
+with him. He had considerable difficulty to prevent them from sleeping
+in his room. Next day they carried him off, and took him to
+Cologne-violating Prussian territory after having violated Belgian
+territory.
+
+The _coup d'état_ was still more impudent with M. Baze.
+
+They made M. Baze journey with his wife and his children under the name
+of Lassalle. He passed for the servant of the police agent who
+accompanied him.
+
+They took him thus to Aix-la-Chapelle.
+
+There, in the middle of the night, in the middle of the street, the
+police agents deposited him and the whole of his family, without a
+passport, without papers, without money. M. Baze, indignant, was obliged
+to have recourse to threats to induce them to take him and identify him
+before a magistrate. It was, perhaps, part of the petty joys of
+Bonaparte to cause a Questor of the Assembly to be treated as a vagrant.
+
+On the night of the 7th of January, General Bedeau, although he was not
+to leave till the next day, was awakened like the others by the noise of
+bolts. He did not understand that they were shutting him in, but on the
+contrary, believed that they were releasing M. Baze, his neighbor in the
+adjoining cell. He cried through the door, "Bravo, Baze!"
+
+In fact, every day the Generals said to the Questor, "You have no
+business here, this is a military fortress. One of these fine mornings
+you will be thrust outside like Roger du Nord."
+
+Nevertheless General Bedeau heard an unusual noise in the fortress. He
+got up and "knocked" for General Leflô, his neighbor in the cell on the
+other side, with whom he exchanged frequent military dialogues, little
+flattering to the _coup d'état_. General Leflô answered the knocking,
+but he did not know any more than General Bedeau.
+
+General Bedeau's window looked out on the inner courtyard of the prison.
+He went to this window and saw lanterns flashing hither and thither,
+species of covered carts, horsed, and a company of the 48th under arms.
+A moment afterwards he saw General Changarnier come into the courtyard,
+get into a carriage, and drive off. Some moments elapsed, then he saw
+Charras pass. Charras noticed him at the window, and cried out to him,
+"Mons!"
+
+In fact he believed he was going to Mons, and this made General Bedeau,
+on the next day, choose Mons as his residence, expecting to meet Charras
+there.
+
+Charras having left, M. Léopold Lehon came in accompanied by the
+Commandant of the fort. He saluted Bedeau, explained his business, and
+gave his name. General Bedeau confined himself to saying, "They banish
+us; it is an illegality, and one more indignity added to the others.
+However, with the people who send you one is no longer surprised at
+anything."
+
+They did not send him away till the next day. Louis Bonaparte had said,
+"We must 'space out' the Generals."
+
+The police agent charged with escorting General Bedeau to Belgium was
+one of those who, on the 2d of December, had arrested General Cavaignac.
+He told General Bedeau that they had had a moment of uneasiness when
+arresting General Cavaignae: the picket of fifty men, which had been
+told off to assist the police having failed them.
+
+In the compartment of the railway carriage which was taking General
+Bedeau into Belgium there was a lady, manifestly belonging to good
+society, of very distinguished appearance, and who was accompanied by
+three little children. A servant in livery, who appeared to be a German,
+had two of the children on his knees, and lavished a thousand little
+attentions on them. However, the General, hidden by the darkness, and
+muffled up, like the police agents, in the collar of his mantle, paid
+little attention to this group. When they reached Quièvrain, the lady
+turned to him and said, "General, I congratulate you, you are now in
+safety."
+
+The General thanked her, and asked her name.
+
+"Baroness Coppens," she answered.
+
+It may be remembered that it was at M. Coppens's house, 70, Rue Blanche,
+that the first meeting of the Left had taken place on December 2d.
+
+"You have charming children there, madam," said the General, "and," he
+added, "an exceedingly good servant."
+
+"It is my husband," said Madame Coppens.
+
+M. Coppens, in fact, had remained five weeks buried in a hiding-place
+contrived in his own house. He had escaped from France that very night
+under the cover of his own livery. They had carefully taught their
+children their lesson. Chance had made them get into the same carriage
+as General Bedeau and the two bullies who were keeping guard over him,
+and throughout the night Madame Coppens had been in terror lest, in the
+presence of the policeman, one of the little ones awakening, should
+throw its arms around the neck of the servant and cry "Papa!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+
+A RETROSPECT
+
+Louis Bonaparte had tested the majority as engineers test a bridge; he
+had loaded it with iniquities, encroachments, enormities, slaughters on
+the Place du Havre, cries of "Long live the Emperor," distributions of
+money to the troops, sales of Bonapartist journals in the streets,
+prohibition of Republican and parliamentary journals, reviews at Satory,
+speeches at Dijon; the majority bore everything.
+
+"Good," said he, "It will carry the weight of the _coup d'état_."
+
+Let us recall the facts. Before the 2d of December the _coup d'état_ was
+being constructed in detail, here and there, a little everywhere, with
+exceeding impudence, and yet the majority smiled. The Representative
+Pascal Duprat had been violently treated by police agents. "That is very
+funny," said the Right. The Representative Dain was seized. "Charming."
+The Representative Sartin was arrested. "Bravo." One fine morning when
+all the hinges had been well tested and oiled, and when all the wires
+were well fixed, the _coup d'état_ was carried out all at once,
+abruptly. The majority ceased to laugh, but the trick, was done. It had
+not perceived that for a long time past, while it was laughing at the
+strangling of others, the cord was round its own neck.
+
+Let us maintain this, not to punish the past, but to illuminate the
+future. Many months before being carried out, the _coup d'état_ had been
+accomplished. The day having come, the hour having struck, the mechanism
+being completely wound up, it had only to be set going. It was bound not
+to fail, and nothing did fail. What would have been an abyss if the
+majority had done its duty, and had understood its joint responsibility
+with the Left, was not even a ditch. The inviolability had been
+demolished by those who were inviolable. The hand of gendarmes had
+become as accustomed to the collar of the Representatives as to the
+collar of thieves: the white tie of the statesman was not even rumpled
+in the grasp of the galley sergeants, and one can admire the Vicomte de
+Falloux--oh, candor!--for being dumfounded at being treated like Citizen
+Sartin.
+
+The majority, going backwards, and ever applauding Bonaparte, fell into
+the hole which Bonaparte had dug for it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+
+CONDUCT OF THE LEFT
+
+The conduct of the Republican Left in this grave crisis of the 2d of
+December was memorable.
+
+The flag of the Law was on the ground, in the mire of universal treason,
+under the feet of Louis Bonaparte; the Left raised this flag, washed
+away the mire with its blood, unfurled it, waved it before the eyes of
+the people, and from the 2d to the 5th of December held Bonaparte at
+bay.
+
+A few men, a mere handful, 120 Representatives of the people escaped by
+chance from arrest, plunged in darkness and in silence, without even
+possessing that cry of the free press which sounds the tocsin to human
+intellects, and which encourages the combatants, without generals under
+their orders, without soldiers, without ammunition, went down into the
+streets, resolutely barred the way against the _coup d'état_, and gave
+battle to this monstrous crime, which had taken all its precautions,
+which was mail-clad in every part, armed to the teeth, crowding round it
+forests of bayonets, and making a pack of mortars and cannons give
+tongue in its favor.
+
+They had that presence of mind, which is the most practical kind of
+courage; they had, while lacking everything else, the formidable
+improvisation of duty, which never loses heart. They had no
+printing-offices, they obtained them; they had no guns, they found them;
+they had no balls, they cast them; they had no powder, they manufactured
+it; they had nothing but paving-stones, and from thence they evolved
+combatants.
+
+It is true that these paving-stones were the paving-stones of Paris,
+stones which change themselves into men.
+
+Such is the power of Right, that, during four days these hundred and
+twenty men, who had nothing in their favor but the goodness of their
+cause, counterbalanced an army of 100,000 soldiers. At one moment the
+scale turned on their side. Thanks to them, thanks to their resistance,
+seconded by the indignation of honest hearts, there came an hour when
+the victory of the law seemed possible, and even certain. On Thursday,
+the 4th, the _coup d'état_ tottered, and was obliged to support itself
+by assassination. We seen that without the butchery of the boulevards,
+if he had not saved his perjury by a massacre, if he had not sheltered
+his crime by another crime, Louis Bonaparte was lost.
+
+During the long hours of this struggle, a struggle without a truce, a
+struggle against the army during the day and against the police during
+the night,--an unequal struggle, where all the strength and all the rage
+was on one side, and, as we have just said, nothing but Right on the
+other, not one of these hundred and twenty Representatives, not a single
+one failed at the call of duty, not one shunned the danger, not one drew
+back, not one wearied,--all these heads placed themselves resolutely
+under the axe, and for four days waited for it to fall.
+
+To-day captivity, transportation, expatriation, exile, the axe has
+fallen on nearly all these heads.
+
+I am one of those who have had no other merit in this struggle than to
+rally into one unique thought the courage of all; but let me here
+heartily render justice to those men amongst whom I pride myself with
+having for three years served the holy cause of human progress, to this
+Left, insulted, calumniated, unappreciated, and dauntless, which was
+always in the breach, and which did not repose for a single day, which
+recoiled none the more before the military conspiracy than before the
+parliamentary conspiracy, and which, entrusted by the people with the
+task of defending them, defended them even when abandoned by themselves;
+defended them in the tribune with speech, and in the street with the
+sword.
+
+When the Committee of Resistance in the sitting at which the decree of
+deposition and of outlawry was drawn up and voted, making use of the
+discretionary power which the Left had confided to it, decided that all
+the signatures of the Republican Representatives remaining at liberty
+should be placed at the foot of the decree, it was a bold stroke; the
+Committee did not conceal from itself that it was a list of proscription
+offered to the victorious _coup d'état_ ready drawn up, and perhaps in
+its inner conscience it feared that some would disavow it, and protest
+against it. As a matter of fact, the next day we received two letters,
+two complaints. They were from two Representatives who had been omitted
+from the list, and who claimed the honor of being reinstated there. I
+reinstate these two Representatives here, in their right of being
+proscripts. Here are their names--Anglade and Pradié.
+
+From Tuesday, the 2d, to Friday, the 5th of December, the
+Representatives of the Left and the Committee, dogged, worried, hunted
+down, always on the point of being discovered and taken, that is to
+say--massacred; repaired for the purpose of deliberating, to
+twenty-seven different houses, shifted twenty-seven times their place of
+meeting, from their first gathering in the Rue Blanche to their last
+conference at Raymond's. They refused the shelters which were offered
+them on the left bank of the river, wishing always to remain in the
+centre of the combat. During these changes they more than once traversed
+the right bank of Paris from one end to the other, most of the time on
+foot, and making long circuits in order not to be followed. Everything
+threatened them with danger; their number, their well-known faces, even
+their precautions. In the populous streets there was danger, the police
+were permanently posted there; in the lonely streets there was danger,
+because the goings and comings were more noticed there.
+
+They did not sleep, they did not eat, they took what they could find, a
+glass of water from time to time, a morsel of bread here and there.
+Madame Landrin gave us a basin of soup, Madame Grévy the remainder of a
+cold pie. We dined one evening on a little chocolate which a chemist had
+distributed in a barricade. At Jeunesse's, in the Rue de Grammont,
+during the night of the 3rd, Michel de Bourges took a chair, and said,
+"This is my bed." Were they tired? They did not feel it. The old men,
+like Ronjat, the sick, like Boysset, all went forward. The public peril,
+like a fever, sustained them.
+
+Our venerable colleague, Lamennais, did not come, but he remained three
+days without going to bed, buttoned up in his old frock coat, his thick
+boots on his feet, ready to march. He wrote to the author these three
+lines, which it is impossible not to quote:--"You are heroes without me.
+This pains me greatly. I await your orders. Try, then, to find me
+something to do, be it but to die."
+
+In these meetings each man preserved his usual demeanor. At times one
+might have thought it an ordinary sitting in one of the bureaux of the
+Assembly. There was the calm of every day, mingled with the firmness of
+decisive crises. Edgar Quinet retained all his lofty judgment, Noël
+Parfait all his mental vivacity, Yvan all his vigorous and intelligent
+penetration, Labrousse all his animation. In a corner Pierre Lefranc,
+pamphleteer and ballad-writer, but a pamphleteer like Courier, and a
+ballad-writer like Béranger smiled at the grave and stern words of
+Dupont de Bussac. All that brilliant group of young orators of the Left,
+Baneel with his powerful ardor, Versigny and Victor Chauffour with their
+youthful daring. Sain with his coolheadedness which reveals strength,
+Farconnet with his gentle voice and his energetic inspiration, lavishing
+his efforts in resisting the _coup d'état_, sometimes taking part in the
+deliberations, at others amongst the people, proving that to be an
+orator one must possess all the qualifications of a combatant. De
+Flotte, indefatigable, was ever ready to traverse all Paris. Xavier
+Durrieu was courageous, Dulac dauntless, Charamaule fool-hardy. Citizens
+and Paladins. Courage! who would have dared to exhibit none amongst all
+these men, of whom not one trembled? Untrimmed beards, torn coats,
+disordered hair, pale faces, pride glistening in every eye. In the
+houses where they were received they installed themselves as best they
+could. If there were no sofas or chairs, some, exhausted in strength,
+but not in heart, seated themselves on the floor. All became copyists of
+the decrees and proclamations; one dictated, ten wrote. They wrote on
+tables, on the corners of furniture, on their knees. Frequently paper
+was lacking, pens were wanting. These wretched trifles created obstacles
+at the most critical times. At certain moments in the history of peoples
+an inkstand where the ink is dried up may prove a public calamity.
+Moreover, cordiality prevailed among all, all shades of difference were
+effaced. In the secret sittings of the Committee Madier de Montjau, that
+firm and generous heart, De Flotte, brave and thoughtful, a fighting
+philosopher of the Devolution, Carnot, accurate, cold, tranquil,
+immovable, Jules Favre, eloquent, courageous, admirable through his
+simplicity and his strength, inexhaustible in resources as in sarcasms,
+doubled, by combining them, the diverse powers of their minds.
+
+Michel de Bourges, seated in a corner of the fireplace, or leaning on a
+table enveloped in his great coat, his black silk cap on his head, had
+an answer for every suggestion, gave back to occurrences blow for blow,
+was on his guard for danger, difficulty, opportunity, necessity, for his
+is one of those wealthy natures which have always something ready either
+in their intellect or in their imagination. Words of advice crossed
+without jostling each other. These men entertained no illusion. They
+knew that they had entered into a life-and-death struggle. They had no
+quarter to expect. They had to do with the Man who had said, "Crush
+everything." They knew the bloody words of the self-styled Minister,
+Merny. These words the placards of Saint-Arnaud interpreted by decrees,
+the Praetorians let loose in the street interpreted them by murder. The
+members of the Insurrectionary Committee and the Representatives
+assisting at the meetings were not ignorant that wherever they might be
+taken they would be killed on the spot by bayonet-thrusts. It was the
+fortune of this war. Yet the prevailing expression on every face was
+serenity; that profound serenity which comes from a happy conscience. At
+times this serenity rose to gaiety. They laughed willingly and at
+everything. At the torn trousers of one, at the hat which another had
+brought back from the barricade instead of his own, at the comforter of
+a third. "Hide your big body," they said to him. They were children, and
+everything amused them. On the morning of the 4th Mathien de la Drôme
+came in. He had organized for his part a committee which communicated
+with the Central Committee, he came to tell us of it. He had shaved off
+his fringe of beard so as not to be recognized in the streets. "You look
+like an Archbishop," said Michel de Bourges to him, and there was a
+general laugh. And all this, with this thought which every moment
+brought back; the noise which is heard at the door, the key which turns
+in the lock is perhaps Death coming in.
+
+The Representatives and the Committee were at the mercy of chance. More
+than once they could have been captured, and they were not; either owing
+to the scruples of certain police agents (where the deuce will scruples
+next take up their abode?) or that these agents doubted the final
+result, and feared to lay their hand heedlessly upon possible victors.
+If Vassal, the Commissary of Police, who met us on the morning of the
+4th, on the pavement of the Rue des Moulins, had wished, we might have
+been taken that day. He did not betray us. But these were exceptions.
+The pursuit of the police was none the less ardent and implacable. At
+Marie's, it may be remembered that the _sergents de ville_ and the
+gendarmes arrived ten minutes after we had left the house, and that they
+even ransacked under the beds with their bayonets.
+
+Amongst the Representatives there were several Constituents, and at
+their head Bastide. Bastide, in 1848, had been Minister for Foreign
+Affairs. During the second night, meeting in the Rue Popincourt, they
+reproached him with several of his actions. "Let me first get myself
+killed," he answered, "and then you can reproach me with what you like."
+And he added, "How can you distrust me, who am a Republican up to the
+hilt?" Bastide would not consent to call our resistance the
+"insurrection," he called it the "counter-insurrection." he said,
+"Victor Hugo is right. The insurgent is at the Elysée." It was my
+opinion, as we have seen, that we ought to bring the battle at once to
+an issue, to defer nothing, to reserve nothing; I said, "We must strike
+the _coup d'état_ while it is hot." Bastide supported me. In the combat
+he was impassive, cold, gay beneath his coldness. At the Saint Antoine
+barricade, at the moment when the guns of the _coup d'état_ were leveled
+at the Representatives of the people, he said smilingly to Madier de
+Montjau, "Ask Schoelcher what he thinks of the abolition of the penalty
+of death." (Schoelcher, like myself, at this supreme moment, would have
+answered, "that it ought to be abolished") In another barricade Bastide,
+compelled to absent himself for a moment, placed his pipe on a
+paving-stone. They found Bastide's pipe, and they thought him dead. He
+came back, and it was hailing musket-balls; he said, "My pipe?" he
+relighted it and resumed the fight. Two balls pierced his coat.
+
+When the barricades were constructed, the Republican Representatives
+spread themselves abroad; and distributed themselves amongst them.
+Nearly all the Representatives of the Left repaired to the barricades,
+assisting either to build them or to defend them. Besides the great
+exploit at Saint Antoine barricade, where Schoelcher was so admirable,
+Esquiros went to the barricade of the Rue de Charonne, De Flotte to
+those of the Pantheon and of the Chapelle Saint Denis, Madier de
+Montjau to those of Belleville and the Rue Aumaire, Doutre and Pelletier
+to that of the Mairie of the Fifth Arrondissement, Brives to that of Rue
+Beaubourg, Arnauld de l'Ariège to that of Rue de Petit-Repîsoir, Viguier
+to that of the Rue Pagevin, Versigny to that of the Rue Joigneaux;
+Dupont de Bussac to that of the Carré Saint Martin; Carlos Forel and
+Boysset to that of the Rue Rambuteau. Doutre received a sword-cut on his
+head, which cleft his hat; Bourzat had four balls in his overcoat;
+Baudin was killed; Gaston Dussoubs was ill and could not come; his
+brother, Denis Dussoubs, replaced him. Where? In the tomb.
+
+Baudin fell on the first barricade, Denis Dussoubs on the last.
+
+I was less favored than Bourzat; I only had three balls in my overcoat,
+and it is impossible for me to say whence they came. Probably from the
+boulevard.
+
+After the battle was lost there was no general helter-skelter, no rout,
+no flight. All remained hidden in Paris ready to reappear, Michel in the
+Rue d'Alger, myself in the Rue de Navarin. The Committee held yet
+another sitting on Saturday, the 6th, at eleven o'clock at night. Jules
+Favre, Michel de Bourges, and myself, we came during the night to the
+house of a generous and brave woman, Madame Didier. Bastide came there
+and said to me, "If you are not killed here, you are going to enter upon
+exile. For myself, I am going to remain in Paris. Take me for your
+lieutenant." I have related this incident.
+
+They hoped for the 9th (Tuesday) a resumption of arms, which did not
+take place. Malarmet had announced it to Dupont de Bussac, but the blow
+of the 4th had prostrated Paris. The populace no longer stirred. The
+Representatives did not resolve to think of their safety, and to quit
+France through a thousand additional dangers until several days
+afterwards, when the last spark of resistance was extinguished in the
+heart of the people, and the last glimmer of hope in heaven.
+
+Several Republican Representatives were workmen; they have again become
+workmen in exile. Nadaud has resumed his trowel, and is a mason in
+London. Faure (du Rhône), a cutler, and Bansept, a shoemaker, felt that
+their trade had become their duty, and practise it in England. Faure
+makes knives, Bansept makes boots. Greppo is a weaver, it was he who
+when a proscript made the coronation robe of Queen Victoria. Gloomy
+smile of Destiny. Noël Parfait is a proof-reader at Brussels; Agricol
+Perdiguier, called Avignonnais-la-Vertu, has girded on his leathern
+apron, and is a cabinet-maker at Antwerp. Yesterday these men sat in the
+Sovereign Assembly. Such things as these are seen in Plutarch.
+
+The eloquent and courageous proscript, Emile Deschanel, has created at
+Brussels, with a rare talent of speech, a new form of public
+instruction, the Conferences. To him is due the honor of this
+foundation, so fruitful and so useful.
+
+Let us say in conclusion that the National Legislative Assembly lived
+badly but died well.
+
+At this moment of the fall, irreparable for the cowards, the Right was
+worthy, the Left was great.
+
+Never before has History seen a Parliament fall in this manner.
+
+February had blown upon the Deputies of the legal country, and the
+Deputies had vanished. M. Sauzet had sunk down behind the tribune, and
+had gone away without even taking his hat.
+
+Bonaparte, the other, the first, the true Bonaparte, had made the "Five
+Hundred" step out of the windows of the Orangery of Saint Cloud,
+somewhat embarrassed with their large mantles.
+
+Cromwell, the oldest of the Bonapartes, when he achieved his Eighteenth
+Brumaire, encountered scarcely any other resistance than a few
+imprecations from Milton and from Ludlaw, and was able to say in his
+boorishly gigantic language, "I have put the King in my knapsack and the
+Parliament in my pocket."
+
+We must go back to the Roman Senate in order to find true Curule chairs.
+
+The Legislative Assembly, let us repeat, to its honor, did not lose
+countenance when facing the abyss. History will keep an account of it.
+After having betrayed so many things, it might have been feared that
+this Assembly would end by betraying itself. It did nothing of the kind.
+The Legislature, one is obliged to remember, had committed faults upon
+faults; the Royalist majority had, in the most odious manner, persecuted
+the Republican minority, which was bravely doing its duty in denouncing
+it to the people; this Assembly had had a very long cohabitation and a
+most fatal complicity with the Man of Crime, who had ended by strangling
+it as a robber strangles his concubine in his bed; but whatever may be
+said of this fateful Assembly, it did not exhibit that wretched
+vanishing away which Louis Bonaparte hoped for; it was not a coward.
+
+This is due to its having originated from universal suffrage. Let us
+mention this, for it is an instructive lesson. The virtue of this
+universal suffrage, which had begotten the Assembly and which the
+Assembly had wished to slay, it felt in itself to its last hour.
+
+The sap of a whole people does not spread in vain throughout an
+Assembly, even throughout the most decrepit. On the decisive day this
+sap asserts itself.
+
+The Legislative Assembly, laden as it may be with formidable
+responsibilities, will, perhaps, be less overwhelmed than it deserves by
+the reprobation of posterity.
+
+Thanks to universal suffrage, which it had deceived, and which
+constituted its faith and its strength at the last moment, thanks to the
+Left, which it had oppressed, scoffed at, calumniated, and decimated,
+and which cast on it the glorious reflection of its heroism, this
+pitiful Assembly died a grand death.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+
+PAGE WRITTEN AT BRUSSELS
+
+Well then, yes, I will kick open the door of this Palace, and I will
+enter with you, History! I will seize by the collar all the
+perpetrators, continually caught red-handed in the commission of all
+these outrages! I will suddenly illuminate this cavern of night with the
+broad daylight of truth!
+
+Yes, I will bring in the daylight! I will tear down the curtain, I will
+open the window, I will show to every eye such as it really is,
+infamous, horrible, wealthy, triumphant, joyous, gilded,
+besmirched--this Elysée! this Court! this group! this heap! call it what
+you will! this galley-crew! where writhe and crawl, and pair and breed
+every baseness, every indignity, every abomination: filibusters,
+buccaneers, swearers of oaths, Signers of the Cross, spies, swindlers,
+butchers, executioners, from the brigand who vends his sword, to the
+Jesuit who sells his God second-hand! This sink where Baroche elbows
+Teste! where each brings his own nastiness! Magnan his epaulets;
+Montalembert his religion, Dupin his person!
+
+And above all the innermost circle, the Holy of Holies, the private
+Council, the smug den where they drink--where they eat--where they
+laugh--where they sleep--where they play--where they cheat--where they
+call Highnesses "Thou,"--where they wallow! Oh! what ignominies! It is
+them! It is there! Dishonor, baseness, shame, and opprobrium are there!
+Oh History! A hot iron for all these faces.
+
+It is there that they amuse themselves, and that they jest, and that
+they banter, and that they make sport of France! It is there that they
+pocket hap-hazard, amid great shouts of laughter, the millions of louis
+and the millions of votes! See them, look at them! They have treated the
+Law like a girl, they are content! Right is slaughtered, Liberty is
+gagged, the flag is dishonored, the people are under their feet. They
+are happy! And who are they? What are these men? Europe knows not. One
+fine morning it saw them come out of a crime. Nothing more. A parcel of
+rascals who vainly tried to become celebrated, and who have remained
+anonymous. Look! they are all there! See them, I tell you! Look at them,
+I tell you! Recognize them if you can. Of what sex are they? To what
+species do they belong? Who is this one? Is he a writer? No; he is a
+dog. He gobbles human flesh. And that one? Is he a dog? No, he is a
+courtier--he has blood on his paw.
+
+New men, that is what they term them. New, in truth! Unlooked-for,
+strange, unprecedented, monstrous! Perjury, iniquity, robbery,
+assassination, erected into ministerial departments, swindling applied
+to universal suffrage, government under false pretences, duty called
+crime, crime called duty, cynicism laughing in the midst of
+atrocity,--it is of all this that their newness is compounded.
+
+Now, all is well, they have succeeded, they have a fair wind, they enjoy
+themselves to the full. They have cheated France, they are dividing the
+spoil. France is a bag, and they put their hand in it. Rummage, for
+Heaven's sake! Take, while you are there; help yourselves, draw out,
+plunder, steal! One wants money, another wants situations, another wants
+a decorative collar round his neck, another a plume in his hat, another
+embroidery on his sleeve, another women, another power; another news for
+the Bourse, another a railway, another wine. I should think, indeed,
+that they are well satisfied. Picture to yourself a poor devil who,
+three years ago, borrowed ten sous of his porter, and who to-day,
+leaning voluptuously on the _Moniteur_, has only to sign a decree to
+take a million. To make themselves perfectly happy, to be able to devour
+the finances of the State, to live at the expense of the Treasury like a
+son of the family, this is what is called their policy. Their ambition
+has a true name, it is gluttony.
+
+They ambitious? Nonsense! They are gluttons. To govern is to gamble.
+This does not prevent betrayal. On the contrary, they spy upon each
+other, they betray each other. The little traitors betray the great
+traitors. Pietri looks askance at Maupas, and Maupas at Carlier. They
+all lie in the same reeking sewer! They have achieved the _coup d'état_
+in common. That is all. Moreover they feel sure of nothing, neither of
+glances, nor of smiles, nor of hidden thoughts, nor of men, nor of
+women, nor of the lacquey, nor of the prince, nor of words of honor, nor
+of birth certificates. Each feels himself fraudulent, and knows himself
+suspected. Each has his secret aims. Each alone knows why he has done
+this. Not one utters a word about his crime, and no one bears the name
+of his father. Ah! may God grant me life, and may Jesus pardon me, I
+will raise a gibbet a hundred yards high, I will take hammer and nails,
+and I will crucify this Beauharnais called Bonaparte, between this Leroy
+called Saint-Arnoud, and this Fialin called Persigny!
+
+And I would drag you there also, all of you accomplices! This Morny,
+this Romieu, this Fould, the Jew senator, this Delangle, who bears on
+his back this placard: JUSTICE! and this Troplong, this judicial
+glorifier of the violation of the laws, this lawyer apologist of the
+_coup d'état_, this magistrate flatterer of perjury, this judge
+panegyrist of murder, who will go down to posterity with a sponge filled
+with mud and with blood in his hand.
+
+I begin the battle therefore. With whom? With the present ruler of
+Europe. It is right that this spectacle should be given to the world.
+Louis Bonaparte is the success, is the intoxicated triumph, is the gay
+and ferocious despotism, opening out under the victory, he is the mad
+fulness of power, seeking limits and finding none, neither in things nor
+in men; Louis Bonaparte holds France, _Urbem Roman habit_; and whoever
+holds France holds the world; he is master of the votes, master of the
+consciences, master of the people; he nominates his successor, reigns
+forever over future electoral scrutinies, disposes of eternity, and
+places futurity in an envelope; his Senate, his Legislative Body, his
+Council of State, with heads lowered and mingled confusedly behind him,
+lick his feet; he drags along in a leash the bishops and cardinals; he
+tramples on the justice which curses him, and on the judges who adore
+him, thirty correspondents inform the Continent that he has frowned, and
+every electric telegraph vibrates if he raises his little finger; around
+him is heard the rustling of sabres, and the drums beat the salute; he
+sits under the shadow of the eagle in the midst of bayonets and of
+citadels, the free nations tremble and hide their liberties for fear
+that he should steal them, the great American Republic herself falters
+in his presence, and dares not withdraw her Ambassador from him; the
+kings, surrounded by their armies, look at him smilingly, with their
+hearts full of fear. Where will he begin? With Belgium? With
+Switzerland? With Piedmont? Europe expects to be overrun. He is capable
+of all, and he dreams of all.
+
+Well, then! Before this master, this triumpher, this conqueror, this
+dictator, this Emperor, this all-powerful, there rises a solitary man, a
+wanderer, despoiled, ruined, prostrate, proscribed, and attacks him.
+Louis Napoleon has ten thousand cannons, and five hundred thousand
+soldiers; the writer has his pen and his ink-stand. The writer is
+nothing, he is a grain of dust, he is a shadow, he is an exile without a
+refuge, he is a vagrant without a passport, but he has by his side and
+fighting with him two powers, Right, which is invincible, and Truth,
+which is immortal.
+
+Assuredly, for this struggle to the death, for this formidable duel,
+Providence could have chosen a more illustrious champion, a grander
+athlete. But what matter men, there, where it is the idea with combats!
+Such as it is, it is good, let us repeat, that this spectacle should be
+given to the world. What is this in truth? It is intellect, an atom
+which resists strength--a colossus.
+
+I have only one stone in my sling, but that stone is a good one; that
+stone is justice.
+
+I attack Louis Bonaparte at this hour, when he is erect; at this hour,
+when he is master. He is in his zenith. So much the better; it is that
+which suits me.
+
+Yes, I attack Louis Bonaparte. I attack him before the world; I attack
+him in the presence of God and men; I attack him resolutely,
+desperately; for the love of the people and of France. He is about to be
+Emperor, let it be so. Let there be at least one brow which resists. Let
+Louis Bonaparte know that an Empire may be taken, but that a Conscience
+cannot be taken.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+
+THE INFALLIBLE BENEDICTION
+
+The Pope approved.
+
+When the mails brought to Rome intelligence of the event of the 2d of
+December, the Pope went to a review held by General Gémeau, and begged
+him to congratulate Prince Louis Napoléon for him.
+
+There was a precedent for this.
+
+On the 12th December, 1572, Saint-Goard, Ambassador of Charles the
+Ninth, King of France, to Philip the Second, King of Spain, wrote from
+Madrid to his master, Charles the Ninth, "The news of the events of the
+day of Saint Bartholomew have reached the Catholic King. Contrary to his
+wont and custom, he has shown so much joy, that he has manifested it
+more openly than he has ever done for all the happy events and good
+fortune which have previously befallen him. So that I went to him on
+Sunday morning at Saint Hieronimus, and having approached him, he burst
+out laughing, and with every demonstration of extreme pleasure and
+contentment, began to praise your Majesty."[36]
+
+The hand of Pius IX. remained extended over France, when it had become
+the Empire.
+
+Then, under the shadow of this benediction, began an era of prosperity.
+
+
+[36] "Archives of the house of Orange," page 125, Supplement.
+
+
+
+
+CONCLUSION--THE FALL.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+I was coming back from my fourth exile--an exile in Belgium, a small
+matter. It was one of the last days of September, 1871. I was
+re-entering France by the Luxembourg frontier. I had fallen asleep in
+the carriage. Suddenly the jolt of the train coming to a standstill
+awoke me. I opened my eyes.
+
+The train had stopped in the middle of a charming landscape.
+
+I was in the half-consciousness of an interrupted sleep; and ideas, as
+yet half-dreams, hazy and diffuse, hovered between myself and reality. I
+experienced the undefinable and confused sensation of awakening.
+
+A river flowed by the side of the railway, clear, around a bright and
+verdant island. This vegetation was so thick that the moor-hens, on
+reaching it, plunged beneath it and disappeared. The river wound through
+a valley, which appeared like a huge garden. Apple-trees were there,
+which reminded one of Eve, and willows, which made one think of Galatea.
+It was, as I have said, in one of those equinoctial months when may be
+felt the peculiar charm of a season drawing to a close. If it be winter
+which is passing away, you hear the song of approaching spring; if it be
+summer which is vanishing, you see glimmering on the horizon the
+undefinable smile of autumn. The wind lulled and harmonized all those
+pleasant sounds which compose the murmur of the fields; the tinkling of
+the sheep-bells seemed to soothe the humming of the bees; the last
+butterflies met together with the first grapes; this hour of the year
+mingles the joy of being still alive with the unconscious melancholy of
+fast approaching death; the sweetness of the sun was indescribable.
+Fertile fields streaked with furrows, honest peasants' cottages; under
+the trees a turf covered with shade, the lowing of cattle as in Virgil,
+and the smoke of hamlets penetrated by rays of sunshine; such was the
+complete picture. The clanging of anvils rang in the distance, the
+rhythm of work amidst the harmony of nature. I listened, I mused
+vaguely. The valley was beautiful and quiet, the blue heavens seemed as
+though resting upon a lovely circle of hills; in the distance were the
+voices of birds, and close to me the voices of children, like two songs
+of angels mingled together; the universal purity enshrouded me: all this
+grace and all this grandeur shed a golden dawn into my soul....
+
+Suddenly a fellow-traveller asked,--
+
+"What place is this?"
+
+Another answered,--
+
+"Sedan."
+
+I shuddered.
+
+This paradise was a tomb.
+
+I looked around. The valley was circular and hollow, like the bottom of
+a crater; the winding river resembled a serpent; the high hills, ranged
+one behind the other, surrounded this mysterious spot like a triple line
+of inexorable walls; once there, there is no means of exit. It reminded
+me of the amphitheatres. An indescribable disquieting vegetation which
+seemed to be an extension of the Black Forest, overran all the heights,
+and lost itself in the horizon like a huge impenetrable snare; the sun
+shone, the birds sang, carters passed by whistling; sheep, lambs, and
+pigeons were scattered about, leaves quivered and rustled; the grass, a
+densely thick grass, was full of flowers. It was appalling.
+
+I seemed to see waving over this valley the flashing of the avenging
+angel's sword.
+
+This word "Sedan" had been like a veil abruptly torn aside. The
+landscape had become suddenly filled with tragedy. Those shapeless eyes
+which the bark of trees delineates on the trunks were gazing--at what?
+At something terrible and lost to view.
+
+In truth, that was the place! And at the moment when I was passing by
+thirteen months all but a few days had elapsed. That was the place where
+the monstrous enterprise of the 2d of December had burst asunder. A
+fearful shipwreck.
+
+The gloomy pathways of Fate cannot be studied without profound anguish
+of the heart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+On the 31st of August, 1870, an army was reassembled, and was, as it
+were, massed together under the walls of Sedan, in a place called the
+Givonne Valley. This army was a French army--twenty-nine brigades,
+fifteen divisions, four army corps--90,000 men. This army was in this
+place without any one being able to divine the reason; without order,
+without an object, scattered about--a species of heap of men thrown down
+there as though with the view of being seized by some huge hand.
+
+This army either did not entertain, or appeared not to entertain, for
+the moment any immediate uneasiness. They knew, or at least they thought
+they knew, that the enemy was a long way off. On calculating the stages
+at four leagues daily, it was three days' march distant. Nevertheless,
+towards evening the leaders took some wise strategic precautions; they
+protected the army, which rested in the rear on Sedan and the Meuse, by
+two battle fronts, one composed of the 7th Corps, and extending from
+Floing to Givonne, the other composed of the 12th Corps, extending from
+Givonne to Bazeilles; a triangle of which the Meuse formed the
+hypothenuse. The 12th Corps, formed of the three divisions of
+Lacretelle, Lartigue, and Wolf, ranged on the right, with the artillery,
+between the brigades formed a veritable barrier, having Bazeilles and
+Givonne at each end, and Daigny in its centre; the two divisions of
+Petit and Lhéritier massed in the rear upon two lines supported this
+barrier. General Lebrun commanded the 12th Corps. The 7th Corps,
+commanded by General Douay, only possessed two divisions--Dumont's
+division and Gilbert's division--and formed the other battle front,
+covering the army of Givonne to Floing on the side of Illy; this battle
+front was comparatively weak, too open on the side of Givonne, and only
+protected on the side of the Meuse by the two cavalry divisions of
+Margueritte and Bonnemains, and by Guyomar's brigade, resting in squares
+upon Floing. Within this triangle were encamped the 5th Corps, commanded
+by General Wimpfen, and the 1st Corps, commanded by General Ducrot.
+Michel's cavalry division covered the 1st Corps on the side of Daigny;
+the 5th supported itself upon Sedan. Four divisions, each disposed upon
+two lines--the divisions of Lhéritier, Grandchamp, Goze, and
+Conseil-Duménil--formed a sort of horseshoe, turned towards Sedan, and
+uniting the first battle front with the second. The cavalry division of
+Ameil and the brigade of Fontanges served as a reserve for these four
+divisions. The whole of the artillery was upon the two battle fronts.
+Two portions of the army were in confusion, one to the right of Sedan
+beyond Balan, the other to the left of Sedan, on this side of Iges.
+Beyond Balan were the divisions of Vassoigne and the brigade of Reboul,
+on this side of Iges were the two cavalry divisions of Margueritte and
+Bonnemains.
+
+These arrangements indicated a profound feeling of security. In the
+first place the Emperor Napoleon III. would not have come there if he
+had not been perfectly tranquil. This Givonne Valley is what Napoleon I.
+called a "washhand basin." There could not be a more complete enclosure.
+An army is so much at home there that it is too much so; it runs the
+risk of no longer being able to get out. This disquieted some brave and
+prudent leaders such as Wimpfen, but they were not listened to. If
+absolutely necessary, said the people of the Imperial circle, they could
+always be sure of being able to reach Mézières, and at the worst the
+Belgian frontier. Was it, however, needful to provide for such extreme
+eventualities? In certain cases foresight is almost an offence. They
+were all of one mind, therefore, to be at their ease.
+
+If they had been uneasy they would have cut the bridges of the Meuse;
+but they did not even think of it. To what purpose? The enemy was a long
+way off. The Emperor, who evidently was well informed, affirmed it.
+
+The army bivouacked somewhat in confusion, as we have said, and slept
+peaceably throughout this night of August 31, having, whatever might
+happen, or believing that they had, the retreat upon Mézières open
+behind it. They disdained to take the most ordinary precautions, they
+made no cavalry reconnaissances, they did not even place outposts. A
+German military writer has stated this.[37] Fourteen leagues at least
+separated them from the German army, three days' march; they did not
+exactly know where it was; they believed it scattered, possessing little
+unity, badly informed, led somewhat at random upon several points at
+once, incapable of a movement converging upon one single point, like
+Sedan; they believed that the Crown Prince of Saxony was marching on
+Chalons, and that the Crown Prince of Prussia was marching on Metz; they
+were ignorant of everything appertaining to this army, its leaders, its
+plan, its armament, its effective force. Was it still following the
+strategy of Gustavus Adolphus? Was it still following the tactics of
+Frederick II.? No one knew. They felt sure of being at Berlin in a few
+weeks. What nonsense! The Prussian army! They talked of this war as of a
+dream, and of this army as of a phantom.
+
+During this very night, while the French army was sleeping, this is what
+was taking place.
+
+
+[37] M. Harwik.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+At a quarter to two in the morning, at his headquarters at Mouzon,
+Albert, Crown Prince of Saxony, set the Army of the Meuse in motion; the
+Royal Guard were beat to arms, and two divisions marched, one upon
+Villers-Cernay, by Escambre and Fouru-aux-Bois, the other upon
+Francheval by Suchy and Fouru-Saint-Remy. The Artillery of the Guard
+followed.
+
+At the same moment the 12th Saxon Corps was beaten to arms, and by the
+high road to the south of Douzy reached Lamécourt, and marched upon La
+Moncelle; the 1st Bavarian Corps marched upon Bazeilles, supported at
+Reuilly-sur-Meuse by an Artillery Division of the 4th Corps. The other
+division of the 4th Corps crossed the Meuse at Mouzon, and massed itself
+in reserve at Mairy, upon the right bank. These three columns maintained
+close communication with each other. The order was given to the advanced
+guards to begin no offensive movement before five o'clock, and silently
+to occupy Fouru-aux-Bois, Fouru-Saint-Remy, and Douay. They had left
+their knapsacks behind them. The baggage-wagons did not stir. The Crown
+Prince of Saxony was on horseback on the heights of Amblimont.
+
+At the same time, at his headquarters at Chémery, Blumenthal was having
+a bridge built over the Meuse by the Wurtemburg division. The 11th
+Corps, astir before daylight, crossed the Meuse at Dom-le-Mesnil and at
+Donchery, and reached Vrigne-sur-Bois. The artillery followed, and held
+the road from Vrigne to Sedan. The Wurtemburg division kept the bridge
+which it had built, and held the road from Sedan to Mézières. At five
+o'clock, the 2d Bavarian Corps, with the artillery at its head, detached
+one of its divisions, and sent it by Bulson upon Frénois; the other
+division passed by Noyers, and drew up before Sedan, between Frénois and
+Wadelincourt. The artillery of the Reserve was drawn up on the heights
+of the left bank, opposite Donchery.
+
+At the same time the 6th Cavalry Division was sent from Mazeray, and
+passing by Boutancourt and Bolzicourt, reached the Meuse at Flize; the
+2d Cavalry Division quitted its encampment, and took up its position to
+the south of Boutancourt; the 4th Cavalry Division took up its position
+to the south of Frénois; the 1st Bavarian Corps installed itself at
+Remilly; the 5th Cavalry Division and the 6th Corps were posted to
+observe, and all in line, and order, massed upon the heights waited for
+the dawn to appear. The Crown Prince of Prussia was on horseback on the
+hill of Frénois.
+
+At the same moment, upon every point of the horizon, other and similar
+movements were taking place from every side. The high hills were
+suddenly overrun by an immense black army. Not one shout of command. Two
+hundred and fifty thousand men came silently to encircle the Givonne
+Valley.
+
+This is what the circle consisted of,--
+
+The Bavarians, the right wing, at Bazeilles on the Meuse; next to the
+Bavarians the Saxons, at La Moncelle and Daigny; opposite Givonne, the
+Royal Guard; the 5th Corps at Saint Menges; the 2d at Flaigneux; the
+Wurtemburgers at the bend of the Meuse, between Saint Menges and
+Donchery; Count Stolberg and his cavalry at Donchery; in front, towards
+Sedan, the 2d Bavarian Army.
+
+All this was carried out in a ghostly manner, in order, without a
+whisper, without a sound, through forests, ravines, and valleys. A
+tortuous and ill-omened march. A stealthy gliding onwards of reptiles.
+
+Scarcely could a murmur be heard beneath the thick foliage. The silent
+battle swarmed in the darkness awaiting the day.
+
+The French army was sleeping.
+
+Suddenly it awoke.
+
+It was a prisoner.
+
+The sun rose, brilliant on the side of God--terrible on the side of man.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+Let us review the situation.
+
+The Germans have numbers on their side; they are three against one,
+perhaps four; they own to 250,000 men, and it is certain that their
+attacking front extended for 30 kilomètres; they have on their side the
+positions, they crown the heights, they fill the forests, they are
+covered by all these escarpments, they are masked by all this shade;
+they possess an incomparable artillery. The French army is in a valley,
+almost without artillery and without supplies, utterly naked beneath
+their hail of lead. The Germans have on their side the ambuscade, and
+the French have only on their side heroism. Death is glorious, but
+surprise is profitable.
+
+A surprise, that is the true description of this brilliant exploit.
+
+Is it fair warfare? Yes. But if this is fair, what is unfair warfare? It
+is the same thing.
+
+This said, the story of the Battle of Sedan has been told.
+
+I should have wished to stop there. But I cannot. Whatever horror the
+historian may feel, History is a duty, and this duty must be fulfilled.
+There is no incline more inexorable than this: to tell the truth; he who
+ventures on it rolls to the very bottom. It must be so. The guardian of
+Justice is doomed to justice.
+
+The Battle of Sedan is more than a battle which has been fought; it is a
+syllogism which is completed; a formidable premeditation of destiny.
+Destiny never hurries, but it always comes. At its hour, there it is. It
+allows years to pass by, and at the moment when men are least thinking
+of it, it appears. Of this character is the fatal, the unexpected
+catastrophe named Sedan. From time to time in History, Divine logic
+makes an onslaught. Sedan is one of those onslaughts.
+
+Thus on the 1st of September, at five o'clock in the morning the world
+awoke under the sun, and the French army under the thunderbolt.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+Bazeilles takes fire, Givonne takes fire, Floing takes fire; the battle
+begins with a furnace. The whole horizon is aflame. The French camp is
+in this crater, stupefied, affrighted, starting up from sleeping,--a
+funereal swarming. A circle of thunder surrounds the army. They are
+encircled by annihilation. This mighty slaughter is carried on on all
+sides simultaneously. The French resist, and they are terrible, having
+nothing left but despair. Our cannon, almost all old-fashioned and of
+short range, are at once dismounted by the fearful and exact aim of the
+Prussians. The density of the rain of shells upon the valley is so
+great, that "the earth is completely furrowed," says an eye-witness, "as
+though by a rake." How many cannon? Eleven hundred at least. Twelve
+German batteries upon La Moncelle alone; the 3d and 4th _Abtheilung_, an
+awe-striking artillery, upon the crests of Givonne, with the 2d horse
+battery in reserve; opposite Doigny ten Saxon and two Wurtemburg
+batteries; the curtain of trees of the wood to the north of
+Villers-Cernay masks the mounted _Abtheilung_, which is there with the
+3d Heavy Artillery in reserve, and from this gloomy copse issues a
+formidable fire; the twenty-four pieces of the 1st Heavy Artillery are
+ranged in the glade skirting the road from La Moncelle to La Chapelle;
+the battery of the Royal Guard sets fire to the Garenne Wood; the shells
+and the balls riddle Suchy, Francheval, Fouru-Saint-Remy, and the valley
+between Heibes and Givonne; and the third and fourth rank of cannon
+extend without break of continuity as far as the Calvary of Illy, the
+extreme point of the horizon. The German soldiers, seated or lying
+before the batteries, watch the artillery at work. The French soldiers
+fall and die. Amongst the bodies which cover the plain there is one, the
+body of an officers on which they will find, after the battle, a sealed
+note, containing this order, signed NAPOLEON: "To-day, September 1st,
+rest for the whole army."
+
+The gallant 35th of the Line almost completely disappears under the
+overwhelming shower of shells; the brave Marine Infantry holds at bay
+for a moment the Saxons, joined by the Bavarians, but outflanked on
+every side, draws back; all the admirable cavalry of the Targueritte
+Division hurled against the German infantry, halts and sinks down
+midway, "annihilated," says the Prussian Report, "by well-aimed and cool
+firing."[38] This field of carnage has three outlets; all three barred:
+the Bouillon road by the Prussian Guard, the Carignan road by the
+Bavarians, the Mézières road by the Wurtemburgers. The French have not
+thought of barricading the railway viaduct; three German battalions have
+occupied it during the night. Two isolated houses on the Balan road
+could be made the pivot of a long resistance; but the Germans are there.
+The wood from Monvilliers to Bazeilles, bushy and dense, might prevent
+the junction of the Saxons, masters of La Moncelle, and the Bavarians,
+masters of Bazeilles; but the French have been forestalled: they find
+the Bavarians cutting the underwood with their bill-hooks. The German
+army moves in one piece, in one absolute unity; the Crown Prince of
+Saxony is on the height of Mairy, whence he surveys the whole action;
+the command oscillates in the French army; at the beginning of the
+battle, at a quarter to six, MacMahon is wounded by the bursting of a
+shell; at seven o'clock Ducrot replaces him; at ten o'clock Wimpfen
+replaces Ducrot. Every instant the wall of fire is drawing closer in,
+the roll of the thunder is continuous, a dismal pulverization of 90,000
+men! Never before has anything equal to this been seen; never before has
+an army been overwhelmed beneath such a downpour of lead and iron! At
+one o'clock all is lost. The regiments fly helter-skelter into Sedan.
+But Sedan begins to burn; Dijonval burns, the ambulances burn, there is
+nothing now possible but to cut their way out. Wimpfen, brave and
+resolute, proposes this to the Emperor. The 3d Zouaves, desperate, have
+set the example. Cut off from the rest of the army, they have forced a
+passage, and have reached Belgium. A flight of lions!
+
+Suddenly, above the disaster, above the huge pile of dead and dying,
+above all this unfortunate heroism, appears disgrace. The white flag is
+hoisted.
+
+Turenne and Vauban were both present, one in his statue, the other in
+his citadel.
+
+The statue and the citadel witnessed the awe-striking capitulation.
+These two virgins, one of bronze, the other of granite, felt themselves
+prostituted. O noble face of our country! Oh, eternal blushes!
+
+
+[38] The Franco-German War of 1870-71. Report of the Prussian Staff,
+page 1087.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+This disaster of Sedan was easy of avoidance by any other man, but
+impossible of avoidance for Louis Bonaparte. He avoided it so little
+that he sought it. _Lex fati_.
+
+Our army seemed expressly arranged for the catastrophe. The soldier was
+uneasy, ignorant of his whereabouts, famished. On the 31st of August, in
+the streets of Sedan, soldiers were seeking their regiments, and going
+from door to door asking for bread. We have seen the Emperor's order
+announcing the next day, September 1st, as a day of rest. In truth the
+army was worn out with fatigue. And yet it had only marched by short
+stages. The soldier was almost losing the habit of marching. One corps,
+the 1st, for example, only accomplished two leagues per day (on the 29th
+of August from Stonne to Raucourt).
+
+During that time the German army, inexorably commanded and driven at the
+stick's end like the army of the Xerxes, achieved marches of fourteen
+leagues in fifteen hours, which enabled it to arrive unexpectedly, and
+to surround the French army while asleep. It was customary to allow
+oneself to be surprised. General Failly allowed himself to be surprised
+at Beaumont; during the day the soldiers took their guns to pieces to
+clean them, at night they slept, without even cutting the bridges which
+delivered them to the enemy; thus they neglected to blow up the bridges
+of Mouzon and Bazeilles. On September 1st, daylight had not yet
+appeared, when an advance guard of seven battalions, commanded by
+General Schultz, captured La Rulle, and insured the junction of the army
+of the Meuse with the Royal Guard. Almost at the same minute, with
+German precision, the Wurtemburgers seized the bridge of La Platinerie,
+and hidden by the Chevalier Wood, the Saxon battalions, spread out into
+company columns, occupied the whole of the road from La Moncelle to
+Villers-Cernay.
+
+Thus, as we have seen, the awakening of the French Army was horrible. At
+Bazeilles a fog was added to the smoke. Our soldiers, attacked in this
+gloom, knew not what death required of them; they fought from room to
+room and from house to house.[39]
+
+It was in vain that the Reboul brigade came to support the Martin des
+Pallières brigade; they were obliged to yield. At the same time Ducrot
+was compelled to concentrate his forces in the Garenne Wood, before the
+Calvary of Illy; Douay, shattered, fell back; Lebrun alone stood firm on
+the plateau of Stenay. Our troops occupied a line of five kilomètres;
+the front of the French army faced the east, the left faced the north,
+the extreme left (the Guyomar brigade) faced the west; but they did not
+know whether they faced the enemy, they did not see him; annihilation
+struck without showing itself; they had to deal with a masked Medusa.
+Our cavalry was excellent, but useless. The field of battle, obstructed
+by a large wood, cut up by clumps of trees, by houses and by farms and
+by enclosure walls, was excellent for artillery and infantry, but bad
+for cavalry. The rivulet of Givonne, which flows at the bottom of the
+valley and crosses it, for three days ran with more blood than water.
+Among other places of carnage, Saint-Menges was appalling. For a moment
+it appeared possible to cut a way out by Carignan towards Montmédy, and
+then this outlet reclosed. This refuge only remained, Sedan; Sedan
+encumbered with carts, with wagons, with carriages, with hospital huts;
+a heap of combustible matter. This dying agony of heroes lasted ten
+hours. They refused to surrender, they grew indignant, they wished to
+complete their death, so bravely begun. They were delivered up to it.
+
+As we have said, three men, three dauntless soldiers, had succeeded each
+other in the command, MacMahon, Ducrot, Wimpfen; MacMahon had only time
+to be wounded, Ducrot had only time to commit a blunder, Wimpfen had
+only time to conceive an heroic idea, and he conceived it; but MacMahon
+is not responsible for his wound, Ducrot is not responsible for his
+blunder, and Wimpfen is not responsible for the impossibility of his
+suggestion to cut their way out. The shell which struck MacMahon
+withdrew him from the catastrophe; Ducrot's blunder, the inopportune
+order to retreat given to General Lebrun, is explained by the confused
+horror of the situation, and is rather an error than a fault. Wimpfen,
+desperate, needed 20,000 soldiers to cut his way out, and could only get
+together 2000. History exculpates these three men; in this disaster of
+Sedan there was but one sole and fatal general, the Emperor. That which
+was knitted together on the 2d December, 1851, came apart on the 2d
+September, 1870; the carnage on the Boulevard Montmartre, and the
+capitulation of Sedan are, we maintain, the two parts of a syllogism;
+logic and justice have the same balance; it was Louis Bonaparte's dismal
+destiny to begin with the black flag of massacres and to end with the
+white flag of disgrace.
+
+
+[39] "The French were literally awakened from sleep by our attack."
+--Helvic.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+There was no alternative between death and opprobrium; either soul or
+sword must be surrendered. Louis Bonaparte surrendered his sword.
+
+He wrote to William:
+
+  "SIRE, MY BROTHER,
+
+  "Not having been able to die in the midst of my troops, it only
+  remains for me to place my sword in your Majesty's hands.
+
+  "I am, your Majesty,
+
+  "Your good Brother,
+
+  "NAPOLEON.
+
+  "Sedan, 1st September, 1870."
+
+William answered, "Sire, my Brother, I accept your sword."
+
+And on the 2d of September, at six o'clock in the morning, this plain,
+streaming with blood, and covered with dead, saw pass by a gilded open
+carriage and four, the horses harnessed after Daumont fashion, and in
+this carriage a man, cigarette in mouth. It was the Emperor of the
+French going to surrender his sword to the King of Prussia.
+
+The King kept the Emperor waiting. It was too early. He sent M. de
+Bismarck to Louis Bonaparte to say that he "would not" receive him yet
+awhile. Louis Bonaparte entered into a hovel by the side of the road. A
+table and two chairs were there. Bismarck and he leant their arms on the
+table and conversed. A mournful conversation. At the hour which suited
+the King, towards noon, the Emperor got back into his carriage, and went
+to the castle of Bellevue, half way to the castle of Vandresse. There he
+waited until the King came. At one o'clock William arrived from
+Vandresse, and consented to receive Bonaparte. He received him badly.
+Attila has not a light hand. The King, a blunt, straightforward man,
+showed the Emperor a pity involuntarily cruel. There are pities which
+overwhelm. The conqueror upbraided the conquered with the victory.
+Bluntness handles an open wound badly. "Whatever was your reason for
+declaring this war?" The conquered excused himself, accusing France. The
+distant hurrahs of the victorious German army cut short this dialogue.
+
+The King caused the Emperor to be reconducted by a detachment of the
+Royal Guard. This excess of ignominy is called "an escort of honor."
+
+After the sword the Army.
+
+On the 3d of September, Louis Bonaparte handed over to Germany 88,000
+French soldiers.
+
+"In addition" (says the Prussian report):--
+
+"One eagle and two flags.
+
+"419 field-guns and mitrailleuses.
+
+"139 heavy pieces.
+
+"1079 vehicles of all kinds.
+
+"60,000 muskets.
+
+"6000 horses, still good for service."
+
+These German figures are not wholly to be depended upon. According to
+what seems useful at the moment, the Aulic chancellors swell or reduce
+the disaster. There were about 13,000 wounded amongst the prisoners. The
+numbers vary in the official documents. A Prussian report, reckoning up
+the French soldiers killed and wounded in the battle of Sedan, publishes
+this total: _Sixteen thousand four hundred_ men. This number causes a
+shudder. For it is that very number, _Sixteen thousand four hundred_
+men, which Saint Arnaud had set to work on the Boulevard Montmartre upon
+the 4th of December, 1851.
+
+Half a league to the north-west of Sedan, near Iges, the bend of the
+Meuse almost forms an island. A canal crosses the isthmus, so that the
+peninsula becomes an island. It was there that there were penned, under
+the stick of the Prussian corporals, 83,000 French soldiers. A few
+sentinels watched over this army.
+
+They placed but few, insolently. These conquered men remained there ten
+days, the wounded almost without care, the able-bodied almost without
+nourishment. The German army sneered around them. The heavens took part
+against them. The weather was fearful. Neither huts nor tents. Not a
+fire, not a truss of straw. For ten days and ten nights these 83,000
+prisoners bivouacked with their heads beneath the rain, their feet in
+the mud. Many died of fever, regretting the hail of bullets.
+
+At length ox-wagons came and took them away.
+
+The King placed the Emperor in some place or other. Wilhelmshöhe.
+
+What a thing of rags and tatters, an Emperor "drawn" like a fowl!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+I was there, thoughtful. I looked on these fields, these ravines, these
+hills, shuddering. I would willingly have insulted this terrible place.
+
+But sacred horror held me back.
+
+The station-master of Sedan came to my carriage, and explained to me
+what I had before my eyes. I seemed to see, through his words, the pale
+lightnings of the battle. All these distant cottages, scattered about
+and charming in the sun, had been burnt; they were rebuilt; Nature, so
+quickly diverted, had repaired everything, had cleaned everything, had
+swept everything, had replaced everything. The ferocious convulsion of
+men had vanished, eternal order had resumed its sway. But, as I have
+said, the sun was there in vain, all this valley was smoke and darkness.
+In the distance, upon an eminence to my left, I saw a huge castle; it
+was Vandresse. There lodged the King of Prussia. Halfway up this height,
+along the road, I distinguished above the trees three pointed gables; it
+was another castle, Bellevue; there Louis Bonaparte surrendered to
+William; there he had given and delivered up our army; it was there
+that, not being immediately admitted, and requested to exercise a little
+patience, he had remained for nearly an hour silent and wan before the
+door, bringing his disgrace, and waiting until it should please William
+to open the door to him; it was there that before receiving it the King
+of Prussia had made the sword of France dangle about in an ante-chamber.
+Lower down, nearer, in the valley, at the beginning of a road leading to
+Vandresse, they pointed out to me a species of hovel. There they told
+me, while waiting for the King of Prussia, the Emperor Napoleon III. had
+got down, livid; he had gone into a little courtyard, which they pointed
+out to me, and where a dog growled on the chain; he had seated himself
+on a stone close by a dunghill, and he had said, "I am thirsty." A
+Prussian soldier had brought him a glass of water.
+
+Terrible end of the _coup d'état_! Blood when it is drunk does not
+quench the thirst. An hour was to come when the unhappy one should utter
+the cry of fever and of agony. Disgrace reserved for him this thirst,
+and Prussia this glass of water.
+
+Fearful dregs of Destiny.
+
+Beyond the road, at a few steps from me, five trembling and pale poplars
+sheltered the front of the house, the single story of which was
+surmounted by a sign. On this sign was written in great letters this
+name: DROUET. I became haggard. _Drouet_ I read _Varennes_. Tragical
+Chance, which mingled Varennes with Sedan, seemed to wish to bring the
+two catastrophes face to face, and to couple in a manner with the same
+chain the Emperor a prisoner of the foreigner, to the King a prisoner of
+his people.
+
+The mist of reverie veiled this plain from me. The Meuse appeared to me
+to wear a ruddy reflection, the neighboring isle, whose verdure I had
+admired, had for its subsoil a tomb: Fifteen hundred horses, and as many
+men, were buried there: thence the thick grass. Here and there, as far
+as could be seen, mounds, covered with ill-favored vegetation, dotted
+the valley; each of these patches of vegetation marked the place of a
+buried regiment. There Guyomar's Brigade had been annihilated; there,
+the Lhéritier Division had been exterminated; here the 7th Corps had
+perished; there, without having even reached the enemy's infantry, had
+fallen "beneath the cool and well-aimed firing," as the Prussian report
+states, the whole of General Margueritte's cavalry. From these two
+heights, the most elevated of this circle of hills, Daigny, opposite
+Givonne, which is 266 mètres high, Fleigneux, opposite Illy, 296 mètres
+high, the batteries of the Prussian Royal Guard had crushed the French
+Army. It was done from above, with the terrible authority of Destiny. It
+seemed as though they had come there purposely, these to kill, the
+others to die. A valley for a mortar, the German Army for a pestle, such
+is the battle of Sedan. I gazed, powerless to avert my eyes, at this
+field of disaster, at this undulating country which had proved no
+protection to our regiments, at this ravine where all our cavalry were
+demolished, at all this amphitheatre where the catastrophe was spread
+out, at the gloomy escarpments of La Marphée, at these thickets, at
+these declivities, at these precipices, at these forests filled with
+ambushes, and in this terrible shadow, O Thou the Invisible! I saw Thee.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+Never was there a more dismal fall.
+
+No expiation can be compared with this. The unprecedented drama was in
+five acts, so fierce that Aeschylus himself would not have dared to
+dream of them. "The Ambush!" "The Struggle!" "The Massacre!" "The
+Victory!" "The Fall!" What a tangle and what an unwinding! A poet who
+would have predicted it would have seemed a traitor. God alone could
+permit Himself Sedan.
+
+Everything in proportion, such is His law. Far worse than Brumaire, it
+needed a more crushing retribution than Waterloo.
+
+The first Napoleon, as we have said elsewhere,[40] had faced his
+destiny; he had not been dishonored by his punishment, he fell while
+steadfastly regarding God. He came back to Paris, appraising the deserts
+of those men who overthrew him, proudly distinguishing amongst them,
+esteeming Lafayette and despising Dupin. He had at the last moment
+wished to see clearly into his destiny, he had not allowed his eyes to
+be bandaged; he had accepted the catastrophe while making his conditions
+with it. Here there is nothing of the kind. One might almost say that
+the traitor is struck treacherously. In this case there is a bad man who
+feels himself in the grasp of Destiny, and who does not know what it is
+doing to him. He was at the summit of his power, the blind master of an
+idiot world. He had wished for a _plebiscitum_, he had had one. He had
+at his feet this very William. It was at this moment that his crime
+suddenly seized him. He did not struggle against it; he was the
+condemned man who obeys his sentence. He submitted to everything which
+terrible Fate exacted from him. Never was there a more docile patient.
+He had no army, he made war; he had only Rouher, he provoked Bismarck;
+he had only Leboeuf, he attacked Moltke. He confided Strasburg to
+Uhrich; he gave Metz to Bazaine to guard. He had 120,000 men at Châlons;
+he had it in his power to cover Paris. He felt that his crime rose up
+there, threatening and erect; he fled, not daring to face Paris. He
+himself led--purposely, and yet despite himself; willing and yet
+unwilling, knowingly and yet unknowingly, a miserable mind, a prey to
+the abyss--he led his army into a place of annihilation; he made that
+terrible choice, a battle-field without an outlet; he was no longer
+conscious of anything, no more of his blunder of to-day than of his
+crime of former days; he must finish, but he could only finish as a
+fugitive; this condemned one was not worthy to look his end in the face;
+he lowered his head, he turned his back. God executed him in degrading
+him. Napoleon III. as an Emperor had a right to thunder, but for this
+man the thunder was ignominious--he was thunderstruck in the back.
+
+
+[40] "L'Année Terrible."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+
+Let us forget this man, and let us look at Humanity.
+
+The invasion of France by Germany, in 1870, was a night effect. The
+world was astonished that so much gloom could come forth from a people.
+Five black months--such was the siege of Paris. To create night may
+prove Power, but Glory consists in the creation of daylight. France
+creates daylight. Thence her immense human popularity. To her
+Civilization owes the dawn. The human mind in order to see clearly turns
+in the direction of France. Five months of darkness, that is what, in
+1870, Germany succeeded in giving to the Nations; France has given to
+them four centuries of light.
+
+To-day the civilized world more than ever feels the need which it has of
+France. France has proved this by her danger. The ungrateful apathy of
+Governments only increased the anxiety of nations. At the sight of Paris
+threatened, there arose among the peoples dread that their own heads
+were in danger. Would they allow Germany to go on? But France saved
+herself quite alone. She had only to rise. _Patuit dea_.
+
+To-day she is greater than ever. What would have killed another nation
+has hardly wounded her. The darkening of her horizon has rendered her
+light more visible. What she has lost in territory she has gained in
+radiancy. Moreover, she is fraternal without an effort. Above her
+misfortune there is her smile. It is not on her that the Gothic Empire
+weighs. She is a nation of citizens and not a flock of subjects.
+Frontiers? Will there be any frontiers in twenty years? Victories?
+France counts in her past victories of war, and in her future victories
+of peace. The future belongs to Voltaire, and not to Krupp; the future
+belongs to the book, and not to the sword. The future belongs to life,
+and not to death. There is in the policy opposed to France a certain
+amount of the tomb; to seek life in the old institutions is a vain task,
+and to feed upon the past is to bite the dust. France has the faculty of
+giving light; no catastrophe, political or military, will deprive her of
+this mysterious supremacy. The cloud passes away, the star is seen once
+more.
+
+The star possesses no anger; the dawn bears no malice. Light is
+satisfied in being light. Light is everything; the human race has no
+other love. France knows herself beloved because she is good, and the
+greatest of all powers is to be loved. The French revolution is for all
+the world. It is a battle perpetually waged for Right, and perpetually
+gained for Truth. Right is the innermost part of man; Truth is the
+innermost part of God. What can be done against a revolution which has
+so much right on its side? Nothing. To love it. That is what the nations
+do. France offers herself, the world accepts her. The whole phenomenon
+lies in these few words. An invasion of armies can be resisted; an
+invasion of ideas cannot be resisted. The glory of barbarians is to be
+conquered by humanity; the glory of savages is to be conquered by
+civilization; the glory of darkness is to be conquered by the torch.
+This is why France is desired and assented to by all. This is why,
+having no hatred, she has no fear; this is why she is fraternal and
+maternal; this is why it is impossible to lessen her, impossible to
+humiliate her, impossible to irritate her; this is why, after so many
+ordeals, after so many catastrophes, after so many disasters, after so
+many calamities, after so many falls, incorruptible and invulnerable she
+holds out her hand to all the peoples from above.
+
+When our glance rests on this old continent, stirred to-day by a new
+breath, certain phenomena appear, and we seem to gain a glimpse of that
+august and mysterious problem, the formation of the future. It may be
+said, that in the same manner as light is compounded of seven colors,
+civilization is compounded of seven peoples. Of these peoples, three,
+Greece, Italy, and Spain, represent the South; three, England, Germany,
+and Russia, represent the north; the seventh, or the first, France, is
+at the same time North and South, Celtic and Latin, Gothic and Greek.
+This country owes to its heaven this sublime good fortune, the crossing
+of two rays of light; the crossing of two rays of light is as though we
+were to say the joining of two hands, that is to say Peace. Such is the
+privilege of this France, she is at the same time solar and starry. In
+her heaven she possesses as much dawn as the East, and as many stars as
+the North. Sometimes her glimmer rises in the twilight, but it is in the
+black night of revolutions and of wars that her resplendence blazes
+forth, and her aurorean dawn becomes the Aurora Borealis.
+
+One day, before long, the seven nations, which combine in themselves the
+whole of humanity, will join together and amalgamate like the seven
+colors of the prism, in a radiant celestial arch; the marvel of Peace
+will appear eternal and visible above civilization, and the world,
+dazzled, will contemplate the immense rainbow of the United Peoples of
+Europe.
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The History of a Crime, by Victor Hugo
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+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en">
+  <head>
+    <title>The History of a Crime, by Victor Hugo</title>
+    <meta content="pg2html (binary v0.17)" />
+    <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+    body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify}
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+    H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
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+    .mynote    {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+    .toc       { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+    .toc2      { margin-left: 20%;}
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+    .x-small {font-size: 75%;}
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+  </head>
+  <body>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The History of a Crime, by Victor Hugo
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The History of a Crime
+       The Testimony of an Eye-Witness
+
+Author: Victor Hugo
+
+Release Date: August 7, 2018 [EBook #10381]
+
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HISTORY OF A CRIME ***
+
+
+
+
+Etext produced by Stan Goodman, Beth Trapaga and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+HTML file produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+</pre>
+    <div style="height: 8em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h1>
+      THE HISTORY OF A CRIME
+    </h1>
+    <h3>
+      THE TESTIMONY OF AN EYE-WITNESS
+    </h3>
+    <h2>
+      By Victor Hugo
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      Translated by T.H. JOYCE and ARTHUR LOCKER.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <b>CONTENTS</b>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> <b>THE FIRST DAY&mdash;THE AMBUSH.</b> </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I. "SECURITY" </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II. PARIS SLEEPS&mdash;THE BELL RINGS
+      </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III. WHAT HAD HAPPENED DURING THE NIGHT
+      </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV. OTHER DOINGS OF THE NIGHT </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V. THE DARKNESS OF THE CRIME </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI. "PLACARDS" </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII. NO. 70, RUE BLANCHE </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER VIII. "VIOLATION OF THE CHAMBER" </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER IX. AN END WORSE THAN DEATH </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER X. THE BLACK DOOR </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER XI. THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER XII. THE MAIRIE OF THE TENTH
+      ARRONDISSEMENT </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER XIII. LOUIS BONAPARTE'S SIDE-FACE </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER XIV. THE D'ORSAY BARRACKS </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0015"> CHAPTER XV. MAZAS </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0016"> CHAPTER XVI. THE EPISODE OF THE BOULEVARD ST.
+      MARTIN </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0017"> CHAPTER XVII. THE REBOUND OF THE 24TH JUNE, 1848,
+      ON THE 2D DECEMBER, 1851 </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0018"> CHAPTER XVIII. THE REPRESENTATIVES HUNTED DOWN
+      </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0019"> CHAPTER XIX. ONE FOOT IN THE TOMB </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0020"> CHAPTER XX. THE BURIAL OF A GREAT ANNIVERSARY
+      </a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0022"> <b>THE SECOND DAY&mdash;THE STRUGGLE.</b> </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0021"> CHAPTER I. THEY COME TO ARREST ME </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0022"> CHAPTER II. FROM THE BASTILLE TO THE RUE DE COTTE
+      </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0023"> CHAPTER III. THE ST. ANTOINE BARRICADE </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0024"> CHAPTER IV. THE WORKMEN'S SOCIETIES ASK US FOR
+      THE ORDER TO FIGHT </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0025"> CHAPTER V. BAUDINS'S CORPSE </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0026"> CHAPTER VI. THE DECREES OF THE REPRESENTATIVES
+      WHO REMAINED FREE </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0027"> CHAPTER VII. THE ARCHBISHOP </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0028"> CHAPTER VIII. MOUNT VALERIEN </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0029"> CHAPTER IX. THE LIGHTNING BEGINS TO FLASH AMONGST
+      THE PEOPLE </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0030"> CHAPTER X. WHAT FLEURY WENT TO DO AT MAZAS </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0031"> CHAPTER XI. THE END OF THE SECOND DAY </a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0034"> <b>THE THIRD DAY&mdash;THE MASSACRE.</b> </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0032"> CHAPTER I. THOSE WHO SLEEP AND HE WHO DOES NOT
+      SLEEP </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0033"> CHAPTER II. THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE COMMITTEE </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0034"> CHAPTER III. INSIDE THE ELYSEE </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0035"> CHAPTER IV. BONAPARTE'S FAMILIAR SPIRITS </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0036"> CHAPTER V. A WAVERING ALLY </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0037"> CHAPTER VI. DENIS DUSSOUBS </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0038"> CHAPTER VII. ITEMS AND INTERVIEWS </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0039"> CHAPTER VIII. THE SITUATION </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0040"> CHAPTER IX. THE PORTE SAINT MARTIN </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0041"> CHAPTER X. MY VISIT TO THE BARRICADE </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0042"> CHAPTER XI. THE BARRICADE OF THE RUE MESLAY </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0043"> CHAPTER XII. THE BARRICADE OF THE MAIRIE OF THE
+      FIFTH ARRONDISSEMENT </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0044"> CHAPTER VIII. THE BARRICADE OF THE RUE THEVENOT
+      </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0045"> CHAPTER XIV. OSSIAN AND SCIPIO </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0046"> CHAPTER XV. THE QUESTION PRESENTS ITSELF </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0047"> CHAPTER XVI. THE MASSACRE </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0048"> CHAPTER XVII. THE APPOINTMENT MADE WITH THE
+      WORKMEN'S SOCIETIES </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0049"> CHAPTER XVIII. THE VERIFICATION OF MORAL LAWS
+      </a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0053"> <b>THE FOURTH DAY&mdash;THE VICTORY.</b> </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0050"> CHAPTER I. WHAT HAPPENED DURING THE NIGHT&mdash;THE
+      RUE TIQUETONNE </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0051"> CHAPTER II. WHAT HAPPENED DURING THE NIGHT&mdash;THE
+      MARKET QUARTER </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0052"> CHAPTER III. WHAT HAPPENED DURING THE NIGHT.&mdash;THE
+      PETIT CARREAU </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0053"> CHAPTER IV. WHAT WAS DONE DURING THE NIGHT&mdash;THE
+      PASSAGE DU SAUMON </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0054"> CHAPTER V. OTHER DEEDS OF DARKNESS </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0055"> CHAPTER VI. THE CONSULTATIVE COMMITTEE </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0056"> CHAPTER VII. THE OTHER LIST </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0057"> CHAPTER VIII. DAVID D'ANGERS </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0058"> CHAPTER IX. OUR LAST MEETING </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0059"> CHAPTER X. DUTY CAN HAVE TWO ASPECTS </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0060"> CHAPTER XI. THE COMBAT FINISHED, THE ORDEAL
+      BEGINS </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0061"> CHAPTER XII. THE EXILED </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0062"> CHAPTER XIII. THE MILITARY COMMISSIONS AND THE
+      MIXED COMMISSIONS </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0063"> CHAPTER XIV. A RELIGIOUS INCIDENT </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0064"> CHAPTER XV. HOW THEY CAME OUT OF HAM </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0065"> CHAPTER XVI. A RETROSPECT </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0066"> CHAPTER XVII. CONDUCT OF THE LEFT </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0067"> CHAPTER XVIII. PAGE WRITTEN AT BRUSSELS </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0068"> CHAPTER XIX. THE INFALLIBLE BENEDICTION </a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_CONC"> <b>CONCLUSION&mdash;THE FALL.</b> </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0069"> CHAPTER I. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0070"> CHAPTER II. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0071"> CHAPTER III. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0072"> CHAPTER IV. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0073"> CHAPTER V. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0074"> CHAPTER VI. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0075"> CHAPTER VII. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0076"> CHAPTER VIII. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0077"> CHAPTER IX. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0078"> CHAPTER X. <br /><br /></a>
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      THE FIRST DAY&mdash;THE AMBUSH.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER I. "SECURITY"
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      On December 1, 1851, Charras<a href="#linknoteref-1" name="linknote-1"
+      id="linknote-1"><small>1</small></a> shrugged his shoulder and unloaded
+      his pistols. In truth, the belief in the possibility of a <i>coup d'état</i>
+      had become humiliating. The supposition of such illegal violence on the
+      part of M. Louis Bonaparte vanished upon serious consideration. The great
+      question of the day was manifestly the Devincq election; it was clear that
+      the Government was only thinking of that matter. As to a conspiracy
+      against the Republic and against the People, how could any one premeditate
+      such a plot? Where was the man capable of entertaining such a dream? For a
+      tragedy there must be an actor, and here assuredly the actor was wanting.
+      To outrage Right, to suppress the Assembly, to abolish the Constitution,
+      to strangle the Republic, to overthrow the Nation, to sully the Flag, to
+      dishonor the Army, to suborn the Clergy and the Magistracy, to succeed, to
+      triumph, to govern, to administer, to exile, to banish, to transport, to
+      ruin, to assassinate, to reign, with such complicities that the law at
+      last resembles a foul bed of corruption. What! All these enormities were
+      to be committed! And by whom? By a Colossus? No, by a dwarf. People
+      laughed at the notion. They no longer said "What a crime!" but "What a
+      farce!" For after all they reflected; heinous crimes require stature.
+      Certain crimes are too lofty for certain hands. A man who would achieve an
+      18th Brumaire must have Arcola in his past and Austerlitz in his future.
+      The art of becoming a great scoundrel is not accorded to the first comer.
+      People said to themselves, Who is this son of Hortense? He has Strasbourg
+      behind him instead of Arcola, and Boulogne in place of Austerlitz. He is a
+      Frenchman, born a Dutchman, and naturalized a Swiss; he is a Bonaparte
+      crossed with a Verhuell; he is only celebrated for the ludicrousness of
+      his imperial attitude, and he who would pluck a feather from his eagle
+      would risk finding a goose's quill in his hand. This Bonaparte does not
+      pass currency in the array, he is a counterfeit image less of gold than of
+      lead, and assuredly French soldiers will not give us the change for this
+      false Napoleon in rebellion, in atrocities, in massacres, in outrages, in
+      treason. If he should attempt roguery it would miscarry. Not a regiment
+      would stir. Besides, why should he make such an attempt? Doubtless he has
+      his suspicious side, but why suppose him an absolute villain? Such extreme
+      outrages are beyond him; he is incapable of them physically, why judge him
+      capable of them morally? Has he not pledged honor? Has he not said, "No
+      one in Europe doubts my word?" Let us fear nothing. To this could be
+      answered, Crimes are committed either on a grand or on a mean scale. In
+      the first category there is Caesar; in the second there is Mandrin. Caesar
+      passes the Rubicon, Mandrin bestrides the gutter. But wise men interposed,
+      "Are we not prejudiced by offensive conjectures? This man has been exiled
+      and unfortunate. Exile enlightens, misfortune corrects."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For his part Louis Bonaparte protested energetically. Facts abounded in
+      his favor. Why should he not act in good faith? He had made remarkable
+      promises. Towards the end of October, 1848, then a candidate for the
+      Presidency, he was calling at No. 37, Rue de la Tour d'Auvergne, on a
+      certain personage, to whom he remarked, "I wish to have an explanation
+      with you. They slander me. Do I give you the impression of a madman? They
+      think that I wish to revivify Napoleon. There are two men whom a great
+      ambition can take for its models, Napoleon and Washington. The one is a
+      man of Genius, the other is a man of Virtue. It is ridiculous to say, 'I
+      will be a man of Genius;' it is honest to say, 'I will be a man of
+      Virtue.' Which of these depends upon ourselves? Which can we accomplish by
+      our will? To be Genius? No. To be Probity? Yes. The attainment of Genius
+      is not possible; the attainment of Probity is a possibility. And what
+      could I revive of Napoleon? One sole thing&mdash;a crime. Truly a worthy
+      ambition! Why should I be considered man? The Republic being established,
+      I am not a great man, I shall not copy Napoleon; but I am an honest man. I
+      shall imitate Washington. My name, the name of Bonaparte, will be
+      inscribed on two pages of the history of France: on the first there will
+      be crime and glory, on the second probity and honor. And the second will
+      perhaps be worth the first. Why? Because if Napoleon is the greater,
+      Washington is the better man. Between the guilty hero and the good citizen
+      I choose the good citizen. Such is my ambition."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From 1848 to 1851 three years elapsed. People had long suspected Louis
+      Bonaparte; but long-continued suspicion blunts the intellect and wears
+      itself out by fruitless alarms. Louis Bonaparte had had dissimulating
+      ministers such as Magne and Rouher; but he had also had straightforward
+      ministers such as Léon Faucher and Odilon Barrot; and these last had
+      affirmed that he was upright and sincere. He had been seen to beat his
+      breast before the doors of Ham; his foster sister, Madame Hortense Cornu,
+      wrote to Mieroslawsky, "I am a good Republican, and I can answer for him."
+      His friend of Ham, Peauger, a loyal man, declared, "Louis Bonaparte is
+      incapable of treason." Had not Louis Bonaparte written the work entitled
+      "Pauperism"? In the intimate circles of the Elysée Count Potocki was a
+      Republican and Count d'Orsay was a Liberal; Louis Bonaparte said to
+      Potocki, "I am a man of the Democracy," and to D'Orsay, "I am a man of
+      Liberty." The Marquis du Hallays opposed the <i>coup d'état</i>, while the
+      Marquise du Hallays was in its favor. Louis Bonaparte said to the Marquis,
+      "Fear nothing" (it is true that he whispered to the Marquise, "Make your
+      mind easy"). The Assembly, after having shown here and there some symptoms
+      of uneasiness, had grown calm. There was General Neumayer, "who was to be
+      depended upon," and who from his position at Lyons would at need march
+      upon Paris. Changarnier exclaimed, "Representatives of the people,
+      deliberate in peace." Even Louis Bonaparte himself had pronounced these
+      famous words, "I should see an enemy of my country in any one who would
+      change by force that which has been established by law," and, moreover,
+      the Army was "force," and the Army possessed leaders, leaders who were
+      beloved and victorious. Lamoricière, Changarnier, Cavaignac, Leflô,
+      Bedeau, Charras; how could any one imagine the Army of Africa arresting
+      the Generals of Africa? On Friday, November 28, 1851, Louis Bonaparte said
+      to Michel de Bourges, "If I wanted to do wrong, I could not. Yesterday,
+      Thursday, I invited to my table five Colonels of the garrison of Paris,
+      and the whim seized me to question each one by himself. All five declared
+      to me that the Army would never lend itself to a <i>coup de force</i>, nor
+      attack the inviolability of the Assembly. You can tell your friends this."&mdash;"He
+      smiled," said Michel de Bourges, reassured, "and I also smiled." After
+      this, Michel de Bourges declared in the Tribune, "this is the man for me."
+      In that same month of November a satirical journal, charged with
+      calumniating the President of the Republic, was sentenced to fine and
+      imprisonment for a caricature depicting a shooting-gallery and Louis
+      Bonaparte using the Constitution as a target. Morigny, Minister of the
+      Interior, declared in the Council before the President "that a Guardian of
+      Public Power ought never to violate the law as otherwise he would be&mdash;"
+      "a dishonest man," interposed the President. All these words and all these
+      facts were notorious. The material and moral impossibility of the <i>coup
+      d'état</i> was manifest to all. To outrage the National Assembly! To
+      arrest the Representatives! What madness! As we have seen, Charras, who
+      had long remained on his guard, unloaded his pistols. The feeling of
+      security was complete and unanimous. Nevertheless there were some of us in
+      the Assembly who still retained a few doubts, and who occasionally shook
+      our heads, but we were looked upon as fools.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a href="#linknote-1" name="linknoteref-1" id="linknoteref-1_"><small>1</small></a>
+      <i>Colonel Charras was Under-Secretary of State in 1848, and Acting
+      Secretary of War under the Provisional Government.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER II. PARIS SLEEPS&mdash;THE BELL RINGS
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      On the 2d December, 1851, Representative Versigny, of the Haute-Saône, who
+      resided at Paris, at No. 4, Rue Léonie, was asleep. He slept soundly; he
+      had been working till late at night. Versigny was a young man of
+      thirty-two, soft-featured and fair-complexioned, of a courageous spirit,
+      and a mind tending towards social and economical studies. He had passed
+      the first hours of the night in the perusal of a book by Bastiat, in which
+      he was making marginal notes, and, leaving the book open on the table, he
+      had fallen asleep. Suddenly he awoke with a start at the sound of a sharp
+      ring at the bell. He sprang up in surprise. It was dawn. It was about
+      seven o'clock in the morning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Never dreaming what could be the motive for so early a visit, and thinking
+      that someone had mistaken the door, he again lay down, and was about to
+      resume his slumber, when a second ring at the bell, still louder than the
+      first, completely aroused him. He got up in his night-shirt and opened the
+      door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Michel de Bourges and Théodore Bac entered. Michel de Bourges was the
+      neighbor of Versigny; he lived at No. 16, Rue de Milan.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Théodore Bac and Michel were pale, and appeared greatly agitated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Versigny," said Michel, "dress yourself at once&mdash;Baune has just been
+      arrested."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Bah!" exclaimed Versigny. "Is the Mauguin business beginning again?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is more than that," replied Michel. "Baune's wife and daughter came to
+      me half-an-hour ago. They awoke me. Baune was arrested in bed at six
+      o'clock this morning."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What does that mean?" asked Versigny.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The bell rang again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This will probably tell us," answered Michel de Bourges.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Versigny opened the door. It was the Representative Pierre Lefranc. He
+      brought, in truth, the solution of the enigma.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Do you know what is happening?" said he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes," answered Michel. "Baune is in prison."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is the Republic who is a prisoner," said Pierre Lefranc. "Have you
+      read the placards?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Pierre Lefranc explained to them that the walls at that moment were
+      covered with placards which the curious crowd were thronging to read, that
+      he had glanced over one of them at the corner of his street, and that the
+      blow had fallen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The blow!" exclaimed Michel. "Say rather the crime."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Pierre Lefranc added that there were three placards&mdash;one decree and
+      two proclamations&mdash;all three on white paper, and pasted close
+      together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The decree was printed in large letters.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The ex-Constituent Laissac, who lodged, like Michel de Bourges, in the
+      neighborhood (No. 4, Cité Gaillard), then came in. He brought the same
+      news, and announced further arrests which had been made during the night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was not a minute to lose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They went to impart the news to Yvan, the Secretary of the Assembly, who
+      had been appointed by the Left, and who lived in the Rue de Boursault.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An immediate meeting was necessary. Those Republican Representatives who
+      were still at liberty must be warned and brought together without delay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Versigny said, "I will go and find Victor Hugo."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was eight o'clock in the morning. I was awake and was working in bed.
+      My servant entered and said, with an air of alarm,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A Representative of the people is outside who wishes to speak to you,
+      sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Who is it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Monsieur Versigny:"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Show him in."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Versigny entered, and told me the state of affairs. I sprang out of bed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He told me of the "rendezvous" at the rooms of the ex-Constituent Laissac.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Go at once and inform the other Representatives," said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He left me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER III. WHAT HAD HAPPENED DURING THE NIGHT
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Previous to the fatal days of June, 1848, the esplanade of the Invalides
+      was divided into eight huge grass plots, surrounded by wooden railings and
+      enclosed between two groves of trees, separated by a street running
+      perpendicularly to the front of the Invalides. This street was traversed
+      by three streets running parallel to the Seine. There were large lawns
+      upon which children were wont to play. The centre of the eight grass plots
+      was marred by a pedestal which under the Empire had borne the bronze lion
+      of St. Mark, which had been brought from Venice; under the Restoration a
+      white marble statue of Louis XVIII.; and under Louis Philippe a plaster
+      bust of Lafayette. Owing to the Palace of the Constituent Assembly having
+      been nearly seized by a crowd of insurgents on the 22d of June, 1848, and
+      there being no barracks in the neighborhood, General Cavaignac had
+      constructed at three hundred paces from the Legislative Palace, on the
+      grass plots of the Invalides, several rows of long huts, under which the
+      grass was hidden. These huts, where three or four thousand men could be
+      accommodated, lodged the troops specially appointed to keep watch over the
+      National Assembly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the 1st December, 1851, the two regiments hutted on the Esplanade were
+      the 6th and the 42d Regiments of the Line, the 6th commanded by Colonel
+      Garderens de Boisse, who was famous before the Second of December, the 42d
+      by Colonel Espinasse, who became famous since that date.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The ordinary night-guard of the Palace of the Assembly was composed of a
+      battalion of Infantry and of thirty artillerymen, with a captain. The
+      Minister of War, in addition, sent several troopers for orderly service.
+      Two mortars and six pieces of cannon, with their ammunition wagons, were
+      ranged in a little square courtyard situated on the right of the Cour
+      d'Honneur, and which was called the Cour des Canons. The Major, the
+      military commandant of the Palace, was placed under the immediate control
+      of the Questors.<a href="#linknoteref-2" name="linknote-2" id="linknote-2"><small>2</small></a>
+      At nightfall the gratings and the doors were secured, sentinels were
+      posted, instructions were issued to the sentries, and the Palace was
+      closed like a fortress. The password was the same as in the Place de
+      Paris.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The special instructions drawn up by the Questors prohibited the entrance
+      of any armed force other than the regiment on duty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the night of the 1st and 2d of December the Legislative Palace was
+      guarded by a battalion of the 42d.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sitting of the 1st of December, which was exceedingly peaceable, and
+      had been devoted to a discussion on the municipal law, had finished late,
+      and was terminated by a Tribunal vote. At the moment when M. Baze, one of
+      the Questors, ascended the Tribune to deposit his vote, a Representative,
+      belonging to what was called "Les Bancs Elyséens" approached him, and said
+      in a low tone, "To-night you will be carried off." Such warnings as these
+      were received every day, and, as we have already explained, people had
+      ended by paying no heed to them. Nevertheless, immediately after the
+      sitting the Questors sent for the Special Commissary of Police of the
+      Assembly, President Dupin being present. When interrogated, the Commissary
+      declared that the reports of his agents indicated "dead calm"&mdash;such
+      was his expression&mdash;and that assuredly there was no danger to be
+      apprehended for that night. When the Questors pressed him further,
+      President Dupin, exclaiming "Bah!" left the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On that same day, the 1st December, about three o'clock in the afternoon,
+      as General Leflô's father-in-law crossed the boulevard in front of
+      Tortoni's, some one rapidly passed by him and whispered in his ear these
+      significant words, "Eleven o'clock&mdash;midnight." This incident excited
+      but little attention at the Questure, and several even laughed at it. It
+      had become customary with them. Nevertheless General Leflô would not go to
+      bed until the hour mentioned had passed by, and remained in the Offices of
+      the Questure until nearly one o'clock in the morning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The shorthand department of the Assembly was done out of doors by four
+      messengers attached to the <i>Moniteur</i>, who were employed to carry the
+      copy of the shorthand writers to the printing-office, and to bring back
+      the proof-sheets to the Palace of the Assembly, where M. Hippolyte Prévost
+      corrected them. M. Hippolyte Prévost was chief of the stenographic staff,
+      and in that capacity had apartments in the Legislative Palace. He was at
+      the same time editor of the musical <i>feuilleton</i> of the <i>Moniteur</i>.
+      On the 1st December he had gone to the Opéra Comique for the first
+      representation of a new piece, and did not return till after midnight. The
+      fourth messenger from the <i>Moniteur</i> was waiting for him with a proof
+      of the last slip of the sitting; M. Prévost corrected the proof, and the
+      messenger was sent off. It was then a little after one o'clock, profound
+      quiet reigned around, and, with the exception of the guard, all in the
+      Palace slept. Towards this hour of the night, a singular incident
+      occurred. The Captain-Adjutant-Major of the Guard of the Assembly came to
+      the Major and said, "The Colonel has sent for me," and he added according
+      to military etiquette, "Will you permit me to go?" The Commandant was
+      astonished. "Go," he said with some sharpness, "but the Colonel is wrong
+      to disturb an officer on duty." One of the soldiers on guard, without
+      understanding the meaning of the words, heard the Commandant pacing up and
+      down, and muttering several times, "What the deuce can he want?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Half an hour afterwards the Adjutant-Major returned. "Well," asked the
+      Commandant, "what did the Colonel want with you?" "Nothing," answered the
+      Adjutant, "he wished to give me the orders for to-morrow's duties." The
+      night became further advanced. Towards four o'clock the Adjutant-Major
+      came again to the Major. "Major," he said, "the Colonel has asked for me."
+      "Again!" exclaimed the Commandant. "This is becoming strange;
+      nevertheless, go."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Adjutant-Major had amongst other duties that of giving out the
+      instructions to the sentries, and consequently had the power of rescinding
+      them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As soon as the Adjutant-Major had gone out, the Major, becoming uneasy,
+      thought that it was his duty to communicate with the Military Commandant
+      of the Palace. He went upstairs to the apartment of the Commandant&mdash;
+      Lieutenant Colonel Niols. Colonel Niols had gone to bed and the attendants
+      had retired to their rooms in the attics. The Major, new to the Palace,
+      groped about the corridors, and, knowing little about the various rooms,
+      rang at a door which seemed to him that of the Military Commandant. Nobody
+      answered, the door was not opened, and the Major returned downstairs,
+      without having been able to speak to anybody.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On his part the Adjutant-Major re-entered the Palace, but the Major did
+      not see him again. The Adjutant remained near the grated door of the Place
+      Bourgogne, shrouded in his cloak, and walking up and down the courtyard as
+      though expecting some one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the instant that five o'clock sounded from the great clock of the dome,
+      the soldiers who slept in the hut-camp before the Invalides were suddenly
+      awakened. Orders were given in a low voice in the huts to take up arms, in
+      silence. Shortly afterwards two regiments, knapsack on back were marching
+      upon the Palace of the Assembly; they were the 6th and the 42d.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this same stroke of five, simultaneously in all the quarters of Paris,
+      infantry soldiers filed out noiselessly from every barrack, with their
+      colonels at their head. The <i>aides-de-camp</i> and orderly officers of
+      Louis Bonaparte, who had been distributed in all the barracks,
+      superintended this taking up of arms. The cavalry were not set in motion
+      until three-quarters of an hour after the infantry, for fear that the ring
+      of the horses' hoofs on the stones should wake slumbering Paris too soon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      M. de Persigny, who had brought from the Elysée to the camp of the
+      Invalides the order to take up arms, marched at the head of the 42d, by
+      the side of Colonel Espinasse. A story is current in the army, for at the
+      present day, wearied as people are with dishonorable incidents, these
+      occurrences are yet told with a species of gloomy indifference&mdash;the
+      story is current that at the moment of setting out with his regiment one
+      of the colonels who could be named hesitated, and that the emissary from
+      the Elysée, taking a sealed packet from his pocket, said to him, "Colonel,
+      I admit that we are running a great risk. Here in this envelope, which I
+      have been charged to hand to you, are a hundred thousand francs in
+      banknotes <i>for contingencies</i>." The envelope was accepted, and the
+      regiment set out. On the evening of the 2d of December the colonel said to
+      a lady, "This morning I earned a hundred thousand francs and my General's
+      epaulets." The lady showed him the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Xavier Durrieu, who tells us this story, had the curiosity later on to see
+      this lady. She confirmed the story. Yes, certainly! she had shut the door
+      in the face of this wretch; a soldier, a traitor to his flag who dared
+      visit her! She receive such a man? No! she could not do that, "and,"
+      states Xavier Durrieu, she added, "And yet I have no character to lose."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another mystery was in progress at the Prefecture of Police.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Those belated inhabitants of the Cité who may have returned home at a late
+      hour of the night might have noticed a large number of street cabs
+      loitering in scattered groups at different points round about the Rue de
+      Jerusalem.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From eleven o'clock in the evening, under pretext of the arrivals of
+      refugees at Paris from Genoa and London, the Brigade of Surety and the
+      eight hundred <i>sergents de ville</i> had been retained in the
+      Prefecture. At three o'clock in the morning a summons had been sent to the
+      forty-eight Commissaries of Paris and of the suburbs, and also to the
+      peace officers. An hour afterwards all of them arrived. They were ushered
+      into a separate chamber, and isolated from each other as much as possible.
+      At five o'clock a bell was sounded in the Prefect's cabinet. The Prefect
+      Maupas called the Commissaries of Police one after another into his
+      cabinet, revealed the plot to them, and allotted to each his portion of
+      the crime. None refused; many thanked him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a question of arresting at their own homes seventy-eight Democrats
+      who were influential in their districts, and dreaded by the Elysée as
+      possible chieftains of barricades. It was necessary, a still more daring
+      outrage, to arrest at their houses sixteen Representatives of the People.
+      For this last task were chosen among the Commissaries of Police such of
+      those magistrates who seemed the most likely to become ruffians. Amongst
+      these were divided the Representatives. Each had his man. Sieur Courtille
+      had Charras, Sieur Desgranges had Nadaud, Sieur Hubaut the elder had M.
+      Thiers, and Sieur Hubaut the younger General Bedeau, General Changarnier
+      was allotted to Lerat, and General Cavaignac to Colin. Sieur Dourlens took
+      Representative Valentin, Sieur Benoist Representative Miot, Sieur Allard
+      Representative Cholat, Sieur Barlet took Roger (Du Nord), General
+      Lamoricière fell to Commissary Blanchet, Commissary Gronfier had
+      Representative Greppo, and Commissary Boudrot Representative Lagrange. The
+      Questors were similarly allotted, Monsieur Baze to the Sieur Primorin, and
+      General Leflô to Sieur Bertoglio.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Warrants with the name of the Representatives had been drawn up in the
+      Prefect's private Cabinet. Blanks had been only left for the names of the
+      Commissaries. These were filled in at the moment of leaving.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In addition to the armed force which was appointed to assist them, it had
+      been decided that each Commissary should be accompanied by two escorts,
+      one composed of <i>sergents de ville</i>, the other of police agents in
+      plain clothes. As Prefect Maupas had told M. Bonaparte, the Captain of the
+      Republican Guard, Baudinet, was associated with Commissary Lerat in the
+      arrest of General Changarnier.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Towards half-past five the <i>fiacres</i> which were in waiting were
+      called up, and all started, each with his instructions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During this time, in another corner of Paris&mdash;the old Rue du Temple&mdash;in
+      that ancient Soubise Mansion which had been transformed into a Royal
+      Printing Office, and is to-day a National Printing Office, another section
+      of the Crime was being organized.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Towards one in the morning a passer-by who had reached the old Rue du
+      Temple by the Rue de Vieilles-Haudriettes, noticed at the junction of
+      these two streets several long and high windows brilliantly lighted up,
+      These were the windows of the work-rooms of the National Printing Office.
+      He turned to the right and entered the old Rue du Temple, and a moment
+      afterwards paused before the crescent-shaped entrance of the front of the
+      printing-office. The principal door was shut, two sentinels guarded the
+      side door. Through this little door, which was ajar, he glanced into the
+      courtyard of the printing-office, and saw it filled with soldiers. The
+      soldiers were silent, no sound could be heard, but the glistening of their
+      bayonets could be seen. The passer-by surprised, drew nearer. One of the
+      sentinels thrust him rudely back, crying out, "Be off."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Like the <i>sergents de ville</i> at the Prefecture of Police, the workmen
+      had been retained at the National Printing Office under plea of
+      night-work. At the same time that M. Hippolyte Prévost returned to the
+      Legislative Palace, the manager of the National Printing Office re-entered
+      his office, also returning from the Opéra Comique, where he had been to
+      see the new piece, which was by his brother, M. de St. Georges.
+      Immediately on his return the manager, to whom had come an order from the
+      Elysée during the day, took up a pair of pocket pistols, and went down
+      into the vestibule, which communicates by means of a few steps with the
+      courtyard. Shortly afterwards the door leading to the street opened, a <i>fiacre</i>
+      entered, a man who carried a large portfolio alighted. The manager went up
+      to the man, and said to him, "Is that you, Monsieur de Béville?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes," answered the man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The <i>fiacre</i> was put up, the horses placed in a stable, and the
+      coachman shut up in a parlor, where they gave him drink, and placed a
+      purse in his hand. Bottles of wine and louis d'or form the groundwork of
+      this hind of politics. The coachman drank and then went to sleep. The door
+      of the parlor was bolted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The large door of the courtyard of the printing-office was hardly shut
+      than it reopened, gave passage to armed men, who entered in silence, and
+      then reclosed. The arrivals were a company of the Gendarmerie Mobile, the
+      fourth of the first battalion, commanded by a captain named La Roche
+      d'Oisy. As may be remarked by the result, for all delicate expeditions the
+      men of the <i>coup d'état</i> took care to employ the Gendarmerie Mobile
+      and the Republican Guard, that it is to say the two corps almost entirely
+      composed of former Municipal Guards, bearing at heart a revengeful
+      remembrance of the events of February.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Captain La Roche d'Oisy brought a letter from the Minister of War, which
+      placed himself and his soldiers at the disposition of the manager of the
+      National Printing Office. The muskets were loaded without a word being
+      spoken. Sentinels were placed in the workrooms, in the corridors, at the
+      doors, at the windows, in fact, everywhere, two being stationed at the
+      door leading into the street. The captain asked what instructions he
+      should give to the sentries. "Nothing more simple," said the man who had
+      come in the <i>fiacre</i>. "Whoever attempts to leave or to open a window,
+      shoot him."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This man, who, in fact, was De Béville, orderly officer to M. Bonaparte,
+      withdrew with the manager into the large cabinet on the first story, a
+      solitary room which looked out on the garden. There he communicated to the
+      manager what he had brought with him, the decree of the dissolution of the
+      Assembly, the appeal to the Army, the appeal to the People, the decree
+      convoking the electors, and in addition, the proclamation of the Prefect
+      Maupas and his letter to the Commissaries of Police. The four first
+      documents were entirely in the handwriting of the President, and here and
+      there some erasures might be noticed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The compositors were in waiting. Each man was placed between two
+      gendarmes, and was forbidden to utter a single word, and then the
+      documents which had to be printed were distributed throughout the room,
+      being cut up in very small pieces, so that an entire sentence could not be
+      read by one workman. The manager announced that he would give them an hour
+      to compose the whole. The different fragments were finally brought to
+      Colonel Béville, who put them together and corrected the proof sheets. The
+      machining was conducted with the same precautions, each press being
+      between two soldiers. Notwithstanding all possible diligence the work
+      lasted two hours. The gendarmes watched over the workmen. Béville watched
+      over St. Georges.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the work was finished a suspicious incident occurred, which greatly
+      resembled a treason within a treason. To a traitor a greater traitor. This
+      species of crime is subject to such accidents. Béville and St. Georges,
+      the two trusty confidants in whose hands lay the secret of the <i>coup
+      d'état</i>, that is to say the head of the President;&mdash;that secret,
+      which ought at no price to be allowed to transpire before the appointed
+      hour, under risk of causing everything to miscarry, took it into their
+      heads to confide it at once to two hundred men, in order "to test the
+      effect," as the ex-Colonel Béville said later on, rather naïvely. They
+      read the mysterious document which had just been printed to the Gendarmes
+      Mobiles, who were drawn up in the courtyard. These ex-municipal guards
+      applauded. If they had hooted, it might be asked what the two
+      experimentalists in the <i>coup d'état</i> would have done. Perhaps M.
+      Bonaparte would have waked up from his dream at Vincennes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The coachman was then liberated, the <i>fiacre</i> was horsed, and at four
+      o'clock in the morning the orderly officer and the manager of the National
+      Printing Office, henceforward two criminals, arrived at the Prefecture of
+      Police with the parcels of the decrees. Then began for them the brand of
+      shame. Prefect Maupas took them by the hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bands of bill-stickers, bribed for the occasion, started in every
+      direction, carrying with them the decrees and proclamations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was precisely the hour at which the Palace of the National Assembly
+      was invested. In the Rue de l'Université there is a door of the Palace
+      which is the old entrance to the Palais Bourbon, and which opened into the
+      avenue which leads to the house of the President of the Assembly. This
+      door, termed the Presidency door, was according to custom guarded by a
+      sentry. For some time past the Adjutant-Major, who had been twice sent for
+      during the night by Colonel Espinasse, had remained motionless and silent,
+      close by the sentinel. Five minutes after, having left the huts of the
+      Invalides, the 42d Regiment of the line, followed at some distance by the
+      6th Regiment, which had marched by the Rue de Bourgogne, emerged from the
+      Rue de l'Université. "The regiment," says an eye-witness, "marched as one
+      steps in a sickroom." It arrived with a stealthy step before the
+      Presidency door. This ambuscade came to surprise the law.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sentry, seeing these soldiers arrive, halted, but at the moment when
+      he was going to challenge them with a <i>qui-vive</i>, the Adjutant-Major
+      seized his arm, and, in his capacity as the officer empowered to
+      countermand all instructions, ordered him to give free passage to the 42d,
+      and at the same time commanded the amazed porter to open the door. The
+      door turned upon its hinges, the soldiers spread themselves through the
+      avenue. Persigny entered and said, "It is done."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The National Assembly was invaded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the noise of the footsteps the Commandant Mennier ran up. "Commandant,"
+      Colonel Espinasse cried out to him, "I come to relieve your battalion."
+      The Commandant turned pale for a moment, and his eyes remained fixed on
+      the ground. Then suddenly he put his hands to his shoulders, and tore off
+      his epaulets, he drew his sword, broke it across his knee, threw the two
+      fragments on the pavement, and, trembling with rage, exclaimed with a
+      solemn voice, "Colonel, you disgrace the number of your regiment."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "All right, all right," said Espinasse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Presidency door was left open, but all the other entrances remained
+      closed. All the guards were relieved, all the sentinels changed, and the
+      battalion of the night guard was sent back to the camp of the Invalides,
+      the soldiers piled their arms in the avenue, and in the Cour d'Honneur.
+      The 42d, in profound silence, occupied the doors outside and inside, the
+      courtyard, the reception-rooms, the galleries, the corridors, the
+      passages, while every one slept in the Palace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Shortly afterwards arrived two of those little chariots which are called
+      "forty sons," and two <i>fiacres</i>, escorted by two detachments of the
+      Republican Guard and of the Chasseurs de Vincennes, and by several squads
+      of police. The Commissaries Bertoglio and Primorin alighted from the two
+      chariots.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As these carriages drove up a personage, bald, but still young, was seen
+      to appear at the grated door of the Place de Bourgogne. This personage had
+      all the air of a man about town, who had just come from the opera, and, in
+      fact, he had come from thence, after having passed through a den. He came
+      from the Elysée. It was De Morny. For an instant he watched the soldiers
+      piling their arms, and then went on to the Presidency door. There he
+      exchanged a few words with M. de Persigny. A quarter of an hour
+      afterwards, accompanied by 250 Chasseurs de Vincennes, he took possession
+      of the ministry of the Interior, startled M. de Thorigny in his bed, and
+      handed him brusquely a letter of thanks from Monsieur Bonaparte. Some days
+      previously honest M. De Thorigny, whose ingenuous remarks we have already
+      cited, said to a group of men near whom M. de Morny was passing, "How
+      these men of the Mountain calumniate the President! The man who would
+      break his oath, who would achieve a <i>coup d'état</i> must necessarily be
+      a worthless wretch." Awakened rudely in the middle of the night, and
+      relieved of his post as Minister like the sentinels of the Assembly, the
+      worthy man, astounded, and rubbing his eyes, muttered, "Eh! then the
+      President <i>is</i> a &mdash;&mdash;."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes," said Morny, with a burst of laughter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He who writes these lines knew Morny. Morny and Walewsky held in the
+      quasi-reigning family the positions, one of Royal bastard, the other of
+      Imperial bastard. Who was Morny? We will say, "A noted wit, an intriguer,
+      but in no way austere, a friend of Romieu, and a supporter of Guizot
+      possessing the manners of the world, and the habits of the roulette table,
+      self-satisfied, clever, combining a certain liberality of ideas with a
+      readiness to accept useful crimes, finding means to wear a gracious smile
+      with bad teeth, leading a life of pleasure, dissipated but reserved, ugly,
+      good-tempered, fierce, well-dressed, intrepid, willingly leaving a brother
+      prisoner under bolts and bars, and ready to risk his head for a brother
+      Emperor, having the same mother as Louis Bonaparte, and like Louis
+      Bonaparte, having some father or other, being able to call himself
+      Beauharnais, being able to call himself Flahaut, and yet calling himself
+      Morny, pursuing literature as far as light comedy, and politics, as far as
+      tragedy, a deadly free liver, possessing all the frivolity consistent with
+      assassination, capable of being sketched by Marivaux and treated of by
+      Tacitus, without conscience, irreproachably elegant, infamous, and
+      amiable, at need a perfect duke. Such was this malefactor."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was not yet six o'clock in the morning. Troops began to mass themselves
+      on the Place de la Concorde, where Leroy-Saint-Arnaud on horseback held a
+      review.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Commissaries of Police, Bertoglio and Primorin ranged two companies in
+      order under the vault of the great staircase of the Questure, but did not
+      ascend that way. They were accompanied by agents of police, who knew the
+      most secret recesses of the Palais Bourbon, and who conducted them through
+      various passages.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      General Leflô was lodged in the Pavilion inhabited in the time of the Duc
+      de Bourbon by Monsieur Feuchères. That night General Leflô had staying
+      with him his sister and her husband, who were visiting Paris, and who
+      slept in a room, the door of which led into one of the corridors of the
+      Palace. Commissary Bertoglio knocked at the door, opened it, and together
+      with his agents abruptly burst into the room, where a woman was in bed.
+      The general's brother-in-out sprang out of bed, and cried out to the
+      Questor, who slept in an adjoining room, "Adolphe, the doors are being
+      forced, the Palace is full of soldiers. Get up!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The General opened his eyes, he saw Commissary Bertoglio standing beside
+      his bed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He sprang up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "General," said the Commissary, "I have come to fulfil a duty."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I understand," said General Leflô, "you are a traitor."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Commissary stammering out the words, "Plot against the safety of the
+      State," displayed a warrant. The General, without pronouncing a word,
+      struck this infamous paper with the back of his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then dressing himself, he put on his full uniform of Constantine and of
+      Médéah, thinking in his imaginative, soldier-like loyalty that there were
+      still generals of Africa for the soldiers whom he would find on his way.
+      All the generals now remaining were brigands. His wife embraced him; his
+      son, a child of seven years, in his nightshirt, and in tears, said to the
+      Commissary of Police, "Mercy, Monsieur Bonaparte."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The General, while clasping his wife in his arms, whispered in her ear,
+      "There is artillery in the courtyard, try and fire a cannon."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Commissary and his men led him away. He regarded these policemen with
+      contempt, and did not speak to them, but when he recognized Colonel
+      Espinasse, his military and Breton heart swelled with indignation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Colonel Espinasse," said he, "you are a villain, and I hope to live long
+      enough to tear the buttons from your uniform."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Colonel Espinasse hung his head, and stammered, "I do not know you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A major waved his sword, and cried, "We have had enough of lawyer
+      generals." Some soldiers crossed their bayonets before the unarmed
+      prisoner, three <i>sergents de ville</i> pushed him into a <i>fiacre</i>,
+      and a sub-lieutenant approaching the carriage, and looking in the face of
+      the man who, if he were a citizen, was his Representative, and if he were
+      a soldier was his general, flung this abominable word at him, "Canaille!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile Commissary Primorin had gone by a more roundabout way in order
+      the more surely to surprise the other Questor, M. Baze.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Out of M. Baze's apartment a door led to the lobby communicating with the
+      chamber of the Assembly. Sieur Primorin knocked at the door. "Who is
+      there?" asked a servant, who was dressing. "The Commissary of Police,"
+      replied Primorin. The servant, thinking that he was the Commissary of
+      Police of the Assembly, opened the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this moment M. Baze, who had heard the noise, and had just awakened,
+      put on a dressing-gown, and cried, "Do not open the door."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had scarcely spoken these words when a man in plain clothes and three
+      <i>sergents de ville</i> in uniform rushed into his chamber. The man,
+      opening his coat, displayed his scarf of office, asking M. Baze, "Do you
+      recognize this?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You are a worthless wretch," answered the Questor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The police agents laid their hands on M. Baze. "You will not take me
+      away," he said. "You, a Commissary of Police, you, who are a magistrate,
+      and know what you are doing, you outrage the National Assembly, you
+      violate the law, you are a criminal!" A hand-to-hand struggle ensued&mdash;four
+      against one. Madame Baze and her two little girls giving vent to screams,
+      the servant being thrust back with blows by the <i>sergents de ville</i>.
+      "You are ruffians," cried out Monsieur Baze. They carried him away by main
+      force in their arms, still struggling, naked, his dressing-gown being torn
+      to shreds, his body being covered with blows, his wrist torn and bleeding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The stairs, the landing, the courtyard, were full of soldiers with fixed
+      bayonets and grounded arms. The Questor spoke to them. "Your
+      Representatives are being arrested, you have not received your arms to
+      break the laws!" A sergeant was wearing a brand-new cross. "Have you been
+      given the cross for this?" The sergeant answered, "We only know one
+      master." "I note your number," continued M. Baze. "You are a dishonored
+      regiment." The soldiers listened with a stolid air, and seemed still
+      asleep. Commissary Primorin said to them, "Do not answer, this has nothing
+      to do with you." They led the Questor across the courtyard to the
+      guard-house at the Porte Noire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was the name which was given to a little door contrived under the
+      vault opposite the treasury of the Assembly, and which opened upon the Rue
+      de Bourgogne, facing the Rue de Lille.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Several sentries were placed at the door of the guard-house, and at the
+      top of the flight of steps which led thither, M. Baze being left there in
+      charge of three <i>sergents de ville</i>. Several soldiers, without their
+      weapons, and in their shirt-sleeves, came in and out. The Questor appealed
+      to them in the name of military honor. "Do not answer," said the <i>sergent
+      de ville</i> to the soldiers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      M. Baze's two little girls had followed him with terrified eyes, and when
+      they lost sight of him the youngest burst into tears. "Sister," said the
+      elder, who was seven years old, "let us say our prayers," and the two
+      children, clasping their hands, knelt down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Commissary Primorin, with his swarm of agents, burst into the Questor's
+      study, and laid hands on everything. The first papers which he perceived
+      on the middle of the table, and which he seized, were the famous decrees
+      which had been prepared in the event of the Assembly having voted the
+      proposal of the Questors. All the drawers were opened and searched. This
+      overhauling of M. Baze's papers, which the Commissary of Police termed a
+      domiciliary visit, lasted more than an hour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      M. Baze's clothes had been taken to him, and he had dressed. When the
+      "domiciliary visit" was over, he was taken out of the guard-house. There
+      was a <i>fiacre</i> in the courtyard, into which he entered, together with
+      the three <i>sergents de ville</i>. The vehicle, in order to reach the
+      Presidency door, passed by the Cour d'Honneur and then by the Courde
+      Canonis. Day was breaking. M. Baze looked into the courtyard to see if the
+      cannon were still there. He saw the ammunition wagons ranged in order with
+      their shafts raised, but the places of the six cannon and the two mortars
+      were vacant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the avenue of the Presidency the <i>fiacre</i> stopped for a moment.
+      Two lines of soldiers, standing at ease, lined the footpaths of the
+      avenue. At the foot of a tree were grouped three men: Colonel Espinasse,
+      whom M. Baze knew and recognized, a species of Lieutenant-Colonel, who
+      wore a black and orange ribbon round his neck, and a Major of Lancers, all
+      three sword in hand, consulting together. The windows of the <i>fiacre</i>
+      were closed; M. Baze wished to lower them to appeal to these men; the <i>sergents
+      de ville</i> seized his arms. The Commissary Primorin then came up, and
+      was about to re-enter the little chariot for two persons which had brought
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Monsieur Baze," said he, with that villainous kind of courtesy which the
+      agents of the <i>coup d'état</i> willingly blended with their crime, "you
+      must be uncomfortable with those three men in the <i>fiacre</i>. You are
+      cramped; come in with me."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Let me alone," said the prisoner. "With these three men I am cramped;
+      with you I should be contaminated."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An escort of infantry was ranged on both sides of the <i>fiacre</i>.
+      Colonel Espinasse called to the coachman, "Drive slowly by the Quai
+      d'Orsay until you meet a cavalry escort. When the cavalry shall have
+      assumed the charge, the infantry can come back." They set out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the <i>fiacre</i> turned into the Quai d'Orsay a picket of the 7th
+      Lancers arrived at full speed. It was the escort: the troopers surrounded
+      the <i>fiacre</i>, and the whole galloped off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No incident occurred during the journey. Here and there, at the noise of
+      the horses' hoofs, windows were opened and heads put forth; and the
+      prisoner, who had at length succeeded in lowering a window heard startled
+      voices saying, "What is the matter?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The <i>fiacre</i> stopped. "Where are we?" asked M. Baze.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "At Mazas," said a <i>sergent de ville</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Questor was taken to the office of the prison. Just as he entered he
+      saw Baune and Nadaud being brought out. There was a table in the centre,
+      at which Commissary Primorin, who had followed the <i>fiacre</i> in his
+      chariot, had just seated himself. While the Commissary was writing, M.
+      Baze noticed on the table a paper which was evidently a jail register, on
+      which were these names, written in the following order: Lamoricière,
+      Charras, Cavaignac, Changarnier, Leflô, Thiers, Bedeau, Roger (du Nord),
+      Chambolle. This was probably the order in which the Representatives had
+      arrived at the prison.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Sieur Primorin had finished writing, M. Baze said, "Now, you will be
+      good enough to receive my protest, and add it to your official report."
+      "It is not an official report," objected the Commissary, "it is simply an
+      order for committal." "I intend to write my protest at once," replied M.
+      Baze. "You will have plenty of time in your cell," remarked a man who
+      stood by the table. M. Baze turned round. "Who are you?" "I am the
+      governor of the prison," said the man. "In that case," replied M. Baze, "I
+      pity you, for you are aware of the crime you are committing." The man
+      turned pale, and stammered a few unintelligible words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Commissary rose from his seat; M. Baze briskly took possession of his
+      chair, seated himself at the table, and said to Sieur Primorin, "You are a
+      public officer; I request you to add my protest to your official report."
+      "Very well," said the Commissary, "let it be so." Baze wrote the protest
+      as follows:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  "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,
+  protest in the name of the National Assembly and in my own name against
+  the outrage on national representation committed upon my colleagues and
+  upon myself.
+
+  "Given at Mazas on the 2d December 1851, at eight o'clock in the
+  morning.
+
+  "BAZE."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      While this was taking place at Mazas, the soldiers were laughing and
+      drinking in the courtyard of the Assembly. They made their coffee in the
+      saucepans. They had lighted enormous fires in the courtyard; the flames,
+      fanned by the wind, at times reached the walls of the Chamber. A superior
+      official of the Questure, an officer of the National Guard, Ramond de la
+      Croisette, ventured to say to them, "You will set the Palace on fire;"
+      whereupon a soldier struck him a blow with his fist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Four of the pieces taken from the Cour de Canons were ranged in battery
+      order against the Assembly; two on the Place de Bourgogne were pointed
+      towards the grating, and two on the Pont de la Concorde were pointed
+      towards the grand staircase.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As side-note to this instructive tale let us mention a curious fact. The
+      42d Regiment of the line was the same which 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 beauty of passive obedience.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a href="#linknote-2" name="linknoteref-2" id="linknoteref-2_"><small>2</small></a>
+      <i>The Questors were officers elected by the Assembly, whose special
+      duties were to keep and audit the accounts, and who controlled all matters
+      affecting the social economy of the House.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IV. OTHER DOINGS OF THE NIGHT
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      During the same night in all parts of Paris acts of brigandage took place.
+      Unknown men leading armed troops, and themselves armed with hatchets,
+      mallets, pincers, crow-bars, life-preservers, swords hidden under their
+      coats, pistols, of which the butts could be distinguished under the folds
+      of their cloaks, arrived in silence before a house, occupied the street,
+      encircled the approaches, picked the lock of the door, tied up the porter,
+      invaded the stairs, and burst through the doors upon a sleeping man, and
+      when that man, awakening with a start, asked of these bandits, "Who are
+      you?" their leader answered, "A Commissary of Police." So it happened to
+      Lamoricière who was seized by Blanchet, who threatened him with the gag;
+      to Greppo, who was brutally treated and thrown down by Gronfier, assisted
+      by six men carrying a dark lantern and a pole-axe; to Cavaignac, who was
+      secured by Colin, a smooth-tongued villain, who affected to be shocked on
+      hearing him curse and swear; to M. Thiers, who was arrested by Hubaut (the
+      elder); who professed that he had seen him "tremble and weep," thus adding
+      falsehood to crime; to Valentin, who was assailed in his bed by Dourlens,
+      taken by the feet and shoulders, and thrust into a padlocked police van;
+      to Miot, destined to the tortures of African casemates; to Roger (du
+      Nord), who with courageous and witty irony offered sherry to the bandits.
+      Charras and Changarnier were taken unawares.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They lived in the Rue St. Honoré, nearly opposite to each other,
+      Changarnier at No. 3, Charras at No. 14. Ever since the 9th of September
+      Changarnier had dismissed the fifteen men armed to the teeth by whom he
+      had hitherto been guarded during the night, and on the 1st December, as we
+      have said, Charras had unloaded his pistols. These empty pistols were
+      lying on the table when they came to arrest him. The Commissary of Police
+      threw himself upon them. "Idiot," said Charras to him, "if they had been
+      loaded, you would have been a dead man." These pistols, we may note, had
+      been given to Charras upon the taking of Mascara by General Renaud, who at
+      the moment of Charras' arrest was on horseback in the street helping to
+      carry out the <i>coup d'état</i>. If these pistols had remained loaded,
+      and if General Renaud had had the task of arresting Charras, it would have
+      been curious if Renaud's pistols had killed Renaud. Charras assuredly
+      would not have hesitated. We have already mentioned the names of these
+      police rascals. It is useless to repeat them. It was Courtille who
+      arrested Charras, Lerat who arrested Changarnier, Desgranges who arrested
+      Nadaud. The men thus seized in their own houses were Representatives of
+      the people; they were inviolable, so that to the crime of the violation of
+      their persons was added this high treason, the violation of the
+      Constitution.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was no lack of impudence in the perpetration of these outrages. The
+      police agents made merry. Some of these droll fellows jested. At Mazas the
+      under-jailors jeered at Thiers, Nadaud reprimanded them severely. The
+      Sieur Hubaut (the younger) awoke General Bedeau. "General, you are a
+      prisoner."&mdash;"My person is inviolable."&mdash;"Unless you are caught
+      red-handed, in the very act."&mdash;"Well," said Bedeau, "I am caught in
+      the act, the heinous act of being asleep." They took him by the collar and
+      dragged him to a <i>fiacre</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On meeting together at Mazas, Nadaud grasped the hand of Greppo, and
+      Lagrange grasped the hand of Lamoricière. This made the police gentry
+      laugh. A colonel, named Thirion, wearing a commander's cross round his
+      neck, helped to put the Generals and the Representatives into jail. "Look
+      me in the face," said Charras to him. Thirion moved away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus, without counting other arrests which took place later on, there were
+      imprisoned during the night of the 2d of December, sixteen Representatives
+      and seventy-eight citizens. The two agents of the crime furnished a report
+      of it to Louis Bonaparte. Morny wrote "Boxed up;" Maupas wrote "Quadded."
+      The one in drawing-room slang, the other in the slang of the galleys.
+      Subtle gradations of language.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER V. THE DARKNESS OF THE CRIME
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      Versigny had just left me.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      While I dressed hastily there came in a man 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 carver of wood, and not
+      illiterate. He came in from the street; he was trembling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well," I asked, "what do the people say?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Girard answered me,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "People are dazed. The blow has been struck in such a manner that it is
+      not realized. Workmen read the placards, say nothing, and go to their
+      work. Only one in a hundred speaks. It is to say, 'Good!' This is how it
+      appears to them. The law of the 31st May is abrogated&mdash;'Well done!'
+      Universal suffrage is re-established&mdash;'Also well done!' The
+      reactionary majority has been driven away&mdash;'Admirable!' Thiers is
+      arrested&mdash;'Capital!' Changarnier is seized&mdash;'Bravo!' Round each
+      placard there are <i>claqueurs</i>. Ratapoil explains his <i>coup d'état</i>
+      to Jacques Bonhomme, Jacques Bonhomme takes it all in. Briefly, it is my
+      impression that the people give their consent."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Let it be so," said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But," asked Girard of me, "what will you do, Monsieur Victor Hugo?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I took my scarf of office from a cupboard, and showed it to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He understood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We shook hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he went out Carini entered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Colonel Carini is an intrepid man. He had commanded the cavalry under
+      Mieroslawsky in the Sicilian insurrection. He has, in a few moving and
+      enthusiastic pages, 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 in this century has two fatherlands&mdash;the Rome of
+      yesterday and the Paris of to-day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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 invested. I
+      have come from thence. The Place de la Révolution, the Quays, the
+      Tuileries, the boulevards, are crowded with troops. The soldiers have
+      their knapsacks. The batteries are harnessed. If fighting takes place it
+      will be desperate work."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I answered him, "There will be fighting."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And I added, laughing, "You have proved that the colonels write like
+      poets; now it is the turn of the poets to fight like colonels."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I entered my wife's room; she knew nothing, and was quietly reading her
+      paper in bed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I had taken about me five hundred francs in gold. I put on my wife's bed a
+      box containing nine hundred francs, all the money which remained to me,
+      and I told her what had happened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She turned pale, and said to me, "What are you going to do?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My duty."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She embraced me, and only said two words:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Do it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My breakfast was ready. I ate a cutlet in two mouthfuls. As I finished, my
+      daughter came in. She was startled by the manner in which I kissed her,
+      and asked me, "What is the matter?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Your mother will explain to you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And I left them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Rue de la Tour d'Auvergne was as quiet and deserted as usual. Four
+      workmen were, however, chatting near my door; they wished me "Good
+      morning."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I cried out to them, "You know what is going on?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes," said they.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well. It is treason! Louis Bonaparte is strangling the Republic. The
+      people are attacked. The people must defend themselves."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "They will defend themselves."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You promise me that?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes," they answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One of them added, "We swear it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They kept their word. Barricades were constructed in my street (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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VI. "PLACARDS"
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      On leaving these brave men I could read at the corner of the Rue de la
+      Tour d'Auvergne and the Rue des Martyrs, the three infamous placards which
+      had been posted on the walls of Paris during the night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here they are.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  "PROCLAMATION OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC.
+
+  "<i>Appeal to the People</i>.
+
+  "FRENCHMEN! The present situation can last no longer. Every day which
+  passes enhances the dangers of the country. The Assembly, which ought
+  to be the firmest support of order, has become a focus of conspiracies.
+  The patriotism of three hundred of its members has been unable to check
+  its fatal tendencies. Instead of making laws in the public interest it
+  forges arms for civil war; it attacks the power which I hold directly
+  from the People, it encourages all bad passions, it compromises the
+  tranquillity of France; I have dissolved it, and I constitute the whole
+  People a judge between it and me.
+
+  "The Constitution, as you know, was constructed with the object of
+  weakening beforehand the power which you were about to confide to me.
+  Six millions of votes formed an emphatic protest against it, and yet
+  I have faithfully respected it. Provocations, calumnies, outrages,
+  have found me unmoved. Now, however, that the fundamental compact is
+  no longer respected by those very men who incessantly invoke it, and
+  that the men who have ruined two monarchies wish to tie my hands in
+  order to overthrow the Republic, my duty is to frustrate their
+  treacherous schemes, to maintain the Republic, and to save the Country
+  by appealing to the solemn judgment of the only Sovereign whom I
+  recognize in France&mdash;the People.
+
+  "I therefore make a loyal appeal to the whole nation, and I say to
+  you: If you wish to continue this condition of uneasiness which
+  degrades us and compromises our future, choose another in my place,
+  for I will no longer retain a power which is impotent to do good,
+  which renders me responsible for actions which I cannot prevent, and
+  which binds me to the helm when I see the vessel driving towards the
+  abyss.
+
+  "If on the other hand you still place confidence in me, give me the
+  means of accomplishing the great mission which I hold from you.
+
+  "This mission consists in closing the era of revolutions, by satisfying
+  the legitimate needs of the People, and by protecting them from
+  subversive passions. It consists, above all, in creating institutions
+  which survive men, and which shall in fact form the foundations on
+  which something durable may be established.
+
+  "Persuaded that the instability of power, that the preponderance of a
+  single Assembly, are the permanent causes of trouble and discord, I
+  submit to your suffrage the following fundamental bases of a
+  Constitution which will be developed by the Assemblies later on:&mdash;
+
+  "1. A responsible Chief appointed for ten years.
+
+  "2. Ministers dependent upon the Executive Power alone.
+
+  "3. A Council of State composed of the most distinguished men, who shall
+  prepare laws and shall support them in debate before the Legislative
+  Body.
+
+  "4. A Legislative Body which shall discuss and vote the laws, and which
+  shall be elected by universal suffrage, without <i>scrutin de liste</i>,
+  which falsifies the elections.
+
+  "5. A Second Assembly composed of the most illustrious men of the
+  country, a power of equipoise the guardian of the fundamental compact,
+  and of the public liberties.
+
+  "This system, created by the first Consul at the beginning of the
+  century, has already given repose and prosperity to France; it would
+  still insure them to her.
+
+  "Such is my firm conviction. If you share it, declare it by your votes.
+  If, on the contrary, you prefer a government without strength,
+  Monarchical or Republican, borrowed I know not from what past, or from
+  what chimerical future, answer in the negative.
+
+  "Thus for the first time since 1804, you will vote with a full knowledge
+  of the circumstances, knowing exactly for whom and for what.
+
+  "If I do not obtain the majority of your suffrages I shall call together
+  a New Assembly and shall place in its hands the commission which I have
+  received from you.
+
+  "But if you believe that the cause of which my name is the symbol,&mdash;that
+  is to say, France regenerated by the Revolution of '89, and organized by
+  the Emperor, is to be still your own, proclaim it by sanctioning the
+  powers which I ask from you.
+
+  "Then France and Europe will be preserved from anarchy, obstacles will
+  be removed, rivalries will have disappeared, for all will respect, in
+  the decision of the People, the decree of Providence.
+
+  "Given at the Palace of the Elysée, 2d December, 1851.
+
+  "LOUIS NAPOLEON BONAPARTE."
+</pre>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  PROCLAMATION OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC TO THE ARMY.
+
+  "Soldiers! Be proud of your mission, you will save the country, for I
+  count upon you not to violate the laws, but to enforce respect for the
+  first law of the country, the national Sovereignty, of which I am the
+  Legitimate Representative.
+
+  "For a long time past, like myself, you have suffered from obstacles
+  which have opposed themselves both to the good that I wished to do and
+  to the demonstrations of your sympathies in my favor. These obstacles
+  have been broken down.
+
+  "The Assembly has tried to attack the authority which 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 give me the means of insuring your prosperity, or choose another
+  in my place.
+
+  "In 1830, as in 1848, you were treated as vanquished men. After having
+  branded your heroic disinterestedness, they disdained to consult your
+  sympathies and your wishes, and yet you are the flower of the Nation.
+  To-day, at this solemn moment, I am resolved that the voice of the Army
+  shall be heard.
+
+  "Vote, therefore, freely as citizens; but, as soldiers do not forget
+  that passive obedience to the orders of the Chief of the State is the
+  rigorous duty of the Army, from the general to the private soldier.
+
+  "It is for me, responsible for my actions both to the People and to
+  posterity, to take those measures which may seem to me indispensable for
+  the public welfare.
+
+  "As for you, remain immovable within the rules of discipline and of
+  honor. By your imposing attitude help the country to manifest its will
+  with calmness and reflection.
+
+  "Be ready to repress every attack upon the free exercise of the
+  sovereignty of the People.
+
+  "Soldiers, I do not speak to you of the memories which my name recalls.
+  They are engraven in your hearts. We are united by indissoluble ties.
+  Your history is mine. There is between us, in the past, a community of
+  glory and of misfortune.
+
+  "There will be in the future community of sentiment and of resolutions
+  for the repose and the greatness of France.
+
+  "Given at the Palace of the Elysée, December 2d, 1851.
+
+  "(Signed) L.N. BONAPARTE."
+</pre>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  "IN THE NAME OF THE FRENCH PEOPLE.
+
+  "The President of the Republic decrees:&mdash;
+
+  "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 are convoked in their electoral
+  districts from the 14th December to the 21st December following.
+
+  "ARTICLE IV. The State of Siege is decreed 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 of the Elysée, 2d December, 1851.
+
+  "LOUIS NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.
+
+  "DE MORNY, Minister of the Interior."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VII. NO. 70, RUE BLANCHE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I knew No. 70, Rue Blanche. Manin, the celebrated President of the
+      Venetian Republic, lived there. It was not in his rooms, however, that the
+      meeting was to take place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The porter of No. 70 told me to go up to the first floor. The door was
+      opened, and a handsome, gray-haired woman of some forty summers, the
+      Baroness Coppens, whom I recognized as having seen in society and at my
+      own house, ushered me into a drawing-room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Michel de Bourges and Alexander Rey were there, the latter an
+      ex-Constituent, an eloquent writer, a brave man. At that time Alexander
+      Rey edited the <i>National</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We shook hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Michel said to me,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Hugo, what will you do?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I answered him,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Everything."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That also is my opinion," said he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Numerous representatives arrived, and amongst others Pierre Lefranc,
+      Labrousse, Théodore Bac, Noël Parfait, Arnauld (de l'Ariége), Demosthenes
+      Ollivier, an ex-Constituent, and Charamaule. There was deep and
+      unutterable indignation, but no useless words were spoken.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All were imbued with that manly anger whence issue great resolutions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They talked. They set forth the situation. Each brought forward the news
+      which he had learnt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Théodore Bac came from Léon Faucher, who lived in the Rue Blanche. It was
+      he who had awakened Léon Faucher, and had announced the news to him. The
+      first words of Léon Faucher were, "It is an infamous deed."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From the first moment Charamaule displayed a courage which, during the
+      four days of the struggle, never flagged for a single instant. Charamaule
+      is a very tall man, possessed of vigorous features and convincing
+      eloquence; he voted with the Left, but sat with the Right. In the Assembly
+      he was the neighbor of Montalembert and of Riancey. He sometimes had warm
+      disputes with them, which we watched from afar off, and which amused us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Charamaule had come to the meeting at No. 70 dressed in a sort of blue
+      cloth military cloak, and armed, as we found out later on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The situation was grave; sixteen Representatives arrested, all the
+      generals of the Assembly, and he who was more than a general, Charras. All
+      the journals suppressed, all the printing offices occupied by soldiers. On
+      the side of Bonaparte an army of 80,000 men which could be doubled in a
+      few hours; on our side nothing. The people deceived, and moreover
+      disarmed. The telegraph at their command. All the walls covered with their
+      placards, and at our disposal not a single printing case, not one sheet of
+      paper. No means of raising the protest, no means of beginning the combat.
+      The <i>coup d'état</i> was clad with mail, the Republic was naked; the <i>coup
+      d'état</i> had a speaking trumpet, the Republic wore a gag.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What was to be done?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The raid against the Republic, against the Assembly, against Right,
+      against Law, against Progress, against Civilization, was commanded by
+      African generals. These heroes had just proved that they were cowards.
+      They had taken their precautions well. Fear alone can engender so much
+      skill. They had arrested all the men of war of the Assembly, and all the
+      men of action of the Left, Baune, Charles Lagrange, Miot, Valentin,
+      Nadaud, Cholat. Add to this that all the possible chiefs of the barricades
+      were in prison. The organizers of the ambuscade had carefully left at
+      liberty Jules Favre, Michel de Bourges, and myself, judging us to be less
+      men of action than of the Tribune; wishing to leave the Left men capable
+      of resistance, but incapable of victory, hoping to dishonor us if we did
+      not fight, and to shoot us if we did fight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nevertheless, no one hesitated. The deliberation began. Other
+      representatives arrived every minute, Edgar Quinet, Doutre, Pelletier,
+      Cassal, Bruckner, Baudin, Chauffour. The room was full, some were seated,
+      most were standing, in confusion, but without tumult.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was the first to speak.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I said that the struggle ought to be begun at once. Blow for blow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That it was my opinion that the hundred and fifty Representatives of the
+      Left should put on their scarves of office, should march in procession
+      through the streets and the boulevards as far as the Madeleine, and crying
+      "Vive la République! Vive la Constitution!" should appear before the
+      troops, and alone, calm and unarmed, should summon Might to obey Right. If
+      the soldiers yielded, they should go to the Assembly and make an end of
+      Louis Bonaparte. If the soldiers fired upon their legislators, they should
+      disperse throughout Paris, cry "To Arms," and resort to barricades.
+      Resistance should be begun constitutionally, and if that failed, should be
+      continued revolutionarily. There was no time to be lost.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "High treason," said I, "should be seized red-handed, is a great mistake
+      to suffer such an outrage to be accepted by the hours as they elapse. Each
+      minute which passes is an accomplice, and endorses the crime. Beware of
+      that calamity called an 'Accomplished fact.' To arms!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Many warmly supported this advice, among others Edgar Quinet, Pelletier,
+      and Doutre.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Michel de Bourges seriously objected. My instinct was to begin at once,
+      his advice was to wait and see. According to him there was danger in
+      hastening the catastrophe. The <i>coup d'état</i> was organized, and the
+      People were not. They had been taken unawares. We must not indulge in
+      illusion. The masses could not stir yet. Perfect calm reigned in the
+      faubourgs; Surprise existed, yes; Anger, no. The people of Paris, although
+      so intelligent, did not understand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Michel added, "We are not in 1830. Charles X., in turning out the 221,
+      exposed himself to this blow, the re-election of the 221. We are not in
+      the same situation. The 221 were popular. The present Assembly is not: a
+      Chamber which has been insultingly dissolved is always sure to conquer, if
+      the People support it. Thus the People rose in 1830. To-day they wait.
+      They are dupes until they shall be victims." Michel de Bourges concluded,
+      "The People must be given time to understand, to grow angry, to rise. As
+      for us, Representative, we should be rash to precipitate the situation. If
+      we were to march immediately straight upon the troops, we should only be
+      shot to no purpose, and the glorious insurrection for Right would thus be
+      beforehand deprived of its natural leaders&mdash;the Representatives of
+      the People. We should decapitate the popular army. Temporary delay, on the
+      contrary, would be beneficial. Too much zeal must be guarded against,
+      self-restraint is necessary, to give way would be to lose the battle
+      before having begun it. Thus, for example, we must not attend the meeting
+      announced by the Right for noon, all those who went there would be
+      arrested. We must remain free, we must remain in readiness, we must remain
+      calm, and must act waiting the advent of the People. Four days of this
+      agitation without fighting would weary the army." Michel, however, advised
+      a beginning, but simply by placarding Article 68 of the Constitution. But
+      where should a printer be found?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Michel de Bourges spoke with an experience of revolutionary procedure
+      which was wanting in me. For many years past he had acquired a certain
+      practical knowledge of the masses. His council was wise. It must be added
+      that all the information which came to us seconded him, and appeared
+      conclusive against me. Paris was dejected.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The army of the <i>coup d'état</i> invaded her peaceably. Even the
+      placards were not torn down. Nearly all the Representatives present, even
+      the most daring, agreed with Michel's counsel, to wait and see what would
+      happen. "At night," said they, "the agitation will begin," and they
+      concluded, like Michel de Bourges, that the people must be given time to
+      understand. There would be a risk of being alone in too hasty a beginning.
+      We should not carry the people with us in the first moment. Let us leave
+      the indignation to increase little by little in their hearts. If it were
+      begun prematurely our manifestation would miscarry. These were the
+      sentiments of all. For myself, while listening to them, I felt shaken.
+      Perhaps they were right. It would be a mistake to give the signal for the
+      combat in vain. What good is the lightning which is not followed by the
+      thunderbolt?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To raise a voice, to give vent to a cry, to find a printer, there was the
+      first question. But was there still a free Press?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The brave old ex-chief of the 6th Legion, Colonel Forestier, came in. He
+      took Michel de Bourges and myself aside.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Listen," said he to us. "I come to you. I have been dismissed. I no
+      longer command my legion, but appoint me in the name of the Left, Colonel
+      of the 6th. Sign me an order and I will go at once and call them to arms.
+      In an hour the regiment will be on foot."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Colonel," answered I, "I will do more than sign an order, I will
+      accompany you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And I turned towards Charamaule, who had a carriage in waiting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Come with us," said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Forestier was sure of two majors of the 6th. We decided to drive to them
+      at once, while Michel and the other Representatives should await us at
+      Bonvalet's, in the Boulevard du Temple, near the Café Turc. There they
+      could consult together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We started.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We traversed Paris, where people were already beginning to swarm in a
+      threatening manner. The boulevards were thronged with an uneasy crowd.
+      People walked to and fro, passers-by accosted each other without any
+      previous acquaintance, a noteworthy sign of public anxiety; and groups
+      talked in loud voices at the corners of the streets. The shops were being
+      shut.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Come, this looks better," cried Charamaule.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had been wandering about the town since the morning, and he had noticed
+      with sadness the apathy of the masses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We found the two majors at home upon whom Colonel Forestier counted. They
+      were two rich linendrapers, who received us with some embarrassment. The
+      shopmen had gathered together at the windows, and watched us pass by. It
+      was mere curiosity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the meanwhile one of the two majors countermanded a journey which he
+      was going to undertake on that day, and promised us his co-operation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But," added he, "do not deceive yourselves, one can foresee that we shall
+      be cut to pieces. Few men will march out."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Colonel Forestier said to us, "Watrin, the present colonel of the 6th,
+      does not care for fighting; perhaps he will resign me the command
+      amicably. I will go and find him alone, so as to startle him the less, and
+      will join you at Bonvalet's."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Near the Porte St. Martin we left our carriage, and Charamaule and myself
+      proceeded along the boulevard on foot, in order to observe the groups more
+      closely, and more easily to judge the aspect of the crowd.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The recent levelling of the road had converted the boulevard of the Porte
+      St. Martin into a deep cutting, commanded by two embankments. On the
+      summits of these embankments were the footways, furnished with railings.
+      The carriages drove along the cutting, the foot passengers walked along
+      the footways.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Just as we reached the boulevard, a long column of infantry filed into
+      this ravine with drummers at their head. The thick waves of bayonets
+      filled the square of St. Martin, and lost themselves in the depths of the
+      Boulevard Bonne Nouvelle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An enormous and compact crowd covered the two pavements of the Boulevard
+      St. Martin. Large numbers of workmen, in their blouses, were there,
+      leaning upon the railings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the moment when the head of the column entered the defile before the
+      Theatre of the Porte St. Martin a tremendous shout of "Vive la
+      République!" came forth from every mouth as though shouted by one man. The
+      soldiers continued to advance in silence, but it might have been said that
+      their pace slackened, and many of them regarded the crowd with an air of
+      indecision. What did this cry of "Vive la République!" mean? Was it a
+      token of applause? Was it a shout of defiance?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It seemed to me at that moment that the Republic raised its brow, and that
+      the <i>coup d'état</i> hung its head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile Charamaule said to me, "You are recognized."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In fact, near the Château d'Eau the crowd surrounded me. Some young men
+      cried out, "Vive Victor Hugo!" One of them asked me, "Citizen Victor Hugo,
+      what ought we to do?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I answered, "Tear down the seditious placards of the <i>coup d'état</i>,
+      and cry 'Vive la Constitution!'"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And suppose they fire on us?" said a young workman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You will hasten to arms."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Bravo!" shouted the crowd.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I added, "Louis Bonaparte is a rebel, he has steeped himself to-day in
+      every crime. We, Representatives of the People, declare him an outlaw, but
+      there is no need for our declaration, since he is an outlaw by the mere
+      fact of his treason. Citizens, you have two hands; take in one your Right,
+      and in the other your gun and fall upon Bonaparte."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Bravo! Bravo!" again shouted the people.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A tradesman who was shutting up his shop said to me, "Don't speak so loud,
+      if they heard you talking like that, they would shoot you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, then," I replied, "you would parade my body, and my death would be
+      a boon if the justice of God could result from it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All shouted "Long live Victor Hugo!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Shout 'Long live the Constitution,'" said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A great cry of "Vive la Constitution! Vive la République;" came forth from
+      every breast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Enthusiasm, indignation, anger flashed in the faces of all. I thought
+      then, and I still think, that this, perhaps, was the supreme moment. I was
+      tempted to carry off all that crowd, and to begin the battle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Charamaule restrained me. He whispered to me,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You will bring about a useless fusillade. Every one is unarmed. The
+      infantry is only two paces from us, and see, here comes the artillery."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I looked round; in truth several pieces of cannon emerged at a quick trot
+      from the Rue de Bondy, behind the Château d'Eau.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The advice to abstain, given by Charamaule, made a deep impression on me.
+      Coming from such a man, and one so dauntless, it was certainly not to be
+      distrusted. Besides, I felt myself bound by the deliberation which had
+      just taken place at the meeting in the Rue Blanche.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I shrank before the responsibility which I should have incurred. To have
+      taken advantage of such a moment might have been victory, it might also
+      have been a massacre. Was I right? Was I wrong?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The crowd thickened around us, and it became difficult to go forward. We
+      were anxious, however, to reach the <i>rendezvous</i> at Bonvalet's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly some one touched me on the arm. It was Léopold Duras, of the <i>National</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Go no further," he whispered, "the Restaurant Bonvalet is surrounded.
+      Michel de Bourges has attempted to harangue the People, but the soldiers
+      came up. He barely succeeded in making his escape. Numerous
+      Representatives who came to the meeting have been arrested. Retrace your
+      steps. We are returning to the old <i>rendezvous</i> in the Rue Blanche. I
+      have been looking for you to tell you this."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A cab was passing; Charamaule hailed the driver. We jumped in, followed by
+      the crowd, shouting, "Vive la République! Vive Victor Hugo!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It appears that just at that moment a squadron of <i>sergents de ville</i>
+      arrived on the Boulevard to arrest me. The coachman drove off at full
+      speed. A quarter of an hour afterwards we reached the Rue Blanche.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VIII. "VIOLATION OF THE CHAMBER"
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      At seven o'clock in the morning the Pont de la Concorde was still free.
+      The large grated gate of the Palace of the Assembly was closed; through
+      the bars might be seen the flight of steps, that flight of steps whence
+      the Republic had been proclaimed on the 4th May, 1848, covered with
+      soldiers; and their piled arms might be distinguished upon the platform
+      behind those high columns, which, during the time of the Constituent
+      Assembly, after the 15th of May and the 23d June, masked small mountain
+      mortars, loaded and pointed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A porter with a red collar, wearing the livery of the Assembly, stood by
+      the little door of the grated gate. From time to time Representatives
+      arrived. The porter said, "Gentlemen, are you Representatives?" and opened
+      the door. Sometimes he asked their names.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      M. Dupin's quarters could be entered without hindrance. In the great
+      gallery, in the dining-room, in the <i>salon d'honneur</i> of the
+      Presidency, liveried attendants silently opened the doors as usual.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before daylight, immediately after the arrest of the Questors MM. Baze and
+      Leflô, M. de Panat, the only Questor who remained free, having been spared
+      or disdained as a Legitimist, awoke M. Dupin and begged him to summon
+      immediately the Representatives from their own homes. M. Dupin returned
+      this unprecedented answer, "I do not see any urgency."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Almost at the same time as M. Panat, the Representative Jerôme Bonaparte
+      had hastened thither. He had summoned M. Dupin to place himself at the
+      head of the Assembly. M. Dupin had answered, "I cannot, I am guarded."
+      Jerôme Bonaparte burst out laughing. In fact, no one had deigned to place
+      a sentinel at M. Dupin's door; they knew that it was guarded by his
+      meanness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was only later on, towards noon, that they took pity on him. They felt
+      that the contempt was too great, and allotted him two sentinels.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At half-past seven, fifteen or twenty Representatives, among whom were MM.
+      Eugène Sue, Joret, de Rességuier, and de Talhouet, met together in M.
+      Dupin's room. They also had vainly argued with M. Dupin. In the recess of
+      a window a clever member of the Majority, M. Desmousseaux de Givré, who
+      was a little deaf and exceedingly exasperated, almost quarrelled with a
+      Representative of the Right like himself whom he wrongly supposed to be
+      favorable to the <i>coup d'état</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      M. Dupin, apart from the group of Representatives, alone dressed in black,
+      his hands behind his back, his head sunk on his breast, walked up and down
+      before the fire-place, where a large fire was burning. In his own room,
+      and in his very presence, they were talking loudly about himself, yet he
+      seemed not to hear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two members of the Left came in, Benoît (du Rhône), and Crestin. Crestin
+      entered the room, went straight up to M. Dupin, and said to him,
+      "President, you know what is going on? How is it that the Assembly has not
+      yet been convened?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      M. Dupin halted, and answered, with a shrug which was habitual with him,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "There is nothing to be done."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And he resumed his walk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is enough," said M. de Rességuier.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is too much," said Eugène Sue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All the Representatives left the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the meantime the Pont de la Concorde became covered with troops. Among
+      them General Vast-Vimeux, lean, old, and little; his lank white hair
+      plastered over his temples, in full uniform, with his laced hat on his
+      head. He was laden with two huge epaulets, and displayed his scarf, not
+      that of a Representative, but of a general, which scarf, being too long,
+      trailed on the ground. He crossed the bridge on foot, shouting to the
+      soldiers inarticulate cries of enthusiasm for the Empire and the <i>coup
+      d'état</i>. Such figures as these were seen in 1814. Only instead of
+      wearing a large tri-colored, cockade, they wore a large white cockade. In
+      the main the same phenomenon; old men crying, "Long live the Past!" Almost
+      at the same moment M. de Larochejaquelein crossed the Place de la
+      Concorde, surrounded by a hundred men in blouses, who followed him in
+      silence, and with an air of curiosity. Numerous regiments of cavalry were
+      drawn up in the grand avenue of the Champs Elysées.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At eight o'clock a formidable force invested the Legislative Palace. All
+      the approaches were guarded, all the doors were shut. Some Representatives
+      nevertheless succeeded in penetrating into the interior of the Palace,
+      not, as has been wrongly stated, by the passage of the President's house
+      on the side of the Esplanade of the Invalides, but by the little door of
+      the Rue de Bourgogne, called the Black Door. This door, by what omission
+      or what connivance I do not know, remained open till noon on the 2d
+      December. The Rue de Bourgogne was nevertheless full of troops. Squads of
+      soldiers scattered here and there in the Rue de l'Université allowed
+      passers-by, who were few and far between, to use it as a thoroughfare.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Representatives who entered by the door in Rue de Bourgogne,
+      penetrated as far as the Salle des Conférences, where they met their
+      colleagues coming out from M. Dupin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A numerous group of men, representing every shade of opinion in the
+      Assembly, was speedily assembled in this hall, amongst whom were MM.
+      Eugène Sue, Richardet, Fayolle, Joret, Marc Dufraisse, Benoît (du Rhône),
+      Canet, Gambon, d'Adelsward, Créqu, Répellin, Teillard-Latérisse, Rantion,
+      General Leydet, Paulin Durrieu, Chanay, Brilliez, Collas (de la Gironde),
+      Monet, Gaston, Favreau, and Albert de Rességuier.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Each new-comer accosted M. de Panat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Where are the vice-Presidents?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "In prison."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And the two other Questors?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Also in prison. And I beg you to believe, gentlemen," added M. de Panat,
+      "that I have had nothing to do with the insult which has been offered me,
+      in not arresting me."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Indignation was at its height; every political shade was blended in the
+      same sentiment of contempt and anger, and M. de Rességuier was no less
+      energetic than Eugène Sue. For the first time the Assembly seemed only to
+      have one heart and one voice. Each at length said what he thought of the
+      man of the Elysée, and it was then seen that for a long time past Louis
+      Bonaparte had imperceptibly created a profound unanimity in the Assembly&mdash;the
+      unanimity of contempt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      M. Collas (of the Gironde) gesticulated and told his story. He came from
+      the Ministry of the Interior. He had seen M. de Morny, he had spoken to
+      him; and he, M. Collas, was incensed beyond measure at M. Bonaparte's
+      crime. Since then, that Crime has made him Councillor of State.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      M. de Panat went hither and thither among the groups, announcing to the
+      Representatives that he had convened the Assembly for one o'clock. But it
+      was impossible to wait until that hour. Time pressed. At the Palais
+      Bourbon, as in the Rue Blanche, it was the universal feeling that each
+      hour which passed by helped to accomplish the <i>coup d'état</i>. Every
+      one felt as a reproach the weight of his silence or of his inaction; the
+      circle of iron was closing in, the tide of soldiers rose unceasingly, and
+      silently invaded the Palace; at each instant a sentinel the more was found
+      at a door, which a moment before had been free. Still, the group of
+      Representatives assembled together in the Salle des Conférences was as yet
+      respected. It was necessary to act, to speak, to deliberate, to struggle,
+      and not to lose a minute.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Gambon said, "Let us try Dupin once more; he is our official man, we have
+      need of him." They went to look for him. They could not find him. He was
+      no longer there, he had disappeared, he was away, hidden, crouching,
+      cowering, concealed, he had vanished, he was buried. Where? No one knew.
+      Cowardice has unknown holes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly a man entered the hall. A man who was a stranger to the Assembly,
+      in uniform, wearing the epaulet of a superior officer and a sword by his
+      side. He was a major of the 42d, who came to summon the Representatives to
+      quit their own House. All, Royalists and Republicans alike, rushed upon
+      him. Such was the expression of an indignant eye-witness. General Leydet
+      addressed him in language such as leaves an impression on the cheek rather
+      than on the ear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I do my duty, I fulfil my instructions," stammered the officer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You are an idiot, if you think you are doing your duty," cried Leydet to
+      him, "and you are a scoundrel if you know that you are committing a crime.
+      Your name? What do you call yourself? Give me your name."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The officer refused to give his name, and replied, "So, gentlemen, you
+      will not withdraw?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I shall go and obtain force."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Do so."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He left the room, and in actual fact went to obtain orders from the
+      Ministry of the Interior.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Representatives waited in that kind of indescribable agitation which
+      might be called the Strangling of Right by Violence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In a short time one of them who had gone out came back hastily, and warned
+      them that two companies of the <i>Gendarmerie Mobile</i> were coming with
+      their guns in their hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Marc Dufraisse cried out, "Let the outrage be thorough. Let the <i>coup
+      d'état</i> find us on our seats. Let us go to the Salle des Séances," he
+      added. "Since things have come to such a pass, let us afford the genuine
+      and living spectacle of an 18th Brumaire."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They all repaired to the Hall of Assembly. The passage was free. The Salle
+      Casimir-Périer was not yet occupied by the soldiers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They numbered about sixty. Several were girded with their scarves of
+      office. They entered the Hall meditatively.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There, M. de Rességuier, undoubtedly with a good purpose, and in order to
+      form a more compact group, urged that they should all install themselves
+      on the Right side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No," said Marc Dufraisse, "every one to his bench." They scattered
+      themselves about the Hall, each in his usual place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      M. Monet, who sat on one of the lower benches of the Left Centre, held in
+      his hand a copy of the Constitution.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Several minutes elapsed. No one spoke. It was the silence of expectation
+      which precedes decisive deeds and final crises, and during which every one
+      seems respectfully to listen to the last instructions of his conscience.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly the soldiers of the <i>Gendarmerie Mobile</i>, headed by a
+      captain with his sword drawn, appeared on the threshold. The Hall of
+      Assembly was violated. The Representatives rose from their seats
+      simultaneously, shouting "Vive la République!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Representative Monet alone remained standing, and in a loud and
+      indignant voice, which resounded through the empty hall like a trumpet,
+      ordered the soldiers to halt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The soldiers halted, looking at the Representatives with a bewildered air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The soldiers as yet only blocked up the lobby of the Left, and had not
+      passed beyond the Tribune.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then the Representative Monet read the Articles 36, 37, and 68 of the
+      Constitution.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Articles 36 and 37 established the inviolability of the Representatives.
+      Article 68 deposed the President in the event of treason.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That moment was a solemn one. The soldiers listened in silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Articles having been read, Representative d'Adelsward, who sat on the
+      first lower bench of the Left, and who was nearest to the soldiers, turned
+      towards them and said,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Soldiers, you see that the President of the Republic is a traitor, and
+      would make traitors of you. You violate the sacred precinct of rational
+      Representation. In the name of the Constitution, in the name of the Law,
+      we order you to withdraw."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While Adelsward was speaking, the major commanding the <i>Gendarmerie
+      Mobile</i> had entered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Gentlemen," said he, "I have orders to request you to retire, and, if you
+      do not withdraw of your own accord, to expel you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Orders to expel us!" exclaimed Adelsward; and all the Representatives
+      added, "Whose orders; Let us see the orders. Who signed the orders?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The major drew forth a paper and unfolded it. Scarcely had he unfolded it
+      than he attempted to replace it in his pocket, but General Leydet threw
+      himself upon him and seized his arm. Several Representatives leant
+      forward, and read the order for the expulsion of the Assembly, signed
+      "Fortoul, Minister of the Marine."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Marc Dufraisse turned towards the <i>Gendarmes Mobiles</i>, and cried out
+      to them,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Soldiers, your very presence here is an act of treason. Leave the Hall!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The soldiers seemed undecided. Suddenly a second column emerged from the
+      door on the right, and at a signal from the commander, the captain
+      shouted,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Forward! Turn them all out!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then began an indescribable hand-to-hand fight between the gendarmes and
+      the legislators. The soldiers, with their guns in their hands, invaded the
+      benches of the Senate. Repellin, Chanay, Rantion, were forcibly torn from
+      their seats. Two gendarmes rushed upon Marc Dufraisse, two upon Gambon. A
+      long struggle took place on the first bench of the Right, the same place
+      where MM. Odilon Barrot and Abbatucci were in the habit of sitting. Paulin
+      Durrieu resisted violence by force, it needed three men to drag him from
+      his bench. Monet was thrown down upon the benches of the Commissaries.
+      They seized Adelsward by the throat, and thrust him outside the Hall.
+      Richardet, a feeble man, was thrown down and brutally treated. Some were
+      pricked with the points of the bayonets; nearly all had their clothes
+      torn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The commander shouted to the soldiers, "Rake them out."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was thus that sixty Representatives of the People were taken by the
+      collar by the <i>coup d'état</i>, and driven from their seats. The manner
+      in which the deed was executed completed the treason. The physical
+      performance was worthy of the moral performance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The three last to come out were Fayolle, Teillard-Latérisse, and Paulin
+      Durrieu.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They were allowed to pass by the great door of the Palace, and they found
+      themselves in the Place Bourgogne.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Place Bourgogne was occupied by the 42d Regiment of the Line, under
+      the orders of Colonel Garderens.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Between the Palace and the statue of the Republic, which occupied the
+      centre of the square, a piece of artillery was pointed at the Assembly
+      opposite the great door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By the side of the cannon some Chasseurs de Vincennes were loading their
+      guns and biting their cartridges.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Colonel Garderens was on horseback near a group of soldiers, which
+      attracted the attention of the Representatives Teillard-Latérisse,
+      Fayolle, and Paulin Durrieu.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the middle of this group three men, who had been arrested, were
+      struggling crying, "Long live the Constitution! Vive la République!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fayolle, Paulin Durrieu, and Teillard-Latérisse approached, and recognized
+      in the three prisoners three members of the majority, Representatives
+      Toupet-des-Vignes Radoubt, Lafosse, and Arbey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Representative Arbey was warmly protesting. As he raised his voice,
+      Colonel Garderens cut him short with these words, which are worthy of
+      preservation,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Hold your tongue! One word more, and I will have you thrashed with the
+      butt-end of a musket."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The three Representatives of the Left indignantly called on the Colonel to
+      release their colleagues.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Colonel," said Fayolle, "You break the law threefold."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I will break it sixfold," answered the Colonel, and he arrested Fayolle,
+      Durrieu, and Teillard-Latérisse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The soldiery were ordered to conduct them to the guard house of the Palace
+      then being built for the Minister of Foreign Affairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the way the six prisoners, marching between a double file of bayonets,
+      met three of their colleagues Representatives Eugène Sue, Chanay, and
+      Benoist (du Rhône).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Eugène Sue placed himself before the officer who commanded the detachment,
+      and said to him,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We summon you to set our colleagues at liberty."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I cannot do so," answered the officer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "In that case complete your crimes," said Eugène Sue, "We summon you to
+      arrest us also."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The officer arrested them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They were taken to the guard-house of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs,
+      and, later on, to the barracks of the Quai d'Orsay. It was not till night
+      that two companies of the line came to transfer them to this ultimate
+      resting-place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While placing them between his soldiers the commanding officer bowed down
+      to the ground, politely remarking, "Gentlemen, my men's guns are loaded."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The clearance of the hall was carried out, as we have said, in a
+      disorderly fashion, the soldiers pushing the Representatives before them
+      through all the outlets.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Some, and amongst the number those of whom we have just spoken, wens out
+      by the Rue de Bourgogne, others were dragged through the Salle des Pas
+      Perdus towards the grated door opposite the Pont de la Concorde.<a
+      href="#linknoteref-3" name="linknote-3" id="linknote-3"><small>3</small></a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Salle des Pas Perdus has an ante-chamber, a sort of crossway room,
+      upon which opened the staircase of the High Tribune, and several doors,
+      amongst others the great glass door of the gallery which leads to the
+      apartments of the President of the Assembly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As soon as they had reached this crossway room which adjoins the little
+      rotunda, where the side door of exit to the Palace is situated, the
+      soldiers set the Representatives free.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There, in a few moments, a group was formed, in which the Representatives
+      Canet and Favreau began to speak. One universal cry was raised, "Let us
+      search for Dupin, let us drag him here if it is necessary."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They opened the glass door and rushed into the gallery. This time M. Dupin
+      was at home. M. Dupin, having learnt that the gendarmes had cleared out
+      the Hall, had come out of his hiding-place. The Assembly being thrown
+      prostrate, Dupin stood erect. The law being made prisoner, this man felt
+      himself set free.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The group of Representatives, led by MM. Canet and Favreau, found him in
+      his study.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There a dialogue ensued. The Representatives summoned the President to put
+      himself at their head, and to re-enter the Hall, he, the man of the
+      Assembly, with them, the men of the Nation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      M. Dupin refused point-blank, maintained his ground, was very firm, and
+      clung bravely to his nonentity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What do you want me to do?" said he, mingling with his alarmed protests
+      many law maxims and Latin quotations, an instinct of chattering jays, who
+      pour forth all their vocabulary when they are frightened. "What do you
+      want me to do? Who am I? What can I do? I am nothing. No one is any longer
+      anything. <i>Ubi nihil, nihil</i>. Might is there. Where there is Might
+      the people lose their Rights. <i>Novus nascitur ordo</i>. Shape your
+      course accordingly. I am obliged to submit. <i>Dura lex, sed lex</i>. A
+      law of necessity we admit, but not a law of right. But what is to be done?
+      I ask to be let alone. I can do nothing. I do what I can. I am not wanting
+      in good will. If I had a corporal and four men, I would have them killed."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This man only recognizes force," said the Representatives. "Very well,
+      let us employ force."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They used violence towards him, they girded him with a scarf like a cord
+      round his neck, and, as they had said, they dragged him towards the Hall,
+      begging for his "liberty," moaning, kicking&mdash;I would say wrestling,
+      if the word were not too exalted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Some minutes after the clearance, this Salle des Pas Perdus, which had
+      just witnessed Representatives pass by in the clutch of gendarmes, saw M.
+      Dupin in the clutch of the Representatives.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They did not get far. Soldiers barred the great green folding-doors.
+      Colonel Espinasse hurried thither, the commander of the gendarmerie came
+      up. The butt-ends of a pair of pistols were seen peeping out of the
+      commander's pocket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The colonel was pale, the commander was pale, M. Dupin was livid. Both
+      sides were afraid. M. Dupin was afraid of the colonel; the colonel
+      assuredly was not afraid of M. Dupin, but behind this laughable and
+      miserable figure he saw a terrible phantom rise up&mdash;his crime, and he
+      trembled. In Homer there is a scene where Nemesis appears behind
+      Thersites.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      M. Dupin remained for some moments stupefied, bewildered and speechless.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Representative Gambon exclaimed to him,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Now then, speak, M. Dupin, the Left does not interrupt you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, with the words of the Representatives at his back, and the bayonets
+      of the soldiers at his breast, the unhappy man spoke. What his mouth
+      uttered at this moment, what the President of the Sovereign Assembly of
+      France stammered to the gendarmes at this intensely critical moment, no
+      one could gather.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Those who heard the last gasps of this moribund cowardice, hastened to
+      purify their ears. It appears, however, that he stuttered forth something
+      like this:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You are Might, you have bayonets; I invoke Right and I leave you. I have
+      the honor to wish you good day."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He went away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They let him go. At the moment of leaving he turned round and let fall a
+      few more words. We will not gather them up. History has no rag-picker's
+      basket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a href="#linknote-3" name="linknoteref-3" id="linknoteref-3_"><small>3</small></a>
+      <i>This grated door was closed on December 2, and was not reopened until
+      the 12th March, when M. Louis Bonaparte came to inspect the works of the
+      Hall of the Corps Legislatif.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IX. AN END WORSE THAN DEATH
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      We should have been glad to have put aside, never to have spoken of him
+      again, this man who had borne for three years this most honorable title,
+      President of the National Assembly of France, and who had only known how
+      to be lacquey to the majority. He contrived in his last hour to sink even
+      lower than could have been believed possible even for him. His career in
+      the Assembly had been that of a valet, his end was that of a scullion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The unprecedented attitude that M. Dupin assumed before the gendarmes when
+      uttering with a grimace his mockery of a protest, even engendered
+      suspicion. Gambion exclaimed, "He resists like an accomplice. He knew
+      all."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We believe these suspicions to be unjust. M. Dupin knew nothing. Who
+      indeed amongst the organizers of the <i>coup d'état</i> would have taken
+      the trouble to make sure of his joining them? Corrupt M. Dupin? was it
+      possible? and, further, to what purpose? To pay him? Why? It would be
+      money wasted when fear alone was enough. Some connivances are secured
+      before they are sought for. Cowardice is the old fawner upon felony. The
+      blood of the law is quickly wiped up. Behind the assassin who holds the
+      poniard comes the trembling wretch who holds the sponge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dupin took refuge in his study. They followed him. "My God!" he cried,
+      "can't they understand that I want to be left in peace."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In truth they had tortured him ever since the morning, in order to extract
+      from him an impossible scrap of courage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You ill-treat me worse than the gendarmes," said he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Representatives installed themselves in his study, seated themselves
+      at his table, and, while he groaned and scolded in an arm-chair, they drew
+      up a formal report of what had just taken place, as they wished to leave
+      an official record of the outrage in the archives.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the official report was ended Representative Canet read it to the
+      President, and offered him a pen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What do you want me to do with this?" he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You are the President," answered Canet. "This is our last sitting. It is
+      your duty to sign the official report."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This man refused.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER X. THE BLACK DOOR
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      M. Dupin is a matchless disgrace.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Later on he had his reward. It appears that he became some sort of an
+      Attorney-General at the Court of Appeal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      M. Dupin renders to Louis Bonaparte the service of being in his place the
+      meanest of men.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To continue this dismal history.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Representatives of the Right, in their first bewilderment caused by
+      the <i>coup d'état</i>, hastened in large numbers to M. Daru, who was
+      Vice-President of the Assembly, and at the same time one of the Presidents
+      of the Pyramid Club. This Association had always supported the policy of
+      the Elysée, but without believing that a <i>coup d'état</i> was
+      premeditated. M. Daru lived at No. 75, Rue de Lille.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Towards ten o'clock in the morning about a hundred of these
+      Representatives had assembled at M. Daru's home. They resolved to attempt
+      to penetrate into the Hall where the Assembly held its sittings. The Rue
+      de Lille opens out into the Rue de Bourgogne, almost opposite the little
+      door by which the Palace is entered, and which is called the Black Door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They turned their steps towards this door, with M. Daru at their head.
+      They marched arm in arm and three abreast. Some of them had put on their
+      scarves of office. They took them off later on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Black Door, half-open as usual, was only guarded by two sentries.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Some of the most indignant, and amongst them M. de Kerdrel, rushed towards
+      this door and tried to pass. The door, however, was violently shut, and
+      there ensued between the Representatives and the <i>sergents de ville</i>
+      who hastened up, a species of struggle, in which a Representative had his
+      wrist sprained.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the same time a battalion which was drawn up on the Place de Bourgogne
+      moved on, and came at the double towards the group of Representatives. M.
+      Daru, stately and firm, signed to the commander to stop; the battalion
+      halted, and M. Daru, in the name of the Constitution, and in his capacity
+      as Vice-President of the Assembly, summoned the soldiers to lay down their
+      arms, and to give free passage to the Representatives of the Sovereign
+      People.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The commander of the battalion replied by an order to clear the street
+      immediately, declaring that there was no longer an Assembly; that as for
+      himself, he did not know what the Representatives of the People were, and
+      that if those persons before him did not retire of their own accord, he
+      would drive them back by force.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We will only yield to violence," said M. Daru.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You commit high treason," added M. de Kerdrel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The officer gave the order to charge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The soldiers advanced in close order.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a moment of confusion; almost a collision. The Representatives,
+      forcibly driven back, ebbed into the Rue de Lille. Some of them fell down.
+      Several members of the Right were rolled in the mud by the soldiers. One
+      of them, M. Etienne, received a blow on the shoulder from the butt-end of
+      a musket. We may here add that a week afterwards M. Etienne was a member
+      of that concern which they styled the Consultative Committee. He found the
+      <i>coup d'état</i> to his taste, the blow with the butt-end of a musket
+      included.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They went back to M. Daru's house, and on the way the scattered group
+      reunited, and was even strengthened by some new-comers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Gentlemen," said M. Daru, "the President has failed us, the Hall is
+      closed against us. I am the Vice-President; my house is the Palace of the
+      Assembly."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He opened a large room, and there the Representatives of the Right
+      installed themselves. At first the discussions were somewhat noisy. M.
+      Daru, however, observed that the moments were precious, and silence was
+      restored.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first measure to be taken was evidently the deposition of the
+      President of the Republic by virtue of Article 68 of the Constitution.
+      Some Representatives of the party which was called <i>Burgraves</i> sat
+      round a table and prepared the deed of deposition.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As they were about to read it aloud a Representative who came in from out
+      of doors appeared at the door of the room, and announced to the Assembly
+      that the Rue de Lille was becoming filled with troops, and that the house
+      was being surrounded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was not a moment to lose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      M. Benoist-d'Azy said, "Gentlemen, let us go to the Mairie of the tenth
+      arrondissement; there we shall be able to deliberate under the protection
+      of the tenth legion, of which our colleague, General Lauriston, is the
+      colonel."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      M. Daru's house had a back entrance by a little door which was at the
+      bottom of the garden. Most of the Representatives went out that way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      M. Daru was about to follow them. Only himself, M. Odilon Barrot, and two
+      or three others remained in the room, when the door opened. A captain
+      entered, and said to M. Daru,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sir, you are my prisoner."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Where am I to follow you?" asked M. Daru.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I have orders to watch over you in your own house."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The house, in truth, was militarily occupied, and it was thus that M. Daru
+      was prevented from taking part in the sitting at the Mairie of the tenth
+      arrondissement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The officer allowed M. Odilon Barrot to go out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XI. THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      While all this was taking place on the left bank of the river, towards
+      noon a man was noticed walking up and down the great Salles des Pas Perdus
+      of the Palace of Justice. This man, carefully buttoned up in an overcoat,
+      appeared to be attended at a distance by several possible supporters&mdash;for
+      certain police enterprises employ assistants whose dubious appearance
+      renders the passers-by uneasy, so much so that they wonder whether they
+      are magistrates or thieves. The man in the buttoned-up overcoat loitered
+      from door to door, from lobby to lobby, exchanging signs of intelligence
+      with the myrmidons who followed him; then came back to the great Hall,
+      stopping on the way the barristers, solicitors, ushers, clerks, and
+      attendants, and repeating to all in a low voice, so as not to be heard by
+      the passers-by, the same question. To this question some answered "Yes,"
+      others replied "No." And the man set to work again, prowling about the
+      Palace of Justice with the appearance of a bloodhound seeking the trail.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was a Commissary of the Arsenal Police.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What was he looking for?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The High Court of Justice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What was the High Court of Justice doing?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was hiding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Why? To sit in Judgment?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yes and no.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Commissary of the Arsenal Police had that morning received from the
+      Prefect Maupas the order to search everywhere for the place where the High
+      Court of Justice might be sitting, if perchance it thought it its duty to
+      meet. Confusing the High Court with the Council of State, the Commissary
+      of Police had first gone to the Quai d'Orsay. Having found nothing, not
+      even the Council of State, he had come away empty-handed, at all events
+      had turned his steps towards the Palace of Justice, thinking that as he
+      had to search for justice he would perhaps find it there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not finding it, he went away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The High Court, however, had nevertheless met together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Where, and how? We shall see.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the period whose annals we are now chronicling, before the present
+      reconstruction of the old buildings of Paris, when the Palace of Justice
+      was reached by the Cour de Harlay, a staircase the reverse of majestic led
+      thither by turning out into a long corridor called the Gallerie Mercière.
+      Towards the middle of this corridor there were two doors; one on the
+      right, which led to the Court of Appeal, the other on the left, which led
+      to the Court of Cassation. The folding-doors to the left opened upon an
+      old gallery called St. Louis, recently restored, and which serves at the
+      present time for a Salle des Pas Perdus to the barristers of the Court of
+      Cassation. A wooden statue of St. Louis stood opposite the entrance door.
+      An entrance contrived in a niche to the right of this statue led into a
+      winding lobby ending in a sort of blind passage, which apparently was
+      closed by two double doors. On the door to the right might be read "First
+      President's Room;" on the door to the left, "Council Chamber." Between
+      these two doors, for the convenience of the barristers going from the Hall
+      to the Civil Chamber, which formerly was the Great Chamber of Parliament,
+      had been formed a narrow and dark passage, in which, as one of them
+      remarked, "every crime could be committed with impunity."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Leaving on one side the First President's Room and opening the door which
+      bore the inscription "Council Chamber," a large room was crossed,
+      furnished with a huge horse-shoe table, surrounded by green chairs. At the
+      end of this room, which in 1793 had served as a deliberating hall for the
+      juries of the Revolutionary Tribunal, there was a door placed in the
+      wainscoting, which led into a little lobby where were two doors, on the
+      right the door of the room appertaining to the President of the Criminal
+      Chamber, on the left the door of the Refreshment Room. "Sentenced to
+      death!&mdash;Now let us go and dine!" These two ideas, Death and Dinner,
+      have jostled against each other for centuries. A third door closed the
+      extremity of this lobby. This door was, so to speak, the last of the
+      Palace of Justice, the farthest off, the least known, the most hidden; it
+      opened into what was called the Library of the Court of Cassation, a large
+      square room lighted by two windows overlooking the great inner yard of the
+      Concièrgerie, furnished with a few leather chairs, a large table covered
+      with green cloth, and with law books lining the walls from the floor to
+      the ceiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This room, as may be seen, is the most secluded and the best hidden of any
+      in the Palace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was here,&mdash;in this room, that there arrived successively on the 2d
+      December, towards eleven o'clock in the morning, numerous men dressed in
+      black, without robes, without badges of office, affrighted, bewildered,
+      shaking their heads, and whispering together. These trembling men were the
+      High Court of Justice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The High Court of Justice, according to the terms of the Constitution, was
+      composed of seven magistrates; a President, four Judges, and two
+      Assistants, chosen by the Court of Cassation from among its own members
+      and renewed every year.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In December, 1851, these seven judges were named Hardouin, Pataille,
+      Moreau, Delapalme, Cauchy, Grandet, and Quesnault, the two last-named
+      being Assistants.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These men, almost unknown, had nevertheless some antecedents. M. Cauchy, a
+      few years previously President of the Chamber of the Royal Court of Paris,
+      an amiable man and easily frightened, was the brother of the
+      mathematician, member of the Institute, to whom we owe the computation of
+      waves of sound, and of the ex-Registrar Archivist of the Chamber of Peers.
+      M. Delapalme had been Advocate-General, and had taken a prominent part in
+      the Press trials under the Restoration; M. Pataille had been Deputy of the
+      Centre under the Monarchy of July; M. Moreau (de la Seine) was noteworthy,
+      inasmuch he had been nicknamed "de la Seine" to distinguish him from M.
+      Moreau (de la Meurthe), who on his side was noteworthy, inasmuch as he had
+      been nicknamed "de la Meurthe" to distinguish him from M. Moreau (de la
+      Seine). The first Assistant, M. Grandet, had been President of the Chamber
+      at Paris. I have read this panegyric of him: "He is known to possess no
+      individuality or opinion of his own whatsoever." The second Assistant, M.
+      Quesnault, a Liberal, a Deputy, a Public Functionary, Advocate-General, a
+      Conservative, learned, obedient, had attained by making a stepping-stone
+      of each of these attributes, to the Criminal Chamber of the Court of
+      Cassation, where he was known as one of the most severe members. 1848 had
+      shocked his notion of Right, he had resigned after the 24th of February;
+      he did not resign after the 2d December.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      M. Hardouin, who presided over the High Court, was an ex-President of
+      Assizes, a religious man, a rigid Jansenist, noted amongst his colleagues
+      as a "scrupulous magistrate," living in Port Royal, a diligent reader of
+      Nicolle, belonging to the race of the old Parliamentarians of the Marais,
+      who used to go to the Palais de Justice mounted on a mule; the mule had
+      now gone out of fashion, and whoever visited President Hardouin would have
+      found no more obstinacy in his stable than in his conscience.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the morning of the 2d December, at nine o'clock, two men mounted the
+      stairs of M. Hardouin's house, No. 10, Rue de Condé, and met together at
+      his door. One was M. Pataille; the other, one of the most prominent
+      members of the bar of the Court of Cassation, was the ex-Constituent
+      Martin (of Strasbourg). M. Pataille had just placed himself at M.
+      Hardouin's disposal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Martin's first thought, while reading the placards of the <i>coup d'état</i>,
+      had been for the High Court. M. Hardouin ushered M. Pataille into a room
+      adjoining his study, and received Martin (of Strasbourg) as a man to whom
+      he did not wish to speak before witnesses. Being formally requested by
+      Martin (of Strasbourg) to convene the High Court, he begged that he would
+      leave him alone, declared that the High Court would "do its duty," but
+      that first he must "confer with his colleagues," concluding with this
+      expression, "It shall be done to-day or to-morrow." "To-day or to-morrow!"
+      exclaimed Martin (of Strasbourg); "Mr. President, the safety of the
+      Republic, the safety of the country, perhaps, depends on what the High
+      Court will or will not do. Your responsibility is great; bear that in
+      mind. The High Court of Justice does not do its duty to-day or to-morrow;
+      it does it at once, at the moment, without losing a minute, without an
+      instant's hesitation."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Martin (of Strasbourg) was right, Justice always belongs to To-day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Martin (of Strasbourg) added, "If you want a man for active work, I am at
+      your service." M. Hardouin declined the offer; declared that he would not
+      lose a moment, and begged Martin (of Strasbourg) to leave him to "confer"
+      with his colleague, M. Pataille.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In fact, he called together the High Court for eleven o'clock, and it was
+      settled that the meeting should take place in the Hall of the Library.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Judges were punctual. At a quarter-past eleven they were all
+      assembled. M. Pataille arrived the last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They sat at the end of the great green table. They were alone in the
+      Library.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was no ceremonial. President Hardouin thus opened the debate:
+      "Gentlemen, there is no need to explain the situation, we all know what it
+      is."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Article 68 of the Constitution was imperative. It was necessary that the
+      High Court should meet <i>under penalty of high treason</i>. They gained
+      time, they swore themselves in, they appointed as Recorder of the High
+      Court M. Bernard, Recorder of the Court of Cassation, and they sent to
+      fetch him, and while waiting requested the librarian, M. Denevers, to hold
+      his pen in readiness. They settled the time and place for an evening
+      meeting. They talked of the conduct of the Constituent Martin (of
+      Strasbourg), with which they were offended, regarding it almost as a nudge
+      of the elbow given by Politics to Justice. They spoke a little of
+      Socialism, of the Mountain, and of the Red Republic, and a little also of
+      the judgment which they had to pronounce. They chatted, they told stories,
+      they found fault, they speculated, they spun out the time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What were they waiting for?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We have related what the Commissary of police was doing for his part in
+      his department.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And, in reference to this design, when the accomplices of the <i>coup
+      d'état</i> considered that the people in order to summon the High Court to
+      do its duty, could invade the Palace of Justice, and that they would never
+      look for it where it was assembled, they felt that this room had been
+      excellently chosen. When, however, they considered that the police would
+      also doubtless come to expel the High Court, and that perhaps they would
+      not succeed in finding it, each one regretted to himself the choice of the
+      room. They wished to hide the High Court, they had succeeded too well. It
+      was grievous to think that perhaps when the police and the armed force
+      should arrive, matters would have gone too far, and the High Court would
+      be too deeply compromised.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They had appointed a Recorder, now they must organize a Court. A second
+      step, more serious than the first.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The judges delayed, hoping that fortune would end by deciding on one side
+      or the other, either for the Assembly or for the President, either against
+      the <i>coup d'état</i> or for it, and that there might thus be a
+      vanquished party, so that the High Court could then with all safety lay
+      its hands upon somebody.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They lengthily argued the question, whether they should immediately decree
+      the accusation of the President, or whether they should draw up a simple
+      order of inquiry. The latter course was adopted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They drew up a judgment, not the honest and outspoken judgment which was
+      placarded by the efforts of the Representatives of the Left and published,
+      in which are found these words of bad taste, <i>Crime</i> and <i>High
+      Treason</i>; this judgment, a weapon of war, has never existed otherwise
+      than as a projectile. Wisdom in a judge sometimes consists in drawing up a
+      judgment which is not one, one of those judgments which has no binding
+      force, in which everything is conditional; in which no one is
+      incriminated, and nothing, is called by its right name. There are species
+      of intermediate courses which allow of waiting and seeing; in delicate
+      crises men who are in earnest must not inconsiderately mingle with
+      possible events that bluntness which is called Justice. The High Court
+      took advantage of this, it drew up a prudent judgment; this judgment is
+      not known; it is published here for the first time. Here it is. It is a
+      masterpiece of equivocal style:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  EXTRACT FROM THE REGISTRY OF THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE.
+
+  "The High Court of Justice.
+
+  "According to Article 68 of the Constitution, considering that
+  printed placards beginning with these words, 'The President of the
+  Republic' and ending with the signatures, 'Louis Napoléon Bonaparte'
+  and 'De Morny, Minister of the Interior,' the said placards ordaining
+  amongst other measures the dissolution of the National Assembly, have
+  been posted to-day on the walls of Paris, that this fact of the
+  dissolution of the National Assembly by the President of the Republic
+  would be of the nature to constitute the case provided for by Article
+  68 of the Constitution, and renders, in the terms of the aforesaid
+  article, the meeting of the High Court indispensable.
+
+  "It is declared that the High Court of Justice is organized, that it
+  appoints<a href="#linknoteref-4" name="linknote-4" id="linknote-4">4</a> ... to fulfil with it the functions of the Public
+  Ministry; that M. Bernard, the Recorder of the Court of Cassation,
+  should fulfil the duties of Recorder, and in order to proceed
+  further, according to the terms of the aforesaid Article 68 of the
+  Constitution, the Court will adjourn until to-morrow, the 3d of
+  December, at noon.
+
+  "Drawn up and discussed in the Council Chamber, where were sitting
+  MM. Hardouin, president, Pataille, Moreau, Delapalme, and Cauchy,
+  judges, December 2, 1851."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The two Assistants, MM. Grandet and Quesnault, offered to sign the decree,
+      but the President ruled that it would be more correct only to accept the
+      signatures of the titular judges, the Assistants not being qualified when
+      the Court was complete.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the meantime it was one o'clock, the news began to spread through the
+      palace that a decree of deposition against Louis Bonaparte had been drawn
+      up by a part of the Assembly; one of the judges who had gone out during
+      the debate, brought back this rumor to his colleagues. This coincided with
+      an outburst of energy. The President observed that it would be to the
+      purpose to appoint a Procureur-General.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a difficulty. Whom should they appoint? In all preceding trials
+      they had always chosen for a Procureur-General at the High Court the
+      Procureur-General at the Court of Appeal of Paris. Why should they
+      introduce an innovation? They determined upon this Procureur-General of
+      the Court of Appeal. This Procureur-General was at the time M. de Royer,
+      who had been keeper of the Seals for M. Bonaparte. Thence a new difficulty
+      and a long debate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Would M. de Royer consent? M. Hardouin undertook to go and make the offer
+      to him. He had only to cross the Mercière Gallery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      M. de Royer was in his study. The proposal greatly embarrassed him. He
+      remained speechless from the shock. To accept was serious, to refuse was
+      still more serious.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was risk of treason. On the 2d December, an hour after noon, the <i>coup
+      d'état</i> was still a crime. M. de Royer, not knowing whether the high
+      treason would succeed, ventured to stigmatize the deed as such in private,
+      and cast down his eyes with a noble shame before this violation of the
+      laws which, three months later, numerous purple robes, including his own,
+      endorsed with their oaths. But his indignation did not go to the extent of
+      supporting the indictment. An indictment speaks aloud. M. de Royer as yet
+      only murmured. He was perplexed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      M. Hardouin understood this state of conscience. Persistence would have
+      been unreasonable. He withdrew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He returned to the room where his colleagues were awaiting him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the meantime the Commissary of the Arsenal Police had come back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had ended by succeeding in "unearthing"&mdash;such was his expression&mdash;the
+      High Court. He penetrated as far as the Council Chamber of the Civil
+      Chamber; at that moment he had still no other escort than the few police
+      agents of the morning. A boy was passing by. The Commissary asked him the
+      whereabouts of the High Court. "The High Court?" answered the boy; "what
+      is that?" Nevertheless the boy told the Librarian, who came up. A few
+      words were exchanged between M. Denevers and the Commissary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What are you asking for?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The High Court."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Who are you?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I want the high Court."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is in session."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Where is it sitting?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Here."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And the Librarian pointed to the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Very well," said the Commissary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He did not add another word, and returned into the Mercière Gallery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We have just said that he was only accompanied at that time by a few
+      police agents.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The High Court was, in truth, in session. The President was relating to
+      the judges his visit to the Procureur General. Suddenly a tumultuous sound
+      of footsteps is heard in the lobby which leads from the Council Chamber to
+      the room where they were deliberating. The door opens abruptly. Bayonets
+      appear, and in the midst of the bayonets a man in a buttoned-up overcoat,
+      with a tricolored sash upon his coat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The magistrates stare, stupefied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Gentlemen," said the man, "dissolve your meeting immediately."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      President Hardouin rises.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What does this mean? Who are you? Are you aware to whom you are
+      speaking?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I am aware. You are the High Court, and I am the Commissary of the
+      Police."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, then?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Be off."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There were there thirty-five municipal guards, commanded by a lieutenant,
+      and with a drum at their head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But&mdash;&mdash;" said the President.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Commissary interrupted him with these words, which are literally
+      given,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Mr. President, I am not going to enter upon an oratorical combat with
+      you. I have my orders, and I transmit them to you. Obey."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Whom?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The Prefect of Police."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The President asked this strange question, which implied the acceptance of
+      an order,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Have you a warrant?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Commissary answered,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And he handed a paper to the President.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The judges turned pale.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The President unfolded the paper; M. Cauchy put his head over M.
+      Hardouin's shoulder. The President read but,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You are ordered to dissolve the High Court, and, in case of refusal, to
+      arrest MM. Béranger, Rocher, De Boissieux, Pataille, and Hello."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And, turning towards the judges, the President added,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Signed, Maupas."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, addressing himself to the Commissary, he resumed,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "There is some mistake, these are not our names. MM. Béranger, Rocher, and
+      De Boissieux have served their time and are no longer judges of the High
+      Court; as for M. Hello, he is dead."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The High Court, in reality, was temporary and renewable; the <i>coup
+      d'état</i> overthrew the Constitution, but did not understand it. The
+      warrant signed "Maupas" was applicable to the preceding High Court. The <i>coup
+      d'état</i> had been misled by an old list. Such is the heedlessness of
+      assassins.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Mr. Commissary of Police," continued the President, "you see that these
+      names are not ours."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That does not matter to me," replied the Commissary. "Whether this
+      warrant does or does not apply to you, disperse, or I shall arrest all of
+      you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And he added,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "At once."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The judges were silenced; one of them picked up from the table a loose
+      sheet of paper, which was the judgment they had drawn up, and put the
+      paper in his pocket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then they went away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Commissary pointed to the door where the bayonets were, and said,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That way."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They went out by the lobby between two ranks of soldiers. The detachment
+      of Republican Guards escorted them as far as the St. Louis Gallery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There they set them free; their heads bowed down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was about three o'clock.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While these events were taking place in the Library, close by, in the
+      former great Chamber of the Parliament, the Court of Cassation was sitting
+      in judgment as usual, without noticing what was happening so near at hand.
+      It would appear, then, that the police exhaled no odor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Let us at once have done with this High Court.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the evening at half-past seven the seven judges met together at the
+      house of one of their number, he who had taken away the decree; they
+      framed an official report, drew up a protest, and recognizing the
+      necessity of filling in the line left blank in their decree, on the
+      proposition of M. Quesnault, appointed as Procureur-General M. Renouard,
+      their colleague at the Court of Cessation. M. Renouard, who was
+      immediately informed, consented.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They met together for the last time on the next day, the 3d, at eleven
+      o'clock in the morning, an hour before the time mentioned in the judgment
+      which we have read above,&mdash;again in the Library of the Court of
+      Cassation. M. Renouard was present. An official minute was given to him,
+      recording his appointment, as well as certain details with which he asked
+      to be supplied. The judgment which had been drawn up was taken by M.
+      Quesnault to the Recorder's Office, and immediately entered upon the
+      Register of the Secret Deliberations of the Court of Cassation, the High
+      Court not having a Special Register, and having decided, from its
+      creation, to use the Register of the Court of Cassation. After the decree
+      they also transcribed the two documents described as follows on the
+      Register:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I. An official report recording the interference of the police during the
+      discussion upon the preceding decree.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      II. A minute of the appointment of M. Renouard to the office of
+      Procureur-General.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In addition seven copies of these different documents drawn up by the
+      hands of the judges themselves, and signed by them all, were put in a
+      place of safety, as also, it is said, a note-book, in which were written
+      five other secret decisions relating to the <i>coup d'état</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Does this page of the Register of the Court of Cassation exist at the
+      present time? Is it true, as has been stated, that the prefect Maupas sent
+      for the Register and tore out the leaf containing the decree? We have not
+      been able to clear up this point. The Register now is shown to no one, and
+      those employed at the Recorder's Office are dumb.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such are the facts, let us summarize them. If this Court so called "High,"
+      had been of a character to conceive such an idea as that of doing its duty&mdash;when
+      it had once met together the mere organization of itself was a matter of a
+      few minutes&mdash;it would have proceeded resolutely and rapidly, it would
+      have appointed as Procureur-General some energetic man belonging to the
+      Court of Cassation, either from the body of magistrates, such as Freslon,
+      or from the bar, like Martin (of Strasbourg). By virtue of Article 68, and
+      without waiting the initiative of the Assembly, it would have drawn up a
+      judgment stigmatizing the crime, it would have launched an order of arrest
+      against the President and his accomplices and have ordered the removal of
+      the person of Louis Bonaparte to jail. As for the Procureur-General he
+      would have issued a warrant of arrest. All this could have been done by
+      half-past eleven, and at that time no attempt had been made to dissolve
+      the High Court. These preliminary proceedings concluded, the High Court,
+      by going out through a nailed-up door leading into the Salle des Pas
+      Perdus, could have descended into the street, and there have proclaimed
+      its judgment to the people. At this time it would have met with no
+      hindrance. Finally, and this in any case, it should have sat robed on the
+      Judges' Bench, with all magisterial state, and when the police agent and
+      his soldiers appeared should have ordered the soldiers, who perhaps would
+      have obeyed them, to arrest the agent, and if the soldiers had disobeyed,
+      should have allowed themselves to be formally dragged to prison, so that
+      the people could see, under their own eyes, out in the open street, the
+      filthy hoof of the <i>coup d'état</i> trampling upon the robe of Justice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Instead of this, what steps did the High Court take? We have just seen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Be off with you!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We are going."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We can imagine, after a very different fashion, the dialogue between
+      Mathieu Molé and Vidocq.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a href="#linknote-4" name="linknoteref-4" id="linknoteref-4_"><small>4</small></a>
+      This line was left blank. It was filled in later on with the name of M.
+      Renouard, Councillor of the Court of Cassation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XII. THE MAIRIE OF THE TENTH ARRONDISSEMENT
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The Representatives, having come out from M. Daru, rejoined each other and
+      assembled in the street. There they consulted briefly, from group to
+      group. There were a large number of them. In less than an hour, by sending
+      notices to the houses on the left bank of the Seine alone, on account of
+      the extreme urgency, more than three hundred members could be called
+      together. But where should they meet? At Lemardelay's? The Rue Richelieu
+      was guarded. At the Salle Martel? It was a long way off. They relied upon
+      the Tenth Legion, of which General Lauriston was colonel. They showed a
+      preference for the Mairie of the Tenth Arrondissement. Besides, the
+      distance was short, and there was no need to cross any bridges.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They formed themselves into column, and set forth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      M. Daru, as we have said, lived in the Rue de Lille, close by the
+      Assembly. The section of the Rue de Lille lying between his house and the
+      Palais Bourbon was occupied by infantry. The last detachment barred his
+      door, but it only barred it on the right, not on the left. The
+      Representatives, on quitting M. Daru, bent their steps on the side of the
+      Rue des Saints-Pères, and left the soldiers behind them. At that moment
+      the soldiers had only been instructed to prevent their meeting in the
+      Palace of the Assembly; they could quietly form themselves into a column
+      in the street, and set forth. If they had turned to the right instead of
+      to the left, they would have been opposed. But there were no orders for
+      the other alternative; they passed through a gap in the instructions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An hour afterwards this threw St. Arnaud into a fit of fury.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On their way fresh Representatives came up and swelled the column. As the
+      members of the Right lived for the most part in the Faubourg St. Germain,
+      the column was composed almost entirely of men belonging to the majority.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the corner of the Quai d'Orsay they met a group of members of the Left,
+      who had reunited after their exit from the Palace of the Assembly, and who
+      were consulting together. There were the Representatives Esquiros, Marc
+      Dufraisse, Victor Hennequin, Colfavru, and Chamiot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Those who were marching at the head of the column left their places, went
+      up to the group, and said, "Come with us."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Where are you going?" asked Marc Dufraisse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To the Mairie of the Tenth Arrondissement."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What do you intend to do there?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "To decree the deposition of Louis Bonaparte."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And afterwards?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Afterwards we shall go in a body to the Palace of the Assembly; we will
+      force our way in spite of all resistance, and from the top of the steps we
+      will read out the decree of deposition to the soldiers."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Very good, we will join you," said Mare Dufraisse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The five members of the Left marched at some distance from the column.
+      Several of their friends who were mingled with the members of the Right
+      rejoined them; and we may here mention a fact without giving it more
+      importance than it possesses, namely, that the two fractions of the
+      Assembly represented in this unpremeditated gathering marched towards the
+      Mairie without being mingled together; one on each side of the street. It
+      chanced that the men of the majority kept on the right side of the street,
+      and the men of the minority on the left.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No one had a scarf of office. No outward token caused them to be
+      recognized. The passers-by stared at them with surprise, and did not
+      understand what was the meaning of this procession of silent men through
+      the solitary streets of the Faubourg St. Germain. One district of Paris
+      was as yet unaware of the <i>coup d'état</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Strategically speaking, from a defensive point of view, the Mairie of the
+      tenth Arrondissement was badly chosen. Situated in a narrow street in that
+      short section of the Rue de Grenelle-St.-Germain which lies between the
+      Rue des Saints-Pères and the Rue du Sépulcre, close by the cross-roads of
+      the Croix-Rouge, where the troops could arrive from so many different
+      points, the Mairie of the Tenth Arrondissement, confined, commanded, and
+      blockaded on every side, was a pitiful citadel for the assailed National
+      Representation. It is true that they no longer had the choice of a
+      citadel, any more than later on they had the choice of a general.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Their arrival at the Mairie might have seemed a good omen. The great gate
+      which leads into a square courtyard was shut; it opened. The post of the
+      National Guards, composed of some twenty men, took up their arms and
+      rendered military honors to the Assembly. The Representatives entered, a
+      Deputy Mayor received them with respect on the threshold of the Mairie.
+      "The Palace of the Assembly is closed by the troops," said the
+      Representatives, "we have come to deliberate here." The Deputy Mayor led
+      them to the first story, and admitted them to the Great Municipal Hall.
+      The National Guard cried, "Long live the National Assembly!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Representatives having entered, the door was shut. A crowd began to
+      gather in the street and shouted "Long live the Assembly!" A certain
+      number of strangers to the Assembly entered the Mairie at the same time as
+      the Representatives. Overcrowding was feared, and two sentries were placed
+      at a little side-door, which was left open, with orders only to allow
+      members of the Assembly who might come afterwards to enter. M. Howyn
+      Tranchère stationed himself at this door, and undertook to identify them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On their arrival at the Mairie, the Representatives numbered somewhat
+      under three hundred. They exceeded this number later on. It was about
+      eleven o'clock in the morning. All did not go up at once into the hall
+      where the meeting was to take place. Several, those of the Left in
+      particular, remained in the courtyard, mingling with the National Guards
+      and citizens.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They talked of what they were going to do.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was the first difficulty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Father of the meeting was M. de Kératry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Was he going to preside?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Representatives who were assembled in the Great Hall were in his
+      favor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Representatives remaining in the courtyard hesitated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Marc Dufraisse went up to MM. Jules de Lasteyrie and Léon de Maleville,
+      who had stayed behind with the Representatives of the Left, and said to
+      them, "What are they thinking of upstairs? To make Kératry President? The
+      name of Kératry would frighten the people as thoroughly as mine would
+      frighten the middle classes."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A member of the Right, M. de Keranflech, came up, and intending to support
+      the objection, added, "And then, think of Kératry's age. It is madness to
+      pit a man of eighty against this hour of danger."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Esquiros exclaimed,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That is a bad reason! Eighty years! They constitute a force."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes; where they are well borne," said Colfavru. "Kératry bears them
+      badly."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Nothing is greater," resumed Esquiros, "than great octogenarians."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is glorious," added Chamiot, "to be presided over by Nestor."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, by Gerontes,"<a href="#linknoteref-5" name="linknote-5"
+      id="linknote-5"><small>5</small></a> said Victor Hennequin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These words put an end to the debate. Kératry was thrown out. MM. Léon de
+      Maleville and Jules de Lasteyrie, two men respected by all parties,
+      undertook to make the members of the Right listen to reason. It was
+      decided that the "bureau"<a href="#linknoteref-6" name="linknote-6"
+      id="linknote-6"><small>6</small></a> should preside. Five members of the
+      "bureau" were present; two Vice-Presidents, MM. Benoist d'Azy and Vitet,
+      and three Secretaries, MM. Griumult, Chapot, and Moulin. Of the two other
+      Vice-Presidents, one, General Bedrau, was at Mazas; the other, M. Daru,
+      was under guard in his own house. Of the three other Secretaries, two, MM.
+      Peapin and Lacaze, men of the Elysée, were absentees; the other, M. Yvan,
+      a member of the Left, was at the meeting of the Left, in the Rue Blanche,
+      which was taking place almost at the same moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the meantime an usher appeared on the steps of the Mairie, and cried
+      out, as on the most peaceful days of the Assembly, "Representatives, to
+      the sitting!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This usher, who belonged to the Assembly, and who had followed it, shared
+      its fortunes throughout this day, the sequestration on the Quai d'Orsay
+      included.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the summons of the usher all the Representatives in the courtyard, and
+      amongst whom was one of the Vice-Presidents, M. Vitei, went upstairs to
+      the Hall, and the sitting was opened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This sitting was the last which the Assembly held under regular
+      conditions. The Left, which, as we have seen, had on its side boldly
+      recaptured the Legislative power, and had added to it that which
+      circumstances required&mdash;as was the duty of Revolutionists; the Left,
+      without a "bureau," without an usher, and without secretaries, held
+      sittings in which the accurate and passionless record of shorthand was
+      wanting, but which live in our memories and which History will gather up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two shorthand writers of the Assembly, MM. Grosselet and Lagache, were
+      present at the sitting at the Mairie of the Tenth Arrondissement. They
+      have been able to record it. The censorship of the victorious <i>coup
+      d'état</i> has mutilated their report and has published through its
+      historians this mangled version as the true version. One lie more. That
+      does not matter. This shorthand recital belongs to the brief of the 2d
+      December, it is one of the leading documents in the trial which the future
+      will institute. In the notes of this book will be found this document
+      complete. The passages in inverted commas are those which the censorship
+      of M. Bonaparte has suppressed. This suppression is a proof of their
+      significance and importance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Shorthand reproduces everything except life. Stenography is an ear. It
+      hears and sees not. It is therefore necessary to fill in here the
+      inevitable blanks of the shorthand account.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In order to obtain a complete idea of this sitting of the Tenth
+      Arrondissement, we must picture the great Hall of the Mairie, a sort of
+      parallelogram, lighted on the right by four or five windows overlooking
+      the courtyard; on the left, along the wall, furnished with several rows of
+      benches which had been hastily brought thither, on which were piled up the
+      three hundred Representatives, assembled together by chance. No one was
+      sitting down, those in front were standing, those behind were mounted on
+      the benches. Here and there were a few small tables. In the centre people
+      walked to and fro. At the bottom, at the end opposite the door, was a long
+      table furnished with benches, which occupied the whole width of the wall,
+      behind which sat the "bureau." "Sitting" is merely the conventional term.
+      The "bureau" did not "sit;" like the rest of the Assembly it was on its
+      feet. The secretaries, M.M. Chapot, Moulin, and Grimault wrote standing.
+      At certain moments the two Vice-Presidents mounted on the benches so as to
+      be better seen from all points of the room. The table was covered by an
+      old green tablecloth, stained with ink, three or four inkstands had been
+      brought in, and a quire of paper was scattered about. There the decrees
+      were written as soon as they were drawn up. They multiplied the copies,
+      some Representatives became secretaries on the spur of the moment, and
+      helped the official secretaries.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This great hall was on a level with the landing. It was situated, as we
+      have said, on the first floor; it was reached by a very narrow staircase.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We must recollect that nearly the whole of the members present were
+      members of the Right.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first moment was a serious one. Berryer came out to advantage.
+      Berryer, like all those extemporizers without style, will only be
+      remembered as a name, and a much disputed name, Berryer having been rather
+      a special pleader than an orator who believed what he said. On that day
+      Berryer was to the point, logical and earnest. They began by this cry,
+      "What shall we do?" "Draw up a declaration," said M. de Falloux. "A
+      protest," said M. de Flavigny. "A decree," said Berryer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In truth a declaration was empty air, a protest was noise, a decree was
+      action. They cried out, "What decree?" "Deposition," said Berryer.
+      Deposition was the extreme limit of the energy of the Right. Beyond
+      deposition, there was outlawry; deposition was practicable for the Right,
+      outlawry was only possible for the Left. In fact it was the Left who
+      outlawed Louis Bonaparte. They did it at their first meeting in the Rue
+      Blanche. We shall see this later on. At deposition, Legality came to an
+      end; at outlawry, the Revolution began. The recurrence of Revolutions are
+      the logical consequences of <i>coups d'état</i>. The deposition having
+      been voted, a man who later on turned traitor, Quentin Bauchart,
+      exclaimed, "Let us all sign it." All signed it. Odilon Barrot came in and
+      signed it. Antony Thouret came in and signed it. Suddenly M. Piscatory
+      announced that the Mayor was refusing to allow Representatives who had
+      arrived to enter the Hall. "Order him to do so by decree," said Berryer.
+      And the decree was voted. Thanks to this decree, MM. Favreau and Monet
+      entered; they came from the Legislative Palace; they related the cowardice
+      of Dupin. M. Dahirel, one of the leaders of the Right, was exasperated,
+      and said, "We have received bayonet thrusts." Voices were raised, "Let us
+      summon the Tenth Legion. Let the call to arms be beaten. Lauriston
+      hesitates. Let us order him to protect the Assembly." "Let us order him by
+      decree," said Berryer. This decree was drawn up, which, however, did not
+      prevent Lauriston from refusing. Another decree, again proposed by
+      Berryer, pronounced any one who had outraged the Parliamentary
+      inviolability to be a traitor, and ordered the immediate release of those
+      Representatives who had been wrongfully made prisoners. All this was voted
+      at once without debate, in a sort of great unanimous confusion, and in the
+      midst of a storm of fierce conversations. From time to time Berryer
+      imposed silence. Then the angry outcries broke forth again. "The <i>coup
+      d'état</i> will not dare to come here." "We are masters here." "We are at
+      home." "It would be impossible to attack us here." "These wretches will
+      not dare to do so." If the uproar had been less violent, the
+      Representatives might have heard through the open windows close at hand,
+      the sound of soldiers loading their guns.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A regiment of Chasseurs of Vincennes had just entered silently into the
+      garden of the Mairie, and, while waiting for orders, were loading their
+      guns.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Little by little the sitting, at first disorderly and tumultuous, had
+      assumed an ordinary aspect. The uproar had relapsed into a murmur. The
+      voice of the usher, crying "Silence, gentlemen," had succeeded in
+      overcoming the hubbub. Every moment fresh Representatives came in, and
+      hastened to sign the decree of deposition at the "bureau." As there was a
+      great crowd round the "bureau" waiting to sign, a dozen loose sheets of
+      paper to which the Representatives affixed their signatures were
+      circulated in the great Hall and the two adjoining rooms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first to sign the decree of deposition was M. Dufaure, the last was M.
+      Betting de Lancastel. Of the two Presidents, one, M. Benoist d'Azy, was
+      addressing the Assembly; the other, M. Vitet, pale, but calm and resolute,
+      distributed instructions and orders. M. Benoist d'Azy maintained a
+      decorous countenance, but a certain hesitation in his speech revealed an
+      inner agitation. Divisions, even in the Right, had not disappeared at this
+      critical moment. A Legitimist member was overheard saying in a low voice,
+      while speaking of one of the Vice-Presidents, "This great Vitet looks like
+      a whited sepulchre." Vitet was an Orleanist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Given this adventurer with whom they had to deal, this Louis Bonaparte,
+      capable of everything, the hour and the man being wrapt in mystery, some
+      Legitimist personages of a candid mind were seriously but comically
+      frightened. The Marquis of &mdash;&mdash;, who acted the fly on the
+      coach-wheel to the Right, went hither and thither, harangued, shouted,
+      declaimed, remonstrated, proclaimed, and trembled. Another, M. A&mdash;&mdash;
+      N&mdash;&mdash;, perspiring, red-faced, out of breath, rushed about
+      distractedly. "Where is the guard? How many men are there? Who commands
+      them? The officer! send me the officer! Long live the Republic! National
+      Guard, stand firm! Long live the Republic!" All the Right shouted this
+      cry. "You wish then to kill it," said Esquiros. Some of them were
+      dejected; Bourbousson maintained the silence of a vanquished placeman.
+      Another, the Viscount of &mdash;&mdash;, a relative of the Duke of Escars,
+      was so alarmed that every moment he adjourned to a corner of the
+      courtyard. In the crowd which filled the courtyard there was a <i>gamin</i>
+      of Paris, a child of Athens, who has since become am elegant and charming
+      poet, Albert Glatigny. Albert Glatigny cried out to this frightened
+      Viscount, "Hulloa there! Do you think that <i>coups d'état</i> are
+      extinguished in the way Gulliver put out the fire?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Oh, Laughter, how gloomy you are when attended with Tragedy!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Orleanists were quieter, and maintained a more becoming attitude. This
+      arose from the fact that they ran greater danger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Pascal Duprat replaced at the top of the decrees the words, "République
+      Française," which had been forgotten.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From time to time men who were not speaking on the subject of the moment
+      mentioned this strange word, "Dupin," open which there ensued shouts of
+      derision and bursts of laughter. "Utter the name of that coward no more,"
+      cried Antony Thouret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There were motions and counter-motions; it was a continual uproar
+      interrupted by deep and solemn silences. Alarmist phrases circulated from
+      group to group. "We are in a blind alley." "We are caught here as in a rat
+      trap;" and then on each motion voices were raised: "That is it!" "It is
+      right!" "It is settled!" They agreed in a low voice upon a rendezvous at
+      No. 19, Rue de la Chaussée-d'Antin, in case they should be expelled from
+      the Mairie. M. Bixio carried off the decree of deposition to get it
+      printed. Esquiros, Marc Dufraisse, Pascal Duprat, Rigal, Lherbette,
+      Chamiot, Latrade, Colfavru, Antony Thouret, threw in here and there
+      energetic words of advice. M. Dufaure, resolute and indignant, protested
+      with authority. M. Odilon Barrot, motionless in a corner, maintained the
+      silence of stupefied silliness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MM. Passy and de Tocqueville, in the midst of the groups, described that
+      when they were Ministers they had always entertained an uneasy suspicion
+      of a <i>coup d'état</i>, and that they clearly perceived this fixed idea
+      in the brain of Louis Bonaparte. M. de Tocqueville added, "I said to
+      myself every night, 'I lie down to sleep a Minister; what if I should
+      awake a prisoner?'" Some of those men who were termed "men of order,"
+      muttered while signing the degree of deposition, "Beware of the Red
+      Republic!" and seemed to entertain an equal fear of failure and of
+      success. M. de Vatimesnil pressed the hands of the men of the Left, and
+      thanked them for their presence. "You make us popular," said he. And
+      Antony Thouret answered him, "I know neither Right nor Left to-day; I only
+      see the Assembly."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The younger of the two shorthand writers handed their written sheets to
+      the Representatives who had spoken, and, asked them to revise them at
+      once, saying, "We shall not have the time to read them over." Some
+      Representatives went down into the street, and showed the people copies of
+      the decree of deposition, signed by the members of the "bureau." One of
+      the populace took one of these copies, and cried out, "Citizens! the ink
+      is still quite wet! Long live the Republic!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Deputy-Mayor stood at the door of the Hall; the staircase was crowded
+      with National Guards and spectators. In the Assembly several had
+      penetrated into the Hall, and amongst them the ex-Constituent Beslay, a
+      man of uncommon courage. It was at first wished to turn them out, but they
+      resisted, crying, "This is our business. You are the Assembly, but we are
+      the People." "They are right," said M. Berryer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      M. de Falloux, accompanied by M. de Kéranflech, came up the Constituent
+      Beslay, and leaned by his side on the stove, saying to him, "Good-day,
+      colleague;" and reminded him that they both had formed part of the
+      Committee of the National Workshops, and that they had together visited
+      the Workmen at the Parc Monceaux. The Right felt themselves falling; they
+      became affectionate towards Republicans. The Republic is called To-morrow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Each spoke from his place; this member upon a bench, that member on a
+      chair, a few on the tables. All contradictory opinions burst forth at
+      once. In a corner some ex-leaders of "order" were scared at the possible
+      triumph of the "Reds." In another the men of the Right surrounded the men
+      of the Left, and asked them: "Are not the faubourgs going to rise?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The narrator has but one duty, to tell his story; he relates everything,
+      the bad as well as the good. Whatever may have taken place, however, and
+      notwithstanding all these details of which it was our duty to speak, apart
+      from the exceptions which we had mentioned, the attitude of the men of the
+      Right who composed the large majority of this meeting was in many respects
+      honorable and worthy. Some of them, as we have just mentioned, even prided
+      themselves upon their resolution and their energy, almost as though they
+      had wished to rival the members of the Left.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We may here remark&mdash;for in the course of this narrative we shall more
+      than once see the gaze of some members of the Right turned towards the
+      people, and in this no mistake should be made&mdash;that these monarchical
+      men who talked of popular insurrection and who invoked the faubourgs were
+      a minority in the majority,&mdash;an imperceptible minority. Antony
+      Thouret proposed to those who were leaders there to go in a body through
+      the working-class neighborhoods with the decree of deposition in their
+      hands. Brought to bay, they refused. They declared that they would only
+      protect themselves by organized powers, not by the people. It is a strange
+      thing to say, but it must be noted, that with their habits of political
+      shortsightedness, the popular armed resistance, even in the name of the
+      Law, seemed sedition to them. The utmost appearance of revolution which
+      they could endure was a regiment of the National Guard, with their drums
+      at their head; they shrank from the barricade; Right in a blouse was no
+      longer Right, Truth armed with a pike was no longer Truth, Law unpaving a
+      street gave them the impression of a Fury. In the main, however, and
+      taking them for what they were, and considering their position as
+      politicians, these members of the Right were well-advised. What would they
+      have done with the people? And what would the people have done with them?
+      How would they have proceeded to set fire to the masses? Imagine Falloux
+      as a tribune, fanning the Faubourg St. Antoine into a flame!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Alas! in the midst of this dense gloom, in these fatal complications of
+      circumstances by which the <i>coup d'état</i> profited so odiously and so
+      perfidiously, in that mighty misunderstanding which comprised the whole
+      situation, for kindling the revolutionary spark in the heart of the
+      people, Danton himself would not have sufficed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The <i>coup d'état</i> entered into this meeting impudently, with its
+      convict's cap on its head. It possessed an infamous assurance there, as
+      well as everywhere else. There were in this majority three hundred
+      Representatives of the People. Louis Napoleon sent a sergeant to drive
+      them away. The Assembly, having resisted the sergeant, he sent an officer,
+      the temporary commander of the sixth battalion of the Chasseurs de
+      Vincennes. This officer, young, fair-haired, a scoffer, half laughing,
+      half threatening, pointed with his finger to the stairs filled with
+      bayonets, and defied the Assembly. "Who is this young spark?" asked a
+      member of the Right. A National Guard who was there said, "Throw him out
+      of the window!" "Kick him downstairs!" cried one of the people.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This Assembly, grievous as were its offences against the principles of the
+      Revolution&mdash;and with these wrongs Democracy alone had the right to
+      reproach it&mdash;this Assembly, I repeat, was the National Assembly, that
+      is to say, the Republic incarnate, the living Universal Suffrage, the
+      Majesty of the Nation, upright and visible. Louis Bonaparte assassinated
+      this Assembly, and moreover insulted it. A slap on the face is worse than
+      a poniard thrust.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The gardens of the neighborhood occupied by the troops were full of broken
+      bottles. They had plied the soldiers with drink. They obeyed the
+      "epaulettes" unconditionally, and according to the expression of
+      eyewitnesses, appeared "dazed-drunk." The Representatives appealed to
+      them, and said to them, "It is a crime!" They answered, "We are not aware
+      of it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One soldier was heard to say to another, "What have you done with your ten
+      francs of this morning?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sergeants hustled the officers. With the exception of the commander,
+      who probably earned his cross of honor, the officers were respectful, the
+      sergeants brutal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A lieutenant showing signs of flinching, a sergeant cried out to him, "You
+      are not the only one who commands here! Come, therefore, march!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      M. de Vatimesnil asked a soldier, "Will you dare to arrest us&mdash;us,
+      the Representatives of the People?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Assuredly!" said the soldier.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Several soldiers hearing some Representatives say that they had eaten
+      nothing since the morning, offered them their ration bread. Some
+      Representatives accepted. M. de Tocqueville, who was unwell, and who was
+      noticed to be pale and leaning on the sill of a window, received from a
+      soldier a piece of this bread, which he shared with M. Chambolle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two Commissaries of Police appeared in "full dress," in black coats girded
+      with their sash-girdles and their black corded hats. One was an old man,
+      the other a young man. The first was named Lemoine-Tacherat, and not
+      Bacherel, as has been wrongly printed: the second was named Barlet. These
+      names should be noted. The unprecedented assurance of this Barlet was
+      remarked. Nothing was wanting in him,&mdash;cynical speech, provoking
+      gesture, sardonic intonation. It was with an inexpressible air of
+      insolence that Barlet, when summoning the meeting to dissolve itself,
+      added, "Rightly or Wrongly." They murmured on the benches of the Assembly,
+      "Who is this scoundrel?" The other, compared to him, seemed moderate and
+      inoffensive. Emile Péan exclaimed, "The old man is simply working in his
+      profession, but the young man is working out his promotion."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before this Tacherat and this Barlet entered, before the butts of the
+      muskets had been heard ringing on the stones of the staircase, this
+      Assembly had talked of resistance. Of what kind of resistance? We have
+      just stated. The majority could only listen to a regular organized
+      resistance, a military resistance in uniform and in epaulets. Such a
+      resistance was easy to decree, but it was difficult to organize. The
+      Generals on whom the Assembly were accustomed to rely having been
+      arrested, there only remained two possible Generals, Oudinot and
+      Lauriston. General Marquis de Lauriston, ex-peer of France, and at the
+      same time Colonel of the Tenth Legion and Representative of the People,
+      drew a distinction between his duty as Representative and his duty as
+      Colonel. Summoned by some of his friends of the Right to beat to arms and
+      call together the Tenth Legion, he answered, "As Representative of the
+      People I ought to indict the Executive Power, but as Colonel I ought to
+      obey it." It appears that he obstinately shut himself up in this singular
+      reasoning, and that it was impossible to draw him out of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "How stupid he is!" said Piscatory.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "How sharp he is!" said Falloux.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first officer of the National Guard who appeared in uniform, seemed to
+      be recognized by two members of the Right, who said, "It is M. de
+      Perigord!" They made a mistake, it was M. Guilbot, major of the third
+      battalion of the Tenth Legion. He declared that he was ready to march on
+      the first order from his Colonel, General Lauriston. General Lauriston
+      went down into the courtyard, and came up a moment afterwards, saying,
+      "They do not recognize my authority. I have just resigned," Moreover, the
+      name of Lauriston was not familiar to the soldiers. Oudinot was better
+      known in the army. But how?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the moment when the name of Oudinot was pronounced, a shudder ran
+      through this meeting, almost exclusively composed of members of the Right.
+      In fact at this critical time, at this fatal name of Oudinot, reflections
+      crowded upon each other in every mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What was the <i>coup d'état</i>?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the "Roman expedition at home." Which was undertaken against whom?
+      Against those who had undertaken the "Roman expedition abroad." The
+      National Assembly of France, dissolved by violence, could find only one
+      single General to defend it in its dying hour. And whom? Precisely he, who
+      in the name of the National Assembly of France had dissolved by violence
+      the National Assembly of Rome. What power could Oudinot, the strangler of
+      a Republic, possess to save a Republic? Was it not evident that his own
+      soldiers would answer him, "What do you want with us? That which we have
+      done at Rome we now do at Paris." What a story is this story of treason!
+      The French Legislature had written the first chapter with the blood of the
+      Roman Constituent Assembly: Providence wrote the second chapter with the
+      blood of the French Legislature, Louis Bonaparte holding the pen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In 1849, Louis Bonaparte had assassinated the sovereignty of the People in
+      the person of its Roman Representatives; in 1851 he assassinated it in the
+      person of its French Representatives. It was logical, and although it was
+      infamous, it was just. The Legislative Assembly bore at the same time the
+      weight of two crimes; it was the accomplice of the first, the victim of
+      the second. All these men of the majority felt this, and were humbled. Or
+      rather it was the same crime, the crime of the Second of July, 1849, ever
+      erect, ever alive, which had only changed its name, which now called
+      itself the Second of December, and which, the offspring of this Assembly,
+      stabbed it to the heart. Nearly all crimes are parricidal. On a certain
+      day they recoil upon those who have committed them, and slay them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this moment, so full of anxiety, M. de Falloux must have glanced round
+      for M. de Montalembert. M. de Montalembert was at the Elysée.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Tamisier rose and pronounced this terrifying word, "The Roman
+      Question?" distracted M. de Dampierre shouted to him, "Silence! You kill
+      us!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was not Tamisier who was killing them&mdash;it was Oudinot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      M. de Dampierre did not perceive that he cried "Silence!" to history.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then without even reckoning the fatal remembrance which at such a
+      moment would have crushed a man endowed in the highest degree with great
+      military qualities, General Oudinot, in other respects an excellent
+      officer, and a worthy son of his brave father, possessed none of those
+      striking qualities which in the critical hour of revolution stir the
+      soldier and carry with them the people. At that instant to win back an
+      army of a hundred thousand men, to withdraw the balls from the cannons'
+      mouths, to find beneath the wine poured out to the Praetorians the true
+      soul of the French soldier half drowned and nearly dead, to tear the flag
+      from the <i>coup d'état</i> and restore it to the Law, to surround the
+      Assembly with thunders and lightnings, it would have needed one of those
+      men who exist no longer; it would have needed the firm hand, the calm
+      oratory, the cold and searching glance of Desaix, that French Phocion; it
+      would have needed the huge shoulders, the commanding stature, the
+      thundering voice, the abusive, insolent, cynical, gay, and sublime
+      eloquence of Kléber, that military Mirabeau. Desaix, the countenance of a
+      just man, or Kléber, the face of the lion! General Oudinot, little,
+      awkward, embarrassed, with an indecisive and dull gaze, red cheeks, low
+      forehead, with grizzled and lank hair, polite tone of voice, a humble
+      smile, without oratory, without gesture, without power, brave before the
+      enemy, timid before the first comer, having assuredly the bearing of a
+      soldier, but having also the bearing of a priest; he caused the mind to
+      hesitate between the sword and the taper; he had in his eyes a sort of
+      "Amen!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had the best intentions in the world, but what could he do? Alone,
+      without prestige, without true glory, without personal authority, and
+      dragging Rome after him! He felt all this himself, and he was as it were
+      paralyzed by it. As soon as they had appointed him he got upon a chair and
+      thanked the Assembly, doubtless with a firm heart, but with hesitating
+      speech. When the little fair-haired officer dared to look him in the face
+      and insult him, he, holding the sword of the people, he, General of the
+      sovereign Assembly, he only knew how to stammer out such wretched phrases
+      as these, "I have just declared to you that we are unable, 'unless
+      compelled and constrained,' to obey the order which prohibits us from
+      remaining assembled together." He spoke of obeying, he who ought to
+      command. They had girded him with his scarf, and it seemed to make him
+      uncomfortable. He inclined his head alternately first to one shoulder and
+      then to the other; he held his hat and cane in his hand, he had a
+      benevolent aspect. A Legitimist member muttered in a low voice to his
+      neighbor, "One might imagine he was a bailiff speechifying at a wedding."
+      And his neighbor, a Legitimist also, replied, "He reminds me of the Duc
+      d'Angoulême."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What a contrast to Tamisier! Tamisier, frank, earnest confident, although
+      a mere Captain of Artillery, had the bearing of a General. Had Tamisier,
+      with his grave and gentle countenance, high intelligence, and dauntless
+      heart, a species of soldier-philosopher, been better known, he could have
+      rendered decisive services. No one can tell what would have happened if
+      Providence had given the soul of Tamisier to Oudinot, or the epaulets of
+      Oudinot to Tamisier.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In this bloody enterprise of December we failed to find a General's
+      uniform becomingly worn. A book might be written on the part which gold
+      lace plays in the destiny of nations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Tamisier, appointed Chief of the Staff some instants before the invasion
+      of the hall, placed himself at the disposal of the Assembly. He was
+      standing on a table. He spoke with a resonant and hearty voice. The most
+      downcast became reassured by this modest, honest, devoted attitude.
+      Suddenly he drew himself up, and looking all that Royalist majority in the
+      face, exclaimed, "Yes, I accept the charge you offer me. I accept the
+      charge of defending the Republic! Nothing but the Republic! Do you
+      perfectly understand?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A unanimous shout answered him. "Long live the Republic!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ah!" said Beslay, "the voice comes back to you as on the Fourth of May."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Long live the Republic! Nothing but the Republic!" repeated the men of
+      the Right, Oudinot louder than the others. All arms were stretched towards
+      Tamisier, every hand pressed his. Oh Danger! irresistible converter! In
+      his last hour the Atheist invokes God, and the Royalist the Republic. They
+      cling to that which they have repudiated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The official historians of the <i>coup d'état</i> have stated that at the
+      beginning of the sitting two Representatives had been sent by the Assembly
+      to the Ministry of the Interior to "negotiate." What is certain is that
+      these two Representatives had no authority. They presented themselves, not
+      on behalf of the Assembly, but in their own name. They offered themselves
+      as intermediaries to procure a peaceable termination of the catastrophe
+      which had begun. With an honesty which bordered on simplicity they
+      summoned Morny to yield himself a prisoner, and to return within the law,
+      declaring that in case of refusal the Assembly would do its duty, and call
+      the people to the defence of the Constitution and of the Republic. Marny
+      answered them with a smile, accompanied by these plain words, "If you
+      appeal to arms, and if I find any Representatives on the barricades, I
+      will have them all shot to the last man."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The meeting in the Tenth Arrondissement yielded to force. President Vitet
+      insisted that they should forcibly arrest him. A police agent who seized
+      him turned pale and trembled. In certain circumstances, to lay violent
+      hands upon a man is to lay them upon Right, and those who dare to do so
+      are made to tremble by outraged Law. The exodus from the Mairie was long
+      and beset with obstructions. Half-an-hour elapsed while the soldiers were
+      forming a line, and while the Commissaries of Police, all the time
+      appearing solely occupied with the care of driving back the crowd in the
+      street, sent for orders to the Ministry of the Interior. During that time
+      some of the Representatives, seated round a table in the great Hall, wrote
+      to their families, to their wives, to their friends. They snatched up the
+      last leaves of paper; the pens failed; M. de Luynes wrote to his wife a
+      letter in pencil. There were no wafers; they were forced to send the
+      letters unsealed; some soldiers offered to post them. M. Chambolle's son,
+      who had accompanied his father thus far, undertook to take the letters
+      addressed to Mesdames de Luynes, de Lasteyrie, and Duvergier de Hauranne.
+      General Forey&mdash;the same who had refused a battalion to the President
+      of the Constituent Assembly, Marrast, who had promoted him from a colonel
+      to a general&mdash;General Forey, in the centre of the courtyard of the
+      Mairie, his face inflamed, half drunk, coming out, they said, from
+      breakfast at the Elysée, superintended the outrage. A member, whose name
+      we regret we do not know, dipped his boot into the gutter and wiped it
+      along the gold stripe of the regimental trousers of General Forey.
+      Representative Lherbette came up to General Forey, and said to him,
+      "General, you are a coward." Then turning to his colleagues, he exclaimed,
+      "Do you hear? I tell this general that he is a coward." General Forey did
+      not stir. He kept the mud on his uniform and the epithet on his cheek.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The meeting did not call the people to arms. We have just explained that
+      it was not strong enough to do so; nevertheless, at the last moment, a
+      member of the Left, Latrade, made a fresh effort. He took M. Berryer
+      aside, and said to him, "Our official measures of resistance have come to
+      an end; let us not allow ourselves now to be arrested. Let us disperse
+      throughout the streets crying, 'To arms!'" M. Berryer consulted a few
+      seconds on the matter with the Vice-President, M. Benoist d'Azy, who
+      refused.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Deputy Mayor, hat in hand, reconducted the members of the Assembly as
+      far as the gate of the Mairie. As soon as they appeared in the courtyard
+      ready to go out between two lines of soldiers, the post of National Guards
+      presented arms, acid shouted, "Long live the Assembly! Long live the
+      Representatives of the People!" The National Guards were at once disarmed,
+      almost forcibly, by the Chasseurs de Vincennes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a wine-shop opposite the Mairie. As soon as the great folding
+      gates of the Mairie opened, and the Assembly appeared in the street, led
+      by General Forey on horseback, and having at its head the Vice-President
+      Vitet, grasped by the necktie by a police agent, a few men in white
+      blouses, gathered at the windows of this wine-shop, clapped their hands
+      and shouted, "Well done! down with the 'twenty-five francs!'"<a
+      href="#linknoteref-7" name="linknote-7" id="linknote-7"><small>7</small></a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They set forth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Chasseurs de Vincennes, who marched in a double line on each side of
+      the prisoners, cast at them looks of hatred. General Oudinot said in a
+      whisper, "These little infantry soldiers are terrible fellows. At the
+      siege of Rome they flung themselves at the assault like madmen. These lads
+      are very devils." The officers avoided the gaze of the Representatives. On
+      leaving the Mairie, M. de Coislin passed by an officer and exclaimed,
+      "What a disgrace for the uniform!" the officer retaliated with angry
+      words, and incensed M. de Coislin. Shortly afterwards, during the march,
+      he came up to M. de Coislin and said to him, "Sir, I have reflected; it is
+      I who am wrong."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They proceeded on the way slowly. At a few steps from the Mairie the
+      precession met M. Chegaray. The Representatives called out to him, "Come!"
+      He answered, while making an expressive gesture with his hands and his
+      shoulders, "Oh! I dare say! As they have not arrested me...." and he
+      feigned as though he would pass on. He was ashamed, however, and went with
+      them. His name is found in the list of the roll-call at the barracks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A little further on M. de Lespérut passed them. They cried out to him.
+      "Lespérut! Lespérut!" "I am with you," answered he. The soldiers pushed
+      him back. He seized the butt-ends of the muskets, and forced his way into
+      the column.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In one of the streets through which they went a window was opened.
+      Suddenly a woman appeared with a child; the child, recognizing its father
+      amongst the prisoners, held out its arms and called to him, the mother
+      wept in the background.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was at first intended to take the Assembly in a body straight to Mazas,
+      but this was counter-ordered by the Ministry of the Interior. It was
+      feared that this long walk, in broad daylight, through populous and easily
+      aroused streets, might prove dangerous; the D'Orsay barracks were close at
+      hand. They selected these as a temporary prison.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One of the commanders insolently pointed out with his sword the arrested
+      Representatives to the passers-by, and said in a fond voice, "These are
+      the Whites, we have orders to spare them. Now it is the turn of the Red
+      Representatives, let them look out for themselves!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wherever the procession passed, the populace shouted from the pavements,
+      at the doors, at the windows, "Long live the National Assembly!" When they
+      perceived a few Representatives of the Left sprinkled in the column they
+      cried, "Vive la République!" "Vive la Constitution!" and "Vive la Loi!"
+      The shops were not shut, and passers-by went to and fro. Some people said,
+      "Wait until the evening; this is not the end of it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A staff-officer on horseback, in full uniform, met the procession,
+      recognized M. de Vatimesnil, and came up to greet him. In the Rue de
+      Beaune, as they passed the house of the <i>Démocratic Pacifique</i> a
+      group shouted, "Down with the Traitor of the Elysée!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the Quai d'Orsay, the shouting was redoubled. There was a great crowd
+      there. On either side of the quay a file of soldiers of the Line, elbow to
+      elbow, kept back the spectators. In the middle of the space left vacant,
+      the members of the Assembly slowly advanced between a double file of
+      soldiers, the one stationary, which threatened the people, the other on
+      the march, which threatened tire Representatives.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Serious reflections arise in the presence of all the details of the great
+      crime which this book is designed to relate. Every honest man who sets
+      himself face to face with the <i>coup d'état</i> of Louis Bonaparte hears
+      nothing but a tumult of indignant thoughts in his conscience. Whoever
+      reads our work to the end will assuredly not credit us with the intention
+      of extenuating this monstrous deed. Nevertheless, as the deep logic of
+      actions ought always to be italicized by the historian, it is necessary
+      here to call to mind and to repeat, even to satiety, that apart from the
+      members of the Left, of whom a very small number were present, and whom we
+      have mentioned by name, the three hundred Representatives who thus defiled
+      before the eyes of the crowd, constituted the old Royalists and
+      reactionary majority of the Assembly. If it were possible to forget, that&mdash;whatever
+      were their errors, whatever were their faults, and, we venture to add,
+      whatever were their illusions&mdash;these persons thus treated were the
+      Representatives of the leading civilized nation, were sovereign
+      Legislators, senators of the people, inviolable Deputies, and sacred by
+      the great law of Democracy, and that in the same manner as each man bears
+      in himself something of the mind of God, so each of these nominees of
+      universal suffrage bore something of the soul of France; if it were
+      possible to forget this for a moment, it assuredly would be a spectacle
+      perhaps more laughable than sad, and certainly more philosophical than
+      lamentable to see, on this December morning, after so many laws of
+      repression, after so many exceptional measures, after so many votes of
+      censure and of the state of siege, after so many refusals of amnesty,
+      after so many affronts to equity, to justice, to the human conscience, to
+      the public good faith, to right, after so many favors to the police, after
+      so many smiles bestowed on absolution, the entire Party of Order arrested
+      in a body and taken to prison by the <i>sergents de ville</i>!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One day, or rather, one night, the moment having come to save society, the
+      <i>coup d'état</i> abruptly seizes the Demagogues, and finds that it holds
+      by the collar, Whom? the Royalists.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They arrived at the barracks, formerly the barracks of the Royal Guard,
+      and on the pediment of which is a carved escutcheon, whereon are still
+      visible the traces of the three <i>fleurs de lis</i> effaced in 1830. They
+      halted. The door was opened. "Why!" said M. de Broglie, "here we are."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At that moment a great placard posted on the barrack wall by the side of
+      the door bore in big letters&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  "REVISION OF THE CONSTITUTION."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      It was the advertisement of a pamphlet, published two or three days
+      previous to the <i>coup d'état</i>, without any author's name, demanding
+      the Empire, and was attributed to the President of the Republic.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Representatives entered and the doors were closed upon them. The
+      shouts ceased; the crowd, which occasionally has its meditative moments,
+      remained for some time on the quay, dumb, motionless, gazing alternately
+      at the closed gate of the Barracks, and at the silent front of the Palace
+      of the Assembly, dimly visible in the misty December twilight, two hundred
+      paces distant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The two Commissaries of Police went to report their "success" to M. de
+      Morny. M. de Morny said, "Now the struggle has begun. Excellent! These are
+      the last Representatives who will be made prisoners."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a href="#linknote-5" name="linknoteref-5" id="linknoteref-5_"><small>5</small></a>
+      <i>The Gerontes, or Gerontia, were the Elders of Sparta, who constituted
+      the Senate.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a href="#linknote-6" name="linknoteref-6" id="linknoteref-6_"><small>6</small></a>
+      <i>The "bureau" of the Assembly consists of the President, for the time
+      being of the Assembly, assisted by six secretaries, whose duties mainly
+      lie in deciding in what sense the Deputies have voted. The "bureau" of the
+      Assembly should not be confounded with the fifteen "bureaux" of the
+      Deputies, which answer to our Select Committees of the House of Commons,
+      and are presided over by self-chosen Presidents.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a href="#linknote-7" name="linknoteref-7" id="linknoteref-7_"><small>7</small></a>
+      <i>An allusion to the twenty-five francs a day officially payable to the
+      members of the Assembly.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIII. LOUIS BONAPARTE'S SIDE-FACE
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      The minds of all these men, we repeat, were very differently affected.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      The extreme Legitimist party, which represents the White of the flag, was
+      not, it must be said, highly exasperated at the <i>coup d'état</i>. Upon
+      many faces might be read the saying of M. de Falloux: "I am so satisfied
+      that I have considerable difficulty in affecting to be only resigned." The
+      ingenuous spirits cast down their eyes&mdash;that is becoming to purity;
+      more daring spirits raised their heads. They felt an impartial indignation
+      which permitted a little admiration. How cleverly these generals have been
+      ensnared! The Country assassinated,&mdash;it is a horrible crime; but they
+      were enraptured at the jugglery blended with the parricide. One of the
+      leaders said, with a sigh of envy and regret, "We do not possess a man of
+      such talent." Another muttered, "It is Order." And he added, "Alas!"
+      Another exclaimed, "It is a frightful crime, but well carried out." Some
+      wavered, attracted on one side by the lawful power which rested in the
+      Assembly, and on the other by the abomination which was in Bonaparte;
+      honest souls poised between duty and infamy. There was a M. Thomines
+      Desmazures who went as far as the door of the Great Hall of the Mairie,
+      halted, looked inside, looked outside, and did not enter. It would be
+      unjust not to record that others amongst the pure Royalists, and above all
+      M. de Vatimesnil, had the sincere intonation and the upright wrath of
+      justice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Be it as it may, the Legitimist party, taken as a whole, entertained no
+      horror of the <i>coup d'état</i>. It feared nothing. In truth, should the
+      Royalists fear Louis Bonaparte? Why?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Indifference does not inspire fear. Louis Bonaparte was indifferent. He
+      only recognized one thing, his object. To break through the road in order
+      to reach it, that was quite plain; the rest might be left alone. There lay
+      the whole of his policy, to crush the Republicans, to disdain the
+      Royalists.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Louis Bonaparte had no passion. He who writes these lines, talking one day
+      about Louis Bonaparte with the ex-king of Westphalia, remarked, "In him
+      the Dutchman tones down the Corsican."&mdash;"If there be any Corsican,"
+      answered Jérome.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Louis Bonaparte has never been other than a man who has lain wait for
+      fortune, a spy trying to dupe God. He had that livid dreaminess of the
+      gambler who cheats. Cheating admits audacity, but excludes anger. In his
+      prison at Ham he only read one book, "The Prince." He belonged to no
+      family, as he could hesitate between Bonaparte and Verhuell; he had no
+      country, as he could hesitate between France and Holland.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This Napoleon had taken St. Helena in good part. He admired England.
+      Resentment! To what purpose? For him on earth there only existed his
+      interests. He pardoned, because he speculated; he forgot everything,
+      because he calculated upon everything. What did his uncle matter to him?
+      He did not serve him; he made use of him. He rested his shabby enterprise
+      upon Austerlitz. He stuffed the eagle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Malice is an unproductive outlay. Louis Bonaparte only possessed as much
+      memory as is useful. Hudson Lowe did not prevent him from smiling upon
+      Englishmen; the Marquis of Montchenu did not prevent him from smiling upon
+      the Royalists.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was a man of earnest politics, of good company, wrapped in his own
+      scheming, not impulsive, doing nothing beyond that which he intended,
+      without abruptness, without hard words, discreet, accurate, learned,
+      talking smoothly of a necessary massacre, a slaughterer, because it served
+      his purpose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All this, we repeat, without passion, and without anger. Louis Bonaparte
+      was one of those men who had been influenced by the profound iciness of
+      Machiavelli.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was through being a man of that nature that he succeeded in submerging
+      the name of Napoleon by superadding December upon Brumaire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIV. THE D'ORSAY BARRACKS
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      It was half-past three.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      The arrested Representatives entered into the courtyard of the barracks, a
+      huge parallelogram closed in and commanded by high walls. These walls are
+      pierced by three tiers of windows, and posses that dismal appearance which
+      distinguishes barracks, schools, and prisons.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This courtyard is entered by an arched portal which extends through all
+      the breadth of the front of the main building. This archway, under which
+      the guard-house has been made, is close on the side of the quay by large
+      solid folding doors, and on one side of the courtyard by an iron grated
+      gateway. They closed the door and the grated gateway upon the
+      Representatives. They "set them at liberty" in the bolted and guarded
+      courtyard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Let them stroll about," said an officer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The air was cold, the sky was gray. Some soldiers, in their shirt-sleeves
+      and wearing foraging caps, busy with fatigue duty, went hither and thither
+      amongst the prisoners.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      First M. Grimault and then M. Antony Thouret instituted a roll-call. The
+      Representatives made a ring around them. Lherbette said laughingly, "This
+      just suits the barracks. We look like sergeant-majors who have come to
+      report." They called over the seven hundred and fifty names of the
+      Representatives. To each name they answered "Absent" or "Present," and the
+      secretary jotted down with a pencil those who were present. When the name
+      of Morny was reached, some one cried out, "At Clichy!" At the name of
+      Persigny, the same voice exclaimed, "At Poissy!" The inventor of these two
+      jokes, which by the way are very poor, has since allied himself to the
+      Second of December, to Morny and Persigny; he has covered his cowardice
+      with the embroidery of a senator.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The roll-call verified the presence of two hundred and twenty
+      Representatives, whose names were as follows:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Le Duc de Luynes, d'Andigné de la Chasse, Antony Thouret, Arène, Audren de
+      Kerdrel (Ille-et-Vilaine), Audren de Kerdrel (Morbihan), de Balzac,
+      Barchou de Penhoen, Barillon, O. Barrot, Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire, Quentin
+      Bauchard, G. deBeaumont, Béchard, Behaghel, de Belèvze, Benoist-d'Azy, de
+      Benardy, Berryer, de Berset, Basse, Betting de Lancastel, Blavoyer,
+      Bocher, Boissié, de Botmillan, Bouvatier, le Duc de Broglie, de la Broise,
+      de Bryas, Buffet, Caillet du Tertre, Callet, Camus de la Guibourgère,
+      Canet, de Castillon, de Cazalis, Admiral Cécile, Chambolle, Chamiot,
+      Champannet, Chaper, Chapot, de Charencey, Chasseigne, Chauvin, Chazant, de
+      Chazelles, Chegaray, Comte de Coislin, Colfavru, Colas de la Motte,
+      Coquerel, de Corcelles, Cordier, Corne, Creton, Daguilhon, Pujol, Dahirel,
+      Vicomte Dambray, Marquis de Dampierre, de Brotonne, de Fontaine, de
+      Fontenay, Vicomte de Sèze, Desmars, de la Devansaye, Didier, Dieuleveult,
+      Druet-Desvaux, A. Dubois, Dufaure, Dufougerais, Dufour, Dufournel, Marc
+      Dufraisse, P. Duprat, Duvergier de Hauranne, Étienne, Vicomte de Falloux,
+      de Faultrier, Faure (Rhône), Favreau, Ferre, des Ferrès, Vicomte de
+      Flavigny, de Foblant, Frichon, Gain, Gasselin, Germonière, de Gicquiau, de
+      Goulard, de Gouyon, de Grandville, de Grasset, Grelier-Dufougerais, Grévy,
+      Grillon, Grimault, Gros, Guislier de la Tousche, Harscouët de
+      Saint-Georges, Marquis d'Havrincourt, Hennequin, d'Hespel, Houel,
+      Hovyn-Tranchère, Huot, Joret, Jouannet, de Kéranflech, de Kératry, de
+      Kéridec, de Kermazec, de Kersauron Penendreff, Lèo de Laborde, Laboulie,
+      Lacave, Oscar Lafayette, Lafosse, Lagarde, Lagrenée Laimé, Lainé, Comte
+      Lanjuinais, Larabit, de Larcy, J. de Lasteyrie, Latrade, Laureau,
+      Laurenceau, General Marquis de Lauriston, de Laussat, Lefebvre de
+      Grosriez, Legrand, Legros-Desvaux, Lemaire, Emile Leroux, Lespérut, de
+      l'Espinoy, Lherbette, de Linsaval, de Luppé, Maréchal, Martin de Villers,
+      Maze-Saunay, Mèze, Arnauld de Melun, Anatole de Melun, Merentié, Michaud,
+      Mispoulet, Monet, Duc de Montebello, de Montigny, Moulin, Murat-Sistrière,
+      Alfred Nettement, d'Olivier, General Oudinot, Duc de Reggio, Paillat,
+      Duparc, Passy, Emile Péan, Pécoul, Casimir Perier, Pidoux, Pigeon, de
+      Piogé, Piscatory, Proa, Prudhomme, Querhoent, Randoing, Raudot, Raulin, de
+      Ravinel, de Rémusat, Renaud, Rezal, Comte de Rességuier, Henri de Riancey,
+      Rigal, de la Rochette, Rodat, de Roquefeuille des Rotours de Chaulieu,
+      Rouget-Lafosse, Rouillé, Roux-Carbonel, Saint-Beuve, de Saint-Germain,
+      General Comte de Saint-Priest, Salmon (Meuse), Marquis
+      Sauvaire-Barthélemy, de Serré, Comte de Sesmaisons, Simonot, de Staplande,
+      de Surville, Marquis de Talhouet, Talon, Tamisier, Thuriot de la Rosière,
+      de Tinguy, Comte de Tocqueville, de la Tourette, Comte de Tréveneue,
+      Mortimer-Ternaux, de Vatimesnil, Baron de Vandoeuvre, Vernhette (Hérault),
+      Vernhette (Aveyron), Vézin, Vitet, Comte de Vogué.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After this list of names may be read as follows in the shorthand report:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The roll-call having been completed, General Oudinot asked the
+      Representatives who were scattered about in the courtyard to come round
+      him, and made the following announcement to them,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "'The Captain-Adjutant-Major, who has remained here to command the
+      barracks, has just received an order to have rooms prepared for us, where
+      we are to withdraw, as we are considered to be in custody. (Hear! hear!)
+      Do you wish me to bring the Adjutant-Major here! (No, no; it is useless.)
+      I will tell him that he had better execute his orders.' (Yes, yes, that is
+      right.)"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Representatives remained "penned" and "strolling" about in this yard
+      for two long hours. They walked about arm in arm. They walked quickly, so
+      as to warm themselves. The men of the Right said to the men of the Left,
+      "Ah! if you had only voted the proposals of the Questors!" They also
+      exclaimed: "Well, how about the <i>invisible sentry</i>!"<a
+      href="#linknoteref-8" name="linknote-8" id="linknote-8"><small>8</small></a>
+      And they laughed. Then Marc Dufraisse answered, "Deputies of the People!
+      deliberate in peace!" It was then the turn of the Left to laugh.
+      Nevertheless, there was no bitterness. The cordiality of a common
+      misfortune reigned amongst them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They questioned his ex-ministers about Louis Bonaparte. They asked Admiral
+      Cécile, "Now, really, what does this mean?" The Admiral answered by this
+      definition: "It is a small matter." M. Vézin added, "He wishes History to
+      call him 'Sire.'" "Poor Sire, then," said M. de Camas de la Guibourgère.
+      M. Odilon Barrot exclaimed, "What a fatality, that we should have been
+      condemned to employ this man!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This said, these heights attained, political philosophy was exhausted, and
+      they ceased talking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the right, by the side of the door, there was a canteen elevated a few
+      steps above the courtyard. "Let us promote this canteen to the dignity of
+      a refreshment room," said the ex-ambassador to China, M. de Lagrenée. They
+      entered, some went up to the stove, others asked for a basin of soup. MM.
+      Favreau, Piscatory, Larabit, and Vatimesnil took refuge in a corner. In
+      the opposite corner drunken soldiers chatted with the maids of the
+      barracks. M. de Kératry, bent with his eighty years, was seated near the
+      stove on an old worm-eaten chair; the chair tottered; the old man
+      shivered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Towards four o'clock a regiment of Chasseurs de Vincennes arrived in the
+      courtyard with their platters, and began to eat, singing, with loud bursts
+      of merriment. M. de Broglie looked at them and said to M. Piscatory, "It
+      is a strange spectacle to see the porringers of the Janissaries vanished
+      from Constantinople reappearing at Paris!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Almost at the same moment a staff officer informed the Representatives on
+      behalf of General Forey that the apartments assigned to them were ready,
+      and requested them to follow him. They were taken into the eastern
+      building, which is the wing of the barracks farthest from the Palace of
+      the Council of State; they were conducted to the third floor. They
+      expected chambers and beds. They found long rooms, vast garrets with
+      filthy walls and low ceilings, furnished with wooden tables and benches.
+      These were the "apartments." These garrets, which adjoin each other, all
+      open on the same corridor, a narrow passage, which runs the length of the
+      main building. In one of these rooms they saw, thrown into a corner,
+      side-drums, a big drum, and various instruments of military music. The
+      Representatives scattered themselves about in these rooms. M. de
+      Tocqueville, who was ill, threw his overcoat on the floor in the recess of
+      a window, and lay down. He remained thus stretched upon the ground for
+      several hours.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These rooms were warmed very badly by cast-iron stoves, shaped like hives.
+      A Representative wishing to poke the fire, upset one, and nearly set fire
+      to the wooden flooring.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The last of these rooms looked out on the quay. Antony Thouret opened a
+      window and leaned out. Several Representatives joined him. The soldiers
+      who were bivouacking below on the pavement, caught sight of them and began
+      to shout, "Ah! there they are, those rascals at 'twenty-five francs a
+      day,' who wish to cut down our pay!" In fact, on the preceding evening,
+      the police had spread this calumny through the barracks that a proposition
+      had been placed on the Tribune to lessen the pay of the troops. They had
+      even gone so far as to name the author of this proposition. Antony Thouret
+      attempted to undeceive the soldiers. An officer cried out to him, "It is
+      one of your party who made the proposal. It is Lamennais!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In about an hour and a half there were ushered into these rooms MM.
+      Vallette, Bixio, and Victor Lefranc, who had come to join their colleagues
+      and constitute themselves prisoners.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Night came. They were hungry. Several had not eaten since the morning. M.
+      Howyn de Tranchère, a man of considerable kindness and devotion, who had
+      acted as porter at the Mairie, acted as forager at the barracks. He
+      collected five francs from each Representative, and they sent and ordered
+      a dinner for two hundred and twenty from the Café d'Orsay, at the corner
+      of the Quay, and the Rue du Bac. They dined badly, but merrily. Cookshop
+      mutton, bad wine, and cheese. There was no bread. They ate as they best
+      could, one standing, another on a chair, one at a table, another astride
+      on his bench, with his plate before him, "as at a ball-room supper," a
+      dandy of the Right said laughingly, Thuriot de la Rosière, son of the
+      regicide Thuriot. M. de Rémusat buried his head in his hands. Emile Péan
+      said to him, "We shall get over it." And Gustave de Beaumont cried out,
+      addressing himself to the Republicans, "And your friends of the Left! Will
+      they preserve their honor? Will there be an insurrection at least?" They
+      passed each other the dishes and plates, the Right showing marked
+      attention to the Left. "Here is the opportunity to bring about a fusion,"
+      said a young Legitimist. Troopers and canteen men waited upon them. Two or
+      three tallow candles burnt and smoked on each table. There were few
+      glasses. Right and Left drank from the same. "Equality, fraternity,"
+      exclaimed the Marquis Sauvaire-Barthélemy, of the Right. And Victor
+      Hannequin answered him, "But not Liberty."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Colonel Feray, the son-in-law of Marshal Bugeaud, was in command at the
+      barracks; he offered the use of his drawing-room to M. de Broglie and to
+      M. Odilon Barrot, who accepted it. The barrack doors were opened to M. de
+      Kératry, on account of his great age, to M. Dufaure, as his wife had just
+      been confined, and to M. Etienne, on account of the wound which he had
+      received that morning in the Rue de Bourgogne. At the same time there were
+      added to the two hundred and twenty MM. Eugène Sue, Benoist (du Rhône),
+      Fayolle, Chanay, Toupet des Vignes, Radoubt-Lafosse, Arbey, and
+      Teillard-Latérisse, who up to that time had been detained in the new
+      Palace of Foreign Affairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Towards eight o'clock in the evening, when dinner was over, the
+      restrictions were a little relaxed, and the intermediate space between the
+      door and the barred gate of the barracks began to be littered with carpet
+      bags and articles of toilet sent by the families of the imprisoned
+      Representatives.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Representatives were summoned by their names. Each went down in turn,
+      and briskly remounted with his cloak, his coverlet, or his foot-warmer. A
+      few ladies succeeded in making their way to their husbands. M.M. Chambolle
+      was able to press his son's hand through the bars.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly a voice called out, "Oho! We are going to spend the night here."
+      Mattresses were brought in, which were thrown on the tables, on the floor,
+      anywhere.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fifty or sixty Representatives found resting-places on them. The greater
+      number remained on their benches. Marc Dufraisse settled himself to pass
+      the night on a footstool, leaning on a table. Happy was the man who had a
+      chair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nevertheless, cordiality and gaiety did not cease to prevail. "Make room
+      for the 'Burgraves!'" said smilingly a venerable veteran of the Right. A
+      young Republican Representative rose, and offered him his mattress. They
+      pressed on each offers of overcoats, cloaks, and coverlets.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Reconciliation," said Chamiot, while offering the half of his mattress to
+      the Duc de Luynes. The Duc de Luynes, who had 80,000 francs a year,
+      smiled, and replied to Chamiot, "You are St. Martin, and I am the beggar."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      M. Paillet, the well-known barrister, who belonged to the "Third Estate,"
+      used to say, "I passed the night on a Bonapartist straw mattress, wrapped
+      in a burnouse of the Mountain, my feet in a Democratic and Socialist
+      sheepskin, and my head in a Legitimist cotton nightcap." The
+      Representatives, although prisoners in the barracks, could stroll about
+      freely. They were allowed to go down into the courtyard. M. Cordier (of
+      Calvados) came upstairs again, saying, "I have just spoken to the
+      soldiers. They did not know that their generals had been arrested. They
+      appeared surprised and discontented." This incident raised the prisoners'
+      hopes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Representative Michel Renaud of the Basses-Pyrénees, found several of his
+      compatriots of the Basque country amongst the Chasseurs de Vincennes who
+      occupied the courtyard. Some had voted for him, and reminded him of the
+      fact. They added, "Ah! We would again vote for the 'Red' list." One of
+      them, quite a young man, took him aside, and said to him. "Do you want any
+      money, sir? I have a forty-sous piece in my pocket."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Towards ten o'clock in the evening a great hubbub arose in the courtyard.
+      The doors and the barred gate turned noisily upon their hinges. Something
+      entered which rumbled like thunder. They leaned out of window, and saw at
+      the foot of the steps a sort of big, oblong chest, painted black, yellow,
+      red, and green, on four wheels, drawn by post-horses, and surrounded by
+      men in long overcoats, and with fierce-looking faces, holding torches. In
+      the gloom, and with the help of imagination, this vehicle appeared
+      completely black. A door could be seen, but no other opening. It resembled
+      a great coffin on wheels. "What is that? Is it a hearse?" "No, it is a
+      police-van." "And those people, are they undertakers?" "No, they are
+      jailers." "And for whom has this come?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "For you, gentlemen!" cried out a voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the voice of an officer; and the vehicle which had just entered was
+      in truth a police-van.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the same time a word of command was heard: "First squadron to horse."
+      And five minutes afterwards the Lancers who were to escort the vehicle
+      formed in line in the courtyard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then arose in the barracks the buzz of a hive of angry bees. The
+      Representatives ran up and down the stairs, and went to look at the
+      police-van close at hand. Some of them touched it, and could not believe
+      their eyes. M. Piscatory met M. Chambolle, and cried out to him, "I am
+      leaving in it!" M. Berryer met Eugène Sue, and they exchanged these words:
+      "Where are you going?" "To Mount Valérien. And you?" "I do not know."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At half-past ten the roll-call of those who were to leave began. Police
+      agents stationed themselves at a table between two candles in a parlor at
+      the foot of the stairs, and the Representatives were summoned two by two.
+      The Representatives agreed not to answer to their names, and to reply to
+      each name which should be called out, "He is not here." But those
+      "Burgraves" who had accepted the hospitality of Colonel Feray considered
+      such petty resistance unworthy of them, and answered to the calling out of
+      their names. This drew the others after them. Everybody answered. Amongst
+      the Legitimists some serio-comic scenes were enacted. They who alone were
+      not threatened insisted on believing that they were in danger. They would
+      not let one of their orators go. They embraced him, and held him back,
+      almost with tears, crying out, "Do not go away! Do you know where they are
+      taking you? Think of the trenches of Vincennes!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Representatives, having been summoned two by two, as we have just
+      said, filed in the parlor before the police agents, and then they were
+      ordered to get into the "robbers' box." The stowage was apparently made at
+      haphazard and promiscuously; nevertheless, later, by the difference of the
+      treatment accorded to the Representatives in the various prisons, it was
+      apparent that this promiscuous loading had perhaps been somewhat
+      prearranged. When the first vehicle was full, a second, of a similar
+      construction drew up. The police agents, pencil and pocket-book in hand,
+      noted down the contents of each vehicle. These men knew the
+      Representatives. When Marc Dufraisse, called in his turn, entered the
+      parlor, he was accompanied by Benoist (du Rhône). "Ah! here is Marc
+      Dufraisse," said the attendant who held the pencil. When asked for his
+      name, Benoist replied "Benoist." "Du Rhône," added the police agent; and
+      he continued, "for there are also Benoist d'Azy and Benoist-Champy."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The loading of each vehicle occupied nearly half an hour. The successive
+      arrivals had raised the number of imprisoned Representatives to two
+      hundred and thirty-two Their embarkation, or, to use the expression of M.
+      de Vatimesnil, their "barrelling up," which began a little after ten in
+      the evening, was not finished until nearly seven o'clock in the morning.
+      When there were no more police-vans available omnibuses were brought in.
+      These various vehicles were portioned off into three detachments, each
+      escorted by Lancers. The first detachment left towards one o'clock in the
+      morning, and was driven to Mont Valérien; the second towards five o'clock,
+      and was driven to Mazas; the third towards half-past six, to Vincennes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As this business occupied a long time, those who had not yet been called
+      benefited by the mattresses and tried to sleep. Thus, from time to time,
+      silence reigned in the upper rooms. In the midst of one of these pauses M.
+      Bixio sat upright, and raising his voice, cried out, "Gentlemen, what do
+      you think of 'passive obedience'?" An unanimous burst of laughter was the
+      reply. Again, during one of these pauses another voice exclaimed,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Romieu will be a senator."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Emile Péan asked,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What will become of the Red Spectre?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He will enter the priesthood," answered Antony Thouret, "and will turn
+      into the Black Spectre."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Other exclamations which the historians of the Second of December have
+      spread abroad were not uttered. Thus, Marc Dufraisse never made the remark
+      with which the men of Louis Bonaparte have wished to excuse their crimes:
+      "If the President does not shoot all those among us who resist, he does
+      not understand his business."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For the <i>coup d'état</i> such a remark might be convenient; but for
+      History it is false.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The interior of the police-vans was lighted while the Representatives were
+      entering. The air-holes of each compartment were not closed. In this
+      manner Marc Dufraisse through the aperture could see M. du Rémusat in the
+      opposite cell to his own. M. du Rémusat had entered the van coupled with
+      M. Duvergier de Hauranne.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Upon my word, Monsieur Marc Dufraisse," exclaimed Duvergier de Hauranne
+      when they jostled each other in the gangway of the vehicle, "upon my word,
+      if any one had said to me, 'You will go to Marzas in a police-van,' I
+      should have said, 'It is improbable;' but if they had added, 'You will go
+      with Marc Dufraisse,' I should have said, 'It is impossible!'"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As soon as the vehicle was full, five or six policemen entered and stood
+      in the gangway. The door was shut, the steps were thrown up, and they
+      drove off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When all the police-vans had been filled, there were still some
+      Representatives left. As we have said, omnibuses were brought into
+      requisition. Into these Representatives were thrust, one upon the other,
+      rudely, without deference for either age or name. Colonel Feray, on
+      horseback, superintended and directed operations. As he mounted the steps
+      of the last vehicle but one, the Duc de Montebello cried out to him,
+      "To-day is the anniversary of the battle of Austerlitz, and the son-in-law
+      of Marshal Bugeaud compels the son of Marshal Lannes to enter a convict's
+      van."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the last omnibus was reached, there were only seventeen places for
+      eighteen Representatives. The most active mounted first. Antony Thouret,
+      who himself alone equalled the whole of the Right, for he had as much mind
+      as Thiers and as much stomach as Murat; Antony Thouret, corpulent and
+      lethargic, was the last. When he appeared on the threshold of the omnibus
+      in all his hugeness, a cry of alarm arose;&mdash;Where was he going to
+      sit?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Antony Thouret, noticing Berryer at the bottom of the omnibus, went
+      straight up to him, sat down on his knees, and quietly said to him, "You
+      wanted 'compression,' Monsieur Berryer. Now you have it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a href="#linknote-8" name="linknoteref-8" id="linknoteref-8_"><small>8</small></a>
+      <i> Michel de Bourges had thus characterized Louis Bonaparte as the
+      guardian of the Republic against the Monarchical parties.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XV. MAZAS
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The police-vans, escorted as far as Mazas by Lancers, found another
+      squadron of Lancers ready to receive them at Mazas. The Representatives
+      descended from the vehicle one by one. The officer commanding the Lancers
+      stood by the door, and watched them pass with a dull curiosity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mazas, which had taken the place of the prison of La Force, now pulled
+      down, is a lofty reddish building, close to the terminus of the Lyons
+      Railway, and stands on the waste land of the Faubourg St. Antoine. From a
+      distance the building appears as though built of bricks, but on closer
+      examination it is seen to be constructed of flints set in cement. Six
+      large detached buildings, three stories high, all radiating from a rotunda
+      which serves as the common centre, and touching each other at the
+      starting-point, separated by courtyards which grow broader in proportion
+      as the buildings spread out, pierced with a thousand little dormer windows
+      which give light to the cells, surrounded by a high wall, and presenting
+      from a bird's-eye point of view the drape of a fan&mdash;such is Mazas.
+      From the rotunda which forms the centre, springs a sort of minaret, which
+      is the alarm-tower. The ground floor is a round room, which serves as the
+      registrar's office. On the first story is a chapel where a single priest
+      says mass for all; and the observatory, where a single attendant keeps
+      watch over all the doors of all the galleries at the same time. Each
+      building is termed a "division." The courtyards are intersected by high
+      walls into a multitude of little oblong walks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As each Representative descended from the vehicle he was conducted into
+      the rotunda where the registry office was situated. There his name was
+      taken down, and in exchange for his name he was assigned a number. Whether
+      the prisoner be a thief or a legislator, such is always the rule in this
+      prison; the <i>coup d'état</i> reduced all to a footing of equality. As
+      soon as a Representative was registered and numbered, he was ordered to
+      "file off." They said to him, "Go upstairs," or "Go on;" and they
+      announced him at the end of the corridor to which he was allotted by
+      calling out, "Receive number So-and-So." The jailer in that particular
+      corridor answered, "Send him on." The prisoner mounted alone, went
+      straight on, and on his arrival found the jailer standing near an open
+      door. The jailer said, "Here it is, sir." The prisoner entered, the jailer
+      shut the door, and they passed on to another.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The <i>coup d'état</i> acted in a very different manner towards the
+      various Representatives. Those whom it desired to conciliate, the men of
+      the Bight, were placed in Vincennes; those whom it detested, the men of
+      the Left, were placed in Mazas. Those at Vincennes had the quarters of M.
+      Montpensier, which were expressly reopened for them; an excellent dinner,
+      eaten in company; wax candles, fire, and the smiles and bows of the
+      governor, General Courtigis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This is how it treated those at Mazas.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A police-van deposited them at the prison. They were transferred from one
+      box to another. At Mazas a clerk registered them, weighed them, measured
+      them, and entered them into the jail book as convicts. Having passed
+      through the office, each of them was conducted along a gallery shrouded in
+      darkness, through a long damp vault to a narrow door which was suddenly
+      opened. This reached, a jailer pushed the Representative in by the
+      shoulders, and the door was shut.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Representative, thus immured, found himself in a little, long, narrow,
+      dark room. It is this which the prudent language of modern legislation
+      terms a "cell." Here the full daylight of a December noon only produced a
+      dusky twilight. At one end there was a door, with a little grating; at the
+      other, close to the ceiling, at a height of ten or twelve feet, there was
+      a loophole with a fluted glass window. This window dimmed the eye, and
+      prevented it from seeing the blue or gray of the sky, or from
+      distinguishing the cloud from the sun's ray, and invested the wan daylight
+      of winter with an indescribable uncertainty. It was even less than a dim
+      light, it was a turbid light. The inventors of this fluted window
+      succeeded in making the heavens squint.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After a few moments the prisoner began to distinguish objects confusedly,
+      and this is what he found: White-washed walls here and there turned green
+      by various exhalations; in one corner a round hole guarded by iron bars,
+      and exhaling a disgusting smell; in another corner a slab turning upon a
+      hinge like the bracket seat of a <i>fiacre</i>, and thus capable of being
+      used as a table; no bed; a straw-bottomed chair; under foot a brick floor.
+      Gloom was the first impression; cold was the second. There, then, the
+      prisoner found himself, alone, chilled, in this semi-darkness, being able
+      to walk up and down the space of eight square feet like a caged wolf, or
+      to remain seated on his chair like an idiot at Bicêtre.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In this situation an ex-Republican of the Eve, who had become a member of
+      the majority, and on occasions sided somewhat with the Bonapartists, M.
+      Emile Leroux, who had, moreover, been thrown into Mazas by mistake, having
+      doubtless been taken for some other Leroux, began to weep with rage.
+      Three, four, five hours thus passed away. In the meanwhile they had not
+      eaten since the morning; some of them, in the excitement caused by the <i>coup
+      d'état</i> had not even breakfasted. Hunger came upon them. Were they to
+      be forgotten there? No; a bell rang in the prison, the grating of the door
+      opened, and an arm held out to the prisoner a pewter porringer and a piece
+      of bread.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The prisoner greedily seized the bread and the porringer. The bread was
+      black and sticky; the porringer contained a sort of thick water, warm and
+      reddish. Nothing can be compared to the smell of this "soup." As for the
+      bread, it only smelt of mouldiness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      However great their hunger, most of the prisoners during the first moment
+      threw down their bread on the floor, and emptied the porringer down the
+      hole with the iron bars.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nevertheless the stomach craved, the hours passed by, they picked up the
+      bread, and ended by eating it. One prisoner went so far as to pick up the
+      porringer and to attempt to wipe out the bottom with his bread, which he
+      afterwards devoured. Subsequently, this prisoner, a Representative set at
+      liberty in exile, described to me this dietary, and said to me, "A hungry
+      stomach has no nose."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile there was absolute solitude and profound silence. However, in
+      the course of a few hours, M. Emile Leroux&mdash;he himself has told the
+      fact to M. Versigny&mdash;heard on the other side of the wall on his right
+      a sort of curious knocking, spaced out and intermittent at irregular
+      intervals. He listened, and almost at the same moment on the other side of
+      the wall to his left a similar rapping responded. M. Emile Leroux,
+      enraptured&mdash;what a pleasure it was to hear a noise of some kind!&mdash;thought
+      of his colleagues, prisoners like himself, and cried out in a tremendous
+      voice, "Oh, oh! you are there also, you fellows!" He had scarcely uttered
+      this sentence when the door of his cell was opened with a creaking of
+      hinges and bolts; a man&mdash;the jailer&mdash;appeared in a great rage,
+      and said to him,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Hold your tongue!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Representative of the People, somewhat bewildered, asked for an
+      explanation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Hold your tongue," replied the jailer, "or I will pitch you into a
+      dungeon."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This jailer spoke to the prisoner as the <i>coup d'état</i> spoke to the
+      nation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      M. Emile Leroux, with his persistent parliamentary habits, nevertheless
+      attempted to insist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What!" said he, "can I not answer the signals which two of my colleagues
+      are making to me?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Two of your colleagues, indeed," answered the jailer, "they are two
+      thieves." And he shut the door, shouting with laughter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They were, in fact, two thieves, between whom M. Emile Leroux was, not
+      crucified, but locked up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Mazas prison is so ingeniously built that the least word can be heard
+      from one cell to another. Consequently there is no isolation,
+      notwithstanding the cellular system. Thence this rigorous silence imposed
+      by the perfect and cruel logic of the rules. What do the thieves do? They
+      have invented a telegraphic system of raps, and the rules gain nothing by
+      their stringency. M. Emile Leroux had simply interrupted a conversation
+      which had been begun.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Don't interfere with our friendly patter," cried out his thief neighbor,
+      who for this exclamation was thrown into the dungeon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such was the life of the Representatives at Mazas. Moreover, as they were
+      in secret confinement, not a book, not a sheet of paper, not a pen, not
+      even an hour's exercise in the courtyard was allowed to them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The thieves also go to Mazas, as we have seen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But those who know a trade are permitted to work; those who know how to
+      read are supplied with books; those who know how to write are granted a
+      desk and paper; all are permitted the hour's exercise required by the laws
+      of health and authorized by the rules.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Representatives were allowed nothing whatever. Isolation, close
+      confinement, silence, darkness, cold, "the amount of <i>ennui</i> which
+      engenders madness," as Linguet has said when speaking of the Bastille.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To remain seated on a chair all day long, with arms and legs crossed: such
+      was the situation. But the bed! Could they lie down?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was no bed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At eight o'clock in the evening the jailer came into the cell, and reached
+      down, and removed something which was rolled up on a plank near the
+      ceiling. This "something" was a hammock.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The hammock having been fixed, hooked up, and spread out, the jailer
+      wished his prisoner "Good-night."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a blanket on the hammock, sometimes a mattress some two inches
+      thick. The prisoner, wrapt in this covering, tried to sleep, and only
+      succeeded in shivering.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But on the morrow he could at least remain lying down all day in his
+      hammock?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not at all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At seven o'clock in the morning the jailer came in, wished the
+      Representative "Good-morning," made him get up, and rolled up the hammock
+      on its shelf near the ceiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But in this case could not the prisoner take down the authorized hammock,
+      unroll it, hook it up, and lie down again?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yes, he could. But then there was the dungeon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was the routine. The hammock for the night, the chair for the day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Let us be just, however. Some obtained beds, amongst others MM. Thiers and
+      Roger (du Nord). M. Grévy did not have one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mazas is a model prison of progress; it is certain that Mazas is
+      preferable to the <i>piombi</i> of Venice, and to the under-water dungeon
+      of the Châtelet. Theoretical philanthropy has built Mazas. Nevertheless,
+      as has been seen, Mazas leaves plenty to be desired. Let us acknowledge
+      that from a certain point of view the temporary solitary confinement of
+      the law-makers at Mazas does not displease us. There was perhaps something
+      of Providence in the <i>coup d'état</i>. Providence, in placing the
+      Legislators at Mazas, has performed an act of good education. Eat of your
+      own cooking; it is not a bad thing that those who own prisons should try
+      them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0016" id="link2HCH0016"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVI. THE EPISODE OF THE BOULEVARD ST. MARTIN
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      When Charamaule and I reached No. 70, Rue Blanche, a steep lonely street,
+      a man in a sort of naval sub-officer's uniform, was walking up and down
+      before the door. The portress, who recognized us, called our attention to
+      him. "Nonsense," said Charamaule, "a man walking about in that manner, and
+      dressed after that fashion, is assuredly not a police spy."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My dear colleague," said I, "Bedeau has proved that the police are
+      blockheads."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We went upstairs. The drawing-room and a little ante-chamber which led to
+      it were full of Representatives, with whom were mingled a good many
+      persons who did not belong to the Assembly. Some ex-members of the
+      Constituent Assembly were there, amongst others, Bastide and several
+      Democratic journalists. The <i>Nationale</i> was represented by Alexander
+      Rey and Léopold Duras, the <i>Révolution</i> by Xavier Durrieu, Vasbenter,
+      and Watripon, the <i>Avénement du Peuple</i> by H. Coste, nearly all the
+      other editors of the <i>Avénement</i> being in prison. About sixty members
+      of the Left were there, and among others Edgar Quinet, Schoelcher, Madier
+      de Montjau, Carnot, Noël Parfait, Pierre Lefranc, Bancel, de Flotte,
+      Bruckner, Chaix, Cassal, Esquiros, Durand-Savoyat, Yvan, Carlos Forel,
+      Etchegoyen, Labrousse, Barthélemy (Eure-et-Loire), Huguenin, Aubrey (du
+      Nord), Malardier, Victor Chauffour, Belin, Renaud, Bac, Versigny, Sain,
+      Joigneaux, Brives, Guilgot, Pelletier, Doutre, Gindrier, Arnauld (de
+      l'Ariége), Raymond (de l'Isère), Brillier, Maigne, Sartin, Raynaud, Léon
+      Vidal, Lafon, Lamargue, Bourzat, and General Rey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All were standing. They were talking without order. Léopold Duras had just
+      described the investment of the Café Bonvalet. Jules Favre and Baudin,
+      seated at a little table between the two windows, were writing. Baudin had
+      a copy of the Constitution open before him, and was copying Article 68.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When we entered there was silence, and they asked us, "Well, what news?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Charamaule told them what had just taken place on the Boulevard du Temple,
+      and the advice which he had thought right to give me. They approved his
+      action.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What is to be done?" was asked on every side. I began to speak.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Let us go straight to the fact and to the point," said I. "Louis
+      Bonaparte is gaining ground, and we are losing ground, or rather, we
+      should say, he has as yet everything, and we have as yet nothing.
+      Charamaule and I have been obliged to separate ourselves from Colonel
+      Forestier. I doubt if he will succeed. Louis Bonaparte is doing all he can
+      to suppress us, we must no longer keep in the background. We must make our
+      presence felt. We must fan this beginning of the flame of which we have
+      seen the spark on the Boulevard du Temple. A proclamation must be made, no
+      matter by whom it is printed, or how it is placarded, but it is absolutely
+      necessary, and that immediately. Something brief, rapid, and energetic. No
+      set phrases. Ten lines&mdash;an appeal to arms! We are the Law, and there
+      are occasions when the Law should utter a war-cry. The Law, outlawing the
+      traitor, is a great and terrible thing. Let us do it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They interrupted me with "Yes, that is right, a proclamation!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Dictate! dictate!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Dictate," said Baudin to me, "I will write."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I dictated:-
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  "TO THE PEOPLE.
+
+  "Louis Napoléon Bonaparte is a traitor.
+
+  "He has violated the Constitution.
+
+  "He is forsworn.
+
+  "He is an outlaw&mdash;"
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      They cried out to me on every side,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That is right! Outlaw him."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Go on."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I resumed the dictation. Baudin wrote,&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  "The Republican Representatives refer the People and the Army to Article
+  68&mdash;"
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      They interrupted me: "Quote it in full."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No," said I, "it would be too long. Something is needed which can be
+      placarded on a card, stuck with a wafer, and which can be read in a
+      minute. I will quote Article 110. It is short and contains the appeal to
+      arms."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I resumed,&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  "The Republican Representatives refer the People and the Army to Article
+  68 and to Article 110, which runs thus&mdash;'The Constituent Assembly
+  confides the existing Constitution and the Laws which it consecrates to
+  the keeping and the patriotism of all Frenchmen.'
+
+  "The People henceforward and for ever in possession of universal
+  suffrages and who need no Prince for its restitution, will know how to
+  chastise the rebel.
+
+  "Let the People do its duty. The Republican Representatives are marching
+  at its head.
+
+  "Vive la République! To Arms!"
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      They applauded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Let us all sign," said Pelletier.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Let us try to find a printing-office without delay," said Schoelcher,
+      "and let the proclamation be posted up immediately."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Before nightfall&mdash;the days are short," added Joigneaux.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Immediately, immediately, several copies!" called out the
+      Representatives.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Baudin, silent and rapid, had already made a second copy of the
+      proclamation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A young man, editor of the provincial Republican journal, came out of the
+      crowd, and declared that, if they would give him a copy at once, before
+      two hours should elapse the Proclamation should be posted at all the
+      street corners in Paris.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I asked him,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What is your name?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He answered me,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Millière."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Millière. It is in this manner that this name made its first appearance in
+      the gloomy days of our History. I can still see that pale young man, that
+      eye at the same time piercing and half closed, that gentle and forbidding
+      profile. Assassination and the Pantheon awaited him. He was too obscure to
+      enter into the Temple, he was sufficiently deserving to die on its
+      threshold. Baudin showed him the copy which he had just made.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Millière went up to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You do not know me," said he; "my name is Millière; but I know you, you
+      are Baudin."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Baudin held out his hand to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was present at the handshaking between these two spectres.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Xavier Durrieu, who was editor of the <i>Révolution</i> made the same
+      offer as Millière.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A dozen Representatives took their pens and sat down, some around a table,
+      others with a sheet of paper on their knees, and called out to me,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Dictate the Proclamation to us."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I had dictated to Baudin, "Louis Napoléon Bonaparte is a traitor." Jules
+      Favre requested the erasure of the word Napoléon, that name of glory
+      fatally powerful with the People and with the Army, and that there should
+      be written, "Louis Bonaparte is a traitor."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You are right," said I to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A discussion followed. Some wished to strike out the word "Prince." But
+      the Assembly was impatient. "Quick! quick!" they cried out. "We are in
+      December, the days are short," repeated Joigneaux.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Twelve copies were made at the same time in a few minutes. Schoelcher,
+      Rey, Xavier Durrieu, and Millière each took one, and set out in search of
+      a printing office.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As they went out a man whom I did not know, but who was greeted by several
+      Representatives, entered and said, "Citizens, this house is marked. Troops
+      are on the way to surround you. You have not a second to lose."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Numerous voices were raised,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Very well! Let them arrest us!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What does it matter to us?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Let them complete their crime."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Colleagues," said I, "let us not allow ourselves to be arrested. After
+      the struggle, as God pleases; but before the combat,&mdash;No! It is from
+      us that the people are awaiting the initiative. If we are taken, all is at
+      an end. Our duty is to bring on the battle, our right is to cross swords
+      with the <i>coup d'état</i>. It must not be allowed to capture us, it must
+      seek us and not find us. We must deceive the arm which it stretches out
+      against us, we must remain concealed from Bonaparte, we must harass him,
+      weary him, astonish him, exhaust him, disappear and reappear unceasingly,
+      change our hiding-place, and always fight him, be always before him, and
+      never beneath his hand. Let us not leave the field. We have not numbers,
+      let us have daring."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They approved of this. "It is right," said they, "but where shall we go?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Labrousse said,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Our former colleague of the Constituent Assembly, Beslay, offers us his
+      house."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Where does he live?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No. 33, Rue de la Cérisaie, in the Marais."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Very well," answered I, "let us separate. We will meet again in two hours
+      at Beslay's, No. 33, Rue de la Cérisaie."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All left; one after another, and in different directions. I begged
+      Charamaule to go to my house and wait for me there, and I walked out with
+      Noël Parfait and Lafon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We reached the then still uninhabited district which skirts the ramparts.
+      As we came to the corner of the Rue Pigalle, we saw at a hundred paces
+      from us, in the deserted streets which cross it, soldiers gliding all
+      along the houses, bending their steps towards the Rue Blanche.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At three o'clock the members of the Left rejoined each other in the Rue de
+      la Cérisaie. But the alarm had been given, and the inhabitants of these
+      lonely streets stationed themselves at the windows to see the
+      Representatives pass. The place of meeting, situated and hemmed in at the
+      bottom of a back yard, was badly chosen in the event of being surrounded:
+      all these disadvantages were at once perceived, and the meeting only
+      lasted a few seconds. It was presided over by Joly; Xavier Durrieu and
+      Jules Gouache, who were editors of the <i>Révolution</i>, also took part,
+      as well as several Italian exiles, amongst others Colonel Carini and
+      Montanelli, ex-Minister of the Grand Duke of Tuscany. I liked Montanelli,
+      a gentle and dauntless spirit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Madier de Montjau brought news from the outskirts. Colonel Forestier,
+      without losing and without taking away hope, told them of the obstacles
+      which he had encountered in his attempts to call together the 6th Legion.
+      He pressed me to sign his appointment as Colonel, as well as Michel de
+      Bourges; but Michel de Bourges was absent, and besides, neither Michel de
+      Bourges nor I had yet at drat time the authority from the Left.
+      Nevertheless, under this reservation I signed his appointment. The
+      perplexities were becoming more and more numerous. The Proclamation was
+      not yet printed, and the evening was closing in. Schoelcher explained the
+      difficulties: all the printing offices closed and guarded; an order
+      placarded that whoever should print an appeal to arms world be immediately
+      shot; the workmen terrified; no money. A hat was sent round, and each
+      threw into it what money he had about him. They collected in this manner a
+      few hundred francs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Xavier Durrieu, whose fiery courage never flagged for a single moment,
+      reiterated that he would undertake the printing, and promised that by
+      eight o'clock that evening there should be 40,000 copies of the
+      Proclamation. Time pressed. They separated, after fixing as a rendezvous
+      the premises of the Society of Cabinet-makers in the Rue de Charonne, at
+      eight o'clock in the evening, so as to allow time for the situation to
+      reveal itself. As we went out and crossed the Rue Beautreillis I saw
+      Pierre Leroux coming up to me. He had taken no part in our meetings. He
+      said to me,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I believe this struggle to be useless. Although my point of view is
+      different from yours, I am your friend. Beware. There is yet time to stop.
+      You are entering into the catacombs. The catacombs are Death."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "They are also Life," answered I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All the same, I thought with joy that my two sons were in prison, and that
+      this gloomy duty of street fighting was imposed upon me alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There yet remained five hours until the time fixed for the rendezvous. I
+      wished to go home, and once more embrace my wife and daughter before
+      precipitating myself into that abyss of the "unknown" which was there,
+      yawning and gloomy, and which several of us were about to enter, never to
+      return.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Arnauld (de l'Ariége) gave me his arm. The two Italian exiles, Carini aril
+      Montanelli, accompanied me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Montanelli took my hands and said to me, "Right will conquer. You will
+      conquer. Oh! that this time France may not be selfish as in 1848, and that
+      she may deliver Italy." I answered him, "She will deliver Europe."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Those were our illusions at that moment, but this, however, does not
+      prevent them from being our hopes to-day. Faith is thus constituted;
+      shadows demonstrate to it the light.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is a cabstand before the front gate of St. Paul. We went there. The
+      Rue St. Antoine was alive with that indescribable uneasy swarming which
+      precedes those strange battles of ideas against deeds which are called
+      Revolutions. I seemed to catch, in this great working-class district, a
+      glimpse of a gleam of light which, alas, died out speedily. The cabstand
+      before St. Paul was deserted. The drivers had foreseen the possibility of
+      barricades, and had fled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Three miles separated Arnauld and myself from our houses. It was
+      impossible to walk there through the middle of Paris, without being
+      recognized at each step. Two passers-by extricated us from our difficulty.
+      One of them said to the other, "The omnibuses are still running on the
+      Boulevards."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We profited by this information, and went to look for a Bastille omnibus.
+      All four of us got in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I entertained at heart, I repeat, wrongly or rightly, a bitter reproach
+      for the opportunity lost during the morning. I said to myself that on
+      critical days such moments come, but do not return. There are two theories
+      of Revolution: to arouse the people, or to let them come of themselves.
+      The first theory was mine, but, through force of discipline, I had obeyed
+      the second. I reproached myself with this. I said to myself, "The People
+      offered themselves, and we did not accept them. It is for us now not to
+      offer ourselves, but to do more, to give ourselves."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile the omnibus had started. It was full. I had taken my place at
+      the bottom on the left; Arnauld (de l'Ariége) sat next to me, Carini
+      opposite, Montanelli next to Arnauld. We did not speak; Arnauld and myself
+      silently exchanged that pressure of hands which is a means of exchanging
+      thoughts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the omnibus proceeded towards the centre of Paris the crowd became
+      denser on the Boulevard. As the omnibus entered into the cutting of the
+      Porte St. Martin a regiment of heavy cavalry arrived in the opposite
+      direction. In a few seconds this regiment passed by the side of us. They
+      were cuirassiers. They filed by at a sharp trot and with drawn swords. The
+      people leaned over from the height of the pavements to see them pass. Not
+      a single cry. On the one side the people dejected, on the other the
+      soldiers triumphant. All this stirred me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly the regiment halted. I do not know what obstruction momentarily
+      impeded its advance in this narrow cutting of the Boulevard in which we
+      were hemmed in. By its halt it stopped the omnibus. There were the
+      soldiers. We had them under our eyes, before us, at two paces distance,
+      their horses touching the horses of our vehicle, these Frenchmen who had
+      become Mamelukes, these citizen soldiers of the Great Republic transformed
+      into supporters of the degraded Empire. From the place where I sat I
+      almost touched them; I could no longer restrain myself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I lowered the window of the omnibus. I put out my head, and, looking
+      fixedly at the dense line of soldiers which faced me, I called out, "Down
+      with Louis Bonaparte. Those who serve traitors are traitors!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Those nearest to me turned their heads towards me and looked at me with a
+      tipsy air; the others did not stir, and remained at "shoulder arms," the
+      peaks of their helmets over their eyes, their eyes fixed upon the ears of
+      their horses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In great affairs there is the immobility of statues; in petty mean affairs
+      there is the immobility of puppets.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the shout which I raised Arnauld turned sharply round. He also had
+      lowered his window, and he was leaning half out of the omnibus, with his
+      arms extended towards the soldiers, and he shouted, "Down with the
+      traitors!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To see him thus with his dauntless gesture, his handsome head, pale and
+      calm, his fervent expression, his beard and his long chestnut hair, one
+      seemed to behold the radiant and fulminating face of an angry Christ.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The example was contagious and electrical.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Down with the traitors!" shouted Carini and Montanelli.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Down with the Dictator! Down with the traitors!" repeated a gallant young
+      man with whom we were not acquainted, and who was sitting next to Carini.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With the exception of this young man, the whole omnibus seemed seized with
+      terror!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Hold your tongues!" exclaimed these poor frightened people; "you will
+      cause us all to be massacred." One, still more terrified, lowered the
+      window, and began to shout to the soldiers, "Long live Prince Napoléon!
+      Long live the Emperor!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There were five of us, and we overpowered this cry by our persistent
+      protest, "Down with Louis Bonaparte! Down with the traitors!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The soldiers listened in gloomy silence. A corporal turned with a
+      threatening air towards us, and shook his sword. The crowd looked on in
+      bewilderment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What passed within me at that moment? I cannot tell! I was in a whirlwind.
+      I had at the same time yielded to a calculation, finding the opportunity
+      good, and to a burst of rage, finding the encounter insolent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A woman cried out to us from the pavement, "You will get yourselves cut to
+      pieces." I vaguely imagined that some collision was about to ensue, and
+      that, either from the crowd or from the Army, the spark would fly out. I
+      hoped for a sword-cut from the soldiers or a shout of anger from the
+      people. In short I had obeyed rather an instinct than an idea.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But nothing came of it, neither the sword-cut nor the shout of anger. The
+      soldiers did not bestir themselves and the people maintained silence. Was
+      it too late? Was it too soon?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The mysterious man of the Elysée had not foreseen the event of an insult
+      to his name being thrown in the very face of the soldiers. The soldiers
+      had no orders. They received them that evening. This was seen on the
+      morrow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In another moment the regiment broke into a gallop, and the omnibus
+      resumed its journey. As the cuirassiers filed past us Arnauld (de
+      l'Ariége), still leaning out of the vehicle, continued to shout in their
+      ears, for as I have just said, their horses touched us, "Down with the
+      Dictator! Down with the traitors!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We alighted in the Rue Lafitte. Carini, Montanelli, and Arnauld left me,
+      and I went on alone towards the Rue de la Tour d'Auvergne. Night was
+      coming on. As I turned the corner of the street a man passed close by me.
+      By the light of a street lamp I recognized a workman at a neighboring
+      tannery, and he said to me in a low tone, and quickly, "Do not return
+      home. The police surround your house."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I went back again towards the Boulevard, through the streets laid out, but
+      not then built, which make a Y under my windows behind my house. Not being
+      able to embrace my wife and daughter, I thought over what I could do
+      during the moments which remained to me. A remembrance came into my mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0017" id="link2HCH0017"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVII. THE REBOUND OF THE 24TH JUNE, 1848, ON THE 2D DECEMBER, 1851
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      On Sunday, 26th June, 1848, that four days' combat, that gigantic combat
+      so formidable and so heroic on both sides, still continued, but the
+      insurrection had been overcome nearly everywhere, and was restricted to
+      the Faubourg St. Antoine. Four men who had been amongst the most dauntless
+      defenders of the barricades of the Rue Pont-aux-Choux, of the Rue St.
+      Claude, and of the Rue St. Louis in the Marais, escaped after the
+      barricades had been taken, and found safe refuge in a house, No. 12, Rue
+      St. Anastase. They were concealed in an attic. The National Guards and the
+      Mobile Guards were hunting for them, in order to shoot them. I was told of
+      this. I was one of the sixty Representatives sent by the Constituent
+      Assembly into the middle of the conflict, charged with the task of
+      everywhere preceding the attacking column, of carrying, even at the peril
+      of their lives, words of peace to the barricades, to prevent the shedding
+      of blood, and to stop the civil war. I went into the Rue St. Anastase, and
+      I saved the lives of those four men.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Amongst those men there was a poor workman of the Rue de Charonne, whose
+      wife was being confined at that very moment, and who was weeping. One
+      could understand, when hearing his sobs and seeing his rags, how he had
+      cleared with a single bound these three steps&mdash;poverty, despair,
+      rebellion. Their chief was a young man, pale and fair, with high cheek
+      bones, intelligent brow, and an earnest and resolute countenance. As soon
+      as I set him free, and told him my name, he also wept. He said to me,
+      "When I think that an hour ago I knew that you were facing us, and that I
+      wished that the barrel of my gun had eyes to see and kill you!" He added,
+      "In the times in which we live we do not know what may happen. If ever you
+      need me, for whatever purpose, come." His name was Auguste, and he was a
+      wine-seller in the Rue de la Roquette.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Since that time I had only seen him once, on the 26th August, 1819, on the
+      day when I held the corner of Balzac's pall. The funeral possession was
+      going to Père la Chaise. Auguste's shop was on the way. All the streets
+      through which the procession passed were crowded. Auguste was at his door
+      with his young wife and two or three workmen. As I passed he greeted me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was this remembrance which came back to my mind as I descended the
+      lonely streets behind my house; in the presence of the 2d of December I
+      thought of him. I thought that he might give me information about the
+      Faubourg St. Antoine, and help us in rousing the people. This young man
+      had at once given me the impression of a soldier and a leader. I
+      remembered the words which he had spoken to me, and I considered it might
+      be useful to see him. I began by going to find in the Rue St. Anastase the
+      courageous woman who had hidden Auguste and his three companions, to whom
+      she had several times since rendered assistance. I begged her to accompany
+      me. She consented.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the way I dined upon a cake of chocolate which Charamaule had given me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The aspects of the boulevards, in coming down the Italiens towards the
+      Marais, had impressed rue. The shops were open everywhere as usual. There
+      was little military display. In the wealthy quarters there was much
+      agitation and concentration of troops; but on advancing towards the
+      working-class neighborhoods solitude reigned paramount. Before the Café
+      Turc a regiment was drawn up. A band of young men in blouses passed before
+      the regiment singing the "Marseillaise." I answered them by crying out "To
+      Arms!" The regiment did not stir. The light shone upon the playbills on an
+      adjacent wall; the theatres were open. I looked at the trees as I passed.
+      They were playing <i>Hernani</i> at the Theatre des Italiens, with a new
+      tenor named Guasco.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Place de la Bastille was frequented, as usual, by goers and comers,
+      the most peaceable folk in the world. A few workmen grouped round the July
+      Column, and, chatting in a low voice, were scarcely noticeable. Through
+      the windows of a wine shop could be seen two men who were disputing for
+      and against the <i>coup d'état</i>. He who favored it wore a blouse, he
+      who attacked it wore a cloth coat. A few steps further on a juggler had
+      placed between four candles his X-shaped table, and was displaying his
+      conjuring tricks in the midst of a crowd, who were evidently thinking only
+      of the juggler. On looking towards the gloomy loneliness of the Quai Mazas
+      several harnessed artillery batteries were dimly visible in the darkness.
+      Some lighted torches here and there showed up the black outline of the
+      cannons.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I had some trouble in finding Auguste's door in the Rue de la Roquette.
+      Nearly all the shops were shut, thus making the street very dark. At
+      length, through a glass shop-front I noticed a light which gleamed on a
+      pewter counter. Beyond the counter, through a partition also of glass and
+      ornamented with white curtains, another light, and the shadows of two or
+      three men at table could be vaguely distinguished. This was the place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I entered. The door on opening rang a bell. At the sound, the door of the
+      glazed partition which separated the shop from the parlor opened, and
+      Auguste appeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He knew me at once, and came up to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ah, Sir," said he, "it is you!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Do you know what is going on?" I asked him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This "Yes, sir," uttered with calmness, and even with a certain
+      embarrassment, told me all. Where I expected an indignant outcry I found
+      this peaceable answer. It seemed to me that I was speaking to the Faubourg
+      St. Antoine itself. I understood that all was at an end in this district,
+      and that we had nothing to expect from it. The people, this wonderful
+      people, had resigned themselves. Nevertheless, I made an effort.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Louis Bonaparte betrays the Republic," said I, without noticing that I
+      raised my voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He touched my arm, and pointing with his finger to the shadows which were
+      pictured on the glazed partition of the parlor, "Take care, sir; do not
+      talk so loudly."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What!" I exclaimed, "you have come to this&mdash;you dare not speak, you
+      dare not utter the name of 'Bonaparte' aloud; you barely mumble a few
+      words in a whisper here, in this street, in the Faubourg St. Antoine,
+      where, from all the doors, from all the windows, from all the pavements,
+      from all the very stones, ought to be heard the cry, 'To arms.'"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Auguste demonstrated to me what I already saw too clearly, and what Girard
+      had shadowed forth in the morning&mdash;the moral situation of the
+      Faubourg&mdash;that the people were "dazed"&mdash;that it seemed to all of
+      them that universal suffrage was restored; that the downfall of the law of
+      the 31st of May was a good thing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here I interrupted him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But this law of the 31st of May, it was Louis Bonaparte who instigated
+      it, it was Rouher who made it, it was Baroche who proposed it, and the
+      Bonapartists who voted it. You are dazzled by a thief who has taken your
+      purse, and who restores it to you!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not I," said Auguste, "but the others."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And he continued, "To tell the whole truth, people did not care much for
+      the Constitution, they liked the Republic, but the Republic was maintained
+      too much by force for their taste. In all this they could only see one
+      thing clearly, the cannons ready to slaughter them&mdash;they remembered
+      June, 1848&mdash;there were some poor people who had suffered greatly&mdash;Cavaignac
+      had done much evil&mdash;women clung to the men's blouses to prevent them
+      from going to the barricades&mdash;nevertheless, with all this, when
+      seeing men like ourselves at their head, they would perhaps fight, but
+      this hindered them, they did not know for what." He concluded by saying,
+      "The upper part of the Faubourg is doing nothing, the lower end will do
+      better. Round about here they will fight. The Rue de la Roquette is good,
+      the Rue de Charonne is good; but on the side of Père la Chaise they ask,
+      'What good will that do us?' They only recognize the forty sous of their
+      day's work. They will not bestir themselves; do not reckon upon the
+      masons." He added, with a smile, "Here we do not say 'cold as a stone,'
+      but 'cold as a mason'"&mdash;and he resumed, "As for me, if I am alive, it
+      is to you that I owe my life. Dispose of me. I will lay down my life, and
+      will do what you wish."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While he was speaking I saw the white curtain of the glazed partition
+      behind him move a little. His young wife, uneasy, was peeping through at
+      us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ah! my God," said I to him, "what we want is not the life of one man but
+      the efforts of all."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was silent. I continued,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Listen to me, Auguste, you who are good and intelligent. So, then, the
+      Faubourgs of Paris&mdash;which are heroes even when they err&mdash;the
+      Faubourgs of Paris, for a misunderstanding, for a question of salary
+      wrongly construed, for a bad definition of socialism, rose in June, 1848,
+      against the Assembly elected by themselves, against universal suffrage,
+      against their own vote; and yet they will not rise in December, 1851, for
+      Right, for the Law, for the People, for Liberty, for the Republic. You say
+      that there is perplexity, and that you do not understand; but, on the
+      contrary, it was in June that all was obscure, and it is to-day that
+      everything is clear!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While I was saying these last words the door of the parlor was softly
+      opened, and some one came in. It was a young man, fair as Auguste, in an
+      overcoat, and wearing a workman's cap. I started. Auguste turned round and
+      said to me, "You can trust him."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The young man took off his cap, came close up to me, carefully turning his
+      back on the glazed partition, and said to me in a low voice, "I know you
+      well. I was on the Boulevard du Temple to-day. We asked you what we were
+      to do; you said, 'We must take up arms.' Well, here they are!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He thrust his hands into the pockets of his overcoat and drew out two
+      pistols.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Almost at the same moment the bell of the street door sounded. He
+      hurriedly put his pistols back into his pockets. A man in a blouse came
+      in, a workman of some fifty years. This man, without looking at any one,
+      without saying anything, threw down a piece of money on the counter.
+      Auguste took a small glass and filled it with brandy, the man drank it
+      off, put down the glass upon the counter and went away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the door was shut: "You see," said Auguste to me, "they drink, they
+      eat, they sleep, they think of nothing. Such are they all!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The other interrupted him impetuously: "One man is not the People!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And turning towards me,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Citizen Victor Hugo, they will march forward. If all do not march, some
+      will march. To tell the truth, it is perhaps not here that a beginning
+      should be made, it is on the other side of the water."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And suddenly checking himself,&mdash;"After all, you probably do not know
+      my name."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He took a little pocket-book from his pocket, tore out a piece of paper,
+      wrote on it his name, and gave it to me. I regret having forgotten that
+      name. He was a working engineer. In order not to compromise him, I burnt
+      this paper with many others on the Saturday morning, when I was on the
+      point of being arrested.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is true, sir," said Auguste, "you must not judge badly of the
+      Faubourg. As my friend has said, it will perhaps not be the first to
+      begin; but if there is a rising it will rise."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I exclaimed, "And who would you have erect if the Faubourg St. Antoine be
+      prostrate! Who will be alive if the people be dead!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The engineer went to the street door, made certain that it was well shut,
+      then came back, and said,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "There are many men ready and willing. It is the leaders who are wanting.
+      Listen, Citizen Victor Hugo, I can say this to you, and," he added,
+      lowering his voice, "I hope for a movement to-night."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Where?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "On the Faubourg St. Marceau."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "At what time?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "At one o'clock."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "How do you know it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Because I shall be there."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He continued: "Now, Citizen Victor Hugo, if a movement takes place
+      to-night in the Faubourg St. Marceau, will you head it? Do you consent?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Have you your scarf of office?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I half drew it out of my pocket. His eyes glistened with joy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Excellent," said he. "The Citizen has his pistols, the Representative his
+      scarf. All are armed."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I questioned him. "Are you sure of your movement for to-night?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He answered me, "We have prepared it, and we reckon to be there."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "In that case," said I, "as soon as the first barricade is constructed I
+      will be behind it. Come and fetch me."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Where?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Wherever I may be."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He assured me that if the movement should take place during the night he
+      would know it at half-past ten that evening at the latest, and that I
+      should be informed of it before eleven o'clock. We settled that in
+      whatever place I might be at that hour I would send word to Auguste, who
+      undertook to let him know.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The young woman continued to peep out at us. The conversation was growing
+      prolonged, and might seem singular to the people in the parlor. "I am
+      going," said I to Auguste.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I had opened the door, he took my hand, pressed it as a woman might have
+      done, and said to me in a deeply-moved tone, "You are going: will you come
+      back?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I do not know."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is true," said he. "No one knows what is going to happen. Well, you
+      are perhaps going to be hunted and sought for as I have been. It will
+      perhaps be your turn to be shot, and mine to save you. You know the mouse
+      may sometimes prove useful to the lion. Monsieur Victor Hugo, if you need
+      a refuge, this house is yours. Come here. You will find a bed where you
+      can sleep, and a man who will lay down his life for you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I thanked him by a hearty shake of the hand, and I left. Eight o'clock
+      struck. I hastened towards the Rue de Charonne.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0018" id="link2HCH0018"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVIII. THE REPRESENTATIVES HUNTED DOWN
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      At the corner of the Rue de Faubourg St. Antoine before the shop of the
+      grocer Pepin, on the same spot where the immense barricade of June, 1848,
+      was erected as high as the second story, the decrees of the morning had
+      been placarded. Some men were inspecting them, although it was pitch dark,
+      and they could not read them, and an old woman said, "The 'Twenty-five
+      francs' are crushed&mdash;so much the better!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A few steps further I heard my name pronounced. I turned round. It was
+      Jules Favre, Bourzat, Lafon, Madier de Montjau, and Michel de Bourges, who
+      were passing by. I took leave of the brave and devoted woman who had
+      insisted upon accompanying me. A <i>fiacre</i> was passing. I put her in
+      it, and then rejoined the five Representatives. They had come from the Rue
+      de Charonne. They had found the premises of the Society of Cabinet Makers
+      closed. "There was no one there," said Madier de Montjau. "These worthy
+      people are beginning to get together a little capital, they do not wish to
+      compromise it, they are afraid of us. They say, '<i>coups d'état</i> are
+      nothing to us, we shall leave them alone!'"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That does not surprise me," answered I, "a society is shopkeeper."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Where are we going?" asked Jules Favre.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lafon lived two steps from there, at No. 2, Quai Jemmapes. He offered us
+      the use of his rooms. We accepted, and took the necessary measures to
+      inform the members of the Left that we had gone there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A few minutes afterwards we were installed in Lafon's rooms, on the fourth
+      floor of an old and lofty house. This house had seen the taking of the
+      Bastille.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This house was entered by a side-door opening from the Quai Jemmapes upon
+      a narrow courtyard a few steps lower than the Quai itself. Bourzat
+      remained at this door to warn us in case of any accident, and to point out
+      the house to those Representatives who might come up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In a few moments a large number of us had assembled, and we again met&mdash;all
+      those of the morning, with a few added. Lafon gave up his drawing-room to
+      us, the windows of which overlooked the back yard. We organized a sort of
+      "bureau," and we took our places, Jules Favre, Carnot, Michel, and myself,
+      at a large table, lighted by two candles, and placed before the fire. The
+      Representatives and the other people present sat around on chairs and
+      sofas. A group stood before the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Michel de Bourges, on entering, exclaimed, "We have come to seek out the
+      people of the Faubourg St. Antoine. Here we are. Here we must remain."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These words were applauded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They set forth the situation&mdash;the torpor of the Faubourgs, no one at
+      the Society of Cabinet Makers, the doors closed nearly everywhere. I told
+      them what I had seen and heard in the Rue de la Roquette, the remarks of
+      the wine-seller, Auguste, on the indifference of the people, the hopes of
+      the engineer, and the possibility of a movement during the night in the
+      Faubourg St. Marceau. It was settled that on the first notice that might
+      be given I should go there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nevertheless nothing was yet known of what had taken place during the day.
+      It was announced that M. Havin, Lieutenant-Colonel of the 5th Legion of
+      the National Guard, had ordered the officers of his Legion to attend a
+      meeting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Some Democratic writers came in, amongst whom were Alexander Rey and
+      Xavier Durrieu, with Kesler, Villiers, and Amable Lemaître of the <i>Révolution</i>;
+      one of these writers was Millière.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Millière had a large bleeding wound above his eye-brow; that same morning
+      on leaving us, as he was carrying away one of the copies of the
+      Proclamation which I had dictated, a man had thrown himself upon him to
+      snatch it from him. The police had evidently already been informed of the
+      Proclamation, and lay in wait for it; Millière had a hand-to-hand struggle
+      with the police agent, and had overthrown him, not without bearing away
+      this gash. However, the Proclamation was not yet printed. It was nearly
+      nine o'clock in the evening and nothing had come. Xavier Durrieu asserted
+      that before another hour elapsed they should have the promised forty
+      thousand copies. It was hoped to cover the walls of Paris with them during
+      the night. Each of those present was to serve as a bill-poster.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There were amongst us&mdash;an inevitable circumstance in the stormy
+      confusion of the first moments&mdash;a good many men whom we did not know.
+      One of these men brought in ten or twelve copies of the appeal to arms. He
+      asked me to sign them with my own hand, in order, he said, that he might
+      be able to show my signature to the people&mdash;"Or to the police,"
+      whispered Baudin to me smiling. We were not in a position to take such
+      precautions as these. I gave this man all the signatures that he wanted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Madier de Montjau began to speak. It was of consequence to organize the
+      action of the Left, to impress the unity of impulse upon the movement
+      which was being prepared; to create a centre for it, to give a pivot to
+      the insurrection, to the Left a direction, and to the People a support. He
+      proposed the immediate formation of a committee representing the entire
+      Left in all its shades, and charged with organizing and directing the
+      insurrection.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All the Representatives cheered this eloquent and courageous man. Seven
+      members were proposed. They named at once Carnot, De Flotte, Jules Favre,
+      Madier de Montjau, Michel de Bourges, and myself; and thus was unanimously
+      formed this Committee of Insurrection, which at my request was called a
+      Committee of Resistance; for it was Louis Bonaparte who was tire
+      insurgent. For ourselves, the were the Republic. It was desired that one
+      workman-Representative should be admitted into the committee. Faure (du
+      Rhône) was nominated. But Faure, we learned later on, had been arrested
+      that morning. The committee then was, it fact, composed of six members.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The committee organized itself during the sitting. A Committee of
+      Permanency was formed from amongst it, and invested with the authority of
+      decreeing "urgency" in the name of all the Left, of concentrating all
+      news, information, directions, instructions, resources, orders. This
+      Committee of Permanency was composed of four members, who were Carnot,
+      Michel de Bourges, Jules Favre, and myself. De Flotte and Madier de
+      Montjau were specially delegated, De Flotte for the left bank of the river
+      and the district of the schools, Madier for the Boulevards and the
+      outskirts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These preliminary operations being terminated, Lafon took aside Michel de
+      Bourges and myself, and told us that the ex-Constituent Proudhon had
+      inquired for one of us two, that he had remained downstairs nearly a
+      quarter of an hour, and that he had gone away, saying that he would wait
+      for us in the Place de la Bastille.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Proudhon, who was at that time undergoing a term of three years'
+      imprisonment at St. Pélagie for an offence against Louis Bonaparte, was
+      granted leave of absence from tine to time. Chance willed it that one of
+      these liberty days had fallen on the 2d of December.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This is an incident which one cannot help noting. On the 2d of December
+      Proudhon was a prisoner by virtue of a lawful sentence, and at the same
+      moment at which they illegally imprisoned the inviolable Representatives,
+      Proudhon, whom they could have legitimately detained, was allowed to go
+      out. Proudhon had profited by his liberty to come and find us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I knew Proudhon from having seen him at the Concièrgerie, where my two
+      sons were shut up, and my two illustrious friends, Auguste Vacquérie and
+      Paul Meurice, and those gallant writers, Louis Jourdan, Erdan, and Suchet.
+      I could not help thinking that on that day they would assuredly not have
+      given leave of absence to these men.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile Xavier Durrieu whispered to me, "I have just left Proudhon. He
+      wishes to see you. He is waiting for you down below, close by, at the
+      entrance to the Place. You will find him leaning on the parapet of the
+      canal."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I am going," said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I went downstairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I found in truth, at the spot mentioned, Proudhon, thoughtful, leaning
+      with his two elbows on the parapet. He wore that broad-brimmed hat in
+      which I had often seen him striding alone up and down the courtyard of the
+      Concièrgerie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I went up to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You wish to speak to me."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes," and he shook me by the hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The corner where we were standing was lonely. On the left there was the
+      Place de la Bastille, dark and gloomy; one could see nothing there, but
+      one could feel a crowd; regiments were there in battle array; they did not
+      bivouac, they were ready to march; the muffled sound of breathing could be
+      heard; the square was full of that glistening shower of pale sparks which
+      bayonets give forth at night time. Above this abyss of shadows rose up
+      black and stark the Column of July.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Proudhon resumed,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Listen. I come to give you a friendly warning. You are entertaining
+      illusions. The People are ensnared in this affair. They will not stir.
+      Bonaparte will carry them with him. This rubbish, the restitution of
+      universal suffrage, entraps the simpletons. Bonaparte passes for a
+      Socialist. He has said, 'I will be the Emperor of the Rabble.' It is a
+      piece of insolence. But insolence has a chance of success when it has this
+      at its service."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And Proudhon pointed with his finger to the sinister gleam of the
+      bayonets. He continued,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Bonaparte has an object in view. The Republic has made the People. He
+      wishes to restore the Populace. He will succeed and you will fail. He has
+      on his side force, cannons, the mistake of the people, and the folly of
+      the Assembly. The few of the Left to which you belong will not succeed in
+      overthrowing the <i>coup d'état</i>. You are honest, and he has this
+      advantage over you&mdash;that he is a rogue. You have scruples, and he has
+      this advantage over you&mdash;that he has none. Believe me. Resist no
+      longer. The situation is without resources. We must wait; but at this
+      moment fighting would be madness. What do you hope for?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Nothing," said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And what are you going to do?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Everything."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By the tone of my voice he understood that further persistence was
+      useless.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Good-bye," he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We parted. He disappeared in the darkness. I have never seen him since.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I went up again to Lafon's rooms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the meantime the copies of the appeal to arms did not come to hand. The
+      Representatives, becoming uneasy, went up and downstairs. Some of them
+      went out on the Quai Jemmapes, to wait there and gain information about
+      them. In the room there was a sound of confused talking the members of the
+      Committee, Madier de Montjau, Jules Favre, and Carnot, withdrew, and sent
+      word to me by Charamaule that they were going to No. 10, Rue des Moulins,
+      to the house of the ex-Constituent Landrin, in the division of the 5th
+      Legion, to deliberate more at their ease, and they begged me to join them.
+      But I thought I should do better to remain. I had placed myself at the
+      disposal of the probable movement of the Faubourg St. Marceau. I awaited
+      the notice of it through Auguste. It was most important that I should not
+      go too far away; besides, it was possible that if I went away, the
+      Representatives of the Left, no longing seeing a member of the committee
+      amongst them, would disperse without taking any resolution, and I saw in
+      this more than one disadvantage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Time passed, no Proclamations. We learned the next day that the packages
+      had been seized by the police. Cournet, an ex-Republican naval officer who
+      was present, began to speak. We shall see presently what sort of a man
+      Cournet was, and of what an energetic and determined nature he was
+      composed. He represented to us that as we had been there nearly two hours
+      the police would certainly end by being informed of our whereabouts, that
+      the members of the Left had an imperative duty&mdash;to keep themselves at
+      all costs at the head of the People, that the necessity itself of their
+      situation imposed upon them the precaution of frequently changing their
+      place of retreat, and he ended by offering us, for our deliberation, his
+      house and his workshops, No. 82, Rue Popincourt, at the bottom of a blind
+      alley, and also in the neighborhood of the Faubourg St. Antoine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This offer was accepted. I sent to inform Auguste of our change of abode,
+      and of Cournet's address. Lafon remained on the Quai Jemmapes in order to
+      forward on the Proclamations as soon as they arrived, and we set out at
+      once.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Charamaule undertook to send to the Rue des Moulins to tell the other
+      members of the committee that we would wait for them at No. 82, Rue
+      Popincourt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We walked, as in the morning, in little separate groups. The Quai Jemmapes
+      skirts the left bank of the St. Martin Canal; we went up it. We only met a
+      few solitary workmen, who looked back when we had passed, and stopped
+      behind us with an air of astonishment. The night was dark. A few drops of
+      rain were falling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A little beyond the Rue de Chemin Vert we turned to the right and reached
+      the Rue Popincourt. There all was deserted, extinguished, closed, and
+      silent, as in the Faubourg St. Antoine. This street is of great length. We
+      walked for a long time; we passed by the barracks. Cournet was no longer
+      with us; he had remained behind to inform some of his friends, and we were
+      told to take defensive measures in case his house was attacked. We looked
+      for No. 82. The darkness was such that we could not distinguish the
+      numbers on the houses. At length, at the end of the street, on the right,
+      we saw a light; it was a grocer's shop, the only one open throughout the
+      street. One of us entered, and asked the grocer, who was sitting behind
+      his counter, to show us M. Cournet's house. "Opposite," said the grocer,
+      pointing to an old and low carriage entrance which could be seen on the
+      other side of the street, almost facing his shop.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We knocked at this door. It was opened. Baudin entered first, tapped at
+      the window of the porter's lodge, and asked "Monsieur Cournet?"&mdash;An
+      old woman's voice answered, "Here."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The portress was in bed; all in the house sleeping. We went in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Having entered, and the gate being shut behind us, we found ourselves in a
+      little square courtyard which formed the centre of a sort of a two-storied
+      ruin; the silence of a convent prevailed, not a light was to be seen at
+      the windows; near a shed was seen a low entrance to a narrow, dark, and
+      winding staircase. "We have made some mistake," said Charamaule; "it is
+      impossible that it can be here."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile the portress, hearing all these trampling steps beneath her
+      doorway, had become wide awake, had lighted her lamp, and we could see her
+      in her lodge, her face pressed against the window, gazing with alarm at
+      sixty dark phantoms, motionless, and standing in her courtyard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Esquiros addressed her: "Is this really M. Cournet's house?" said he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "M. Cornet, without doubt," answered the good woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All was explained. We had asked for Cournet, the grocer had understood
+      Cornet, the portress had understood Cornet. It chanced that M. Cornet
+      lived there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We shall see by and by what an extraordinary service chance had rendered
+      us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We went out, to the great relief of the poor portress, and we resumed our
+      search. Xavier Durrieu succeeded in ascertaining our whereabouts, and
+      extricated us from our difficulty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A few moments afterwards we turned to the left, and we entered into a
+      blind alley of considerable length and dimly lighted by an old oil lamp&mdash;one
+      of those with which Paris was formerly lighted&mdash;then again to the
+      left, and we entered through a narrow passage into a large courtyard
+      encumbered with sheds and building materials. This time we had reached
+      Cournet's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0019" id="link2HCH0019"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIX. ONE FOOT IN THE TOMB
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Cournet was waiting for us. He received us on the ground floor, in a
+      parlor where there was a fire, a table, and some chairs; but the room was
+      so small that a quarter of us filled it to overflowing, and the others
+      remained in the courtyard. "It is impossible to deliberate here," said
+      Bancel. "I have a larger room on the first floor," answered Cournet, "but
+      it is a building in course of construction, which is not yet furnished,
+      and where there is no fire."&mdash;"What does it matter?" they answered
+      him. "Let us go up to the first floor."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We went up to the first floor by a steep and narrow wooden staircase, and
+      we took possession of two rooms with very low ceilings, but of which one
+      was sufficiently large. The walls were whitewashed, and a few
+      straw-covered stools formed the whole of its furniture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They called out to me, "Preside."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I sat down on one of the stools in the corner of the first room, with the
+      fire place on my right and on my left the door opening upon the staircase.
+      Baudin said to me, "I have a pencil and paper. I will act as secretary to
+      you." He sat down on a stool next to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Representatives and those present, amongst whom were several men in
+      blouses, remained standing, forming in front of Baudin and myself a sort
+      of square, backed by the two walls of the room opposite to us. This crowd
+      extended as far as the staircase. A lighted candle was placed on the
+      chimney-piece.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A common spirit animated this meeting. The faces were pale, but in every
+      eye could be seen the same firm resolution. In all these shadows glistened
+      the same flame. Several simultaneously asked permission to speak. I
+      requested them to give their names to Baudin, who wrote them down, and
+      then passed me the list.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first speaker was a workman. He began by apologizing for mingling with
+      the Representatives, he a stranger to the Assembly. The Representatives
+      interrupted him. "No, no," they said, "the People and Representatives are
+      all one! Speak&mdash;!" He declared that if he spoke it was in order to
+      clear from all suspicion the honor of his brethren, the workmen of Paris;
+      that he had heard some Representatives express doubt about them. He
+      asserted that this was unjust, that the workmen realized the whole crime
+      of M. Bonaparte and the whole duty of the People, that they would not be
+      deaf to the appeal of the Republican Representatives, and that this would
+      be clearly shown. He said all this, simply, with a sort of proud shyness
+      and of honest bluntness. He kept his word. I found him the next day
+      fighting on the Rambuteau barricade.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mathieu (de la Drôme) came in as the workman concluded. "I bring news," he
+      exclaimed. A profound silence ensued.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As I have already said, we vaguely knew since the morning that the Right
+      were to have assembled, and that a certain number of our friends had
+      probably taken part in the meeting, and that was all. Mathieu (de la
+      Drôme) brought us the events of the day, the details of the arrests at
+      their own houses carried out without any obstacle, of the meeting which
+      had taken place at M. Daru's house and its rough treatment in the Rue de
+      Bourgogne, of the Representatives expelled from the Hall of the Assembly,
+      of the meanness of President Dupin, of the melting away of the High Court,
+      of the total inaction of the Council of State, of the sad sitting held at
+      the Mairie of the Tenth Arrondissement, of the Oudinot, <i>fiasco</i>, of
+      the decree of the deposition of the President, and of the two hundred and
+      twenty forcibly arrested and taken to the Quai d'Orsay. He concluded in a
+      manly style: "The duty of the Left was increasing hourly. The morrow would
+      probably prove decisive." He implored the meeting to take this into
+      consideration.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A workman added a fact. He had happened in the morning to be in the Rue de
+      Grenelle during the passage of the arrested members of the Assembly; he
+      was there at the moment when one of the commanders of the Chasseurs de
+      Vincennes had uttered these words, "Now it is the turn of those gentlemen&mdash;the
+      Red Representatives. Let them look out for themselves!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One of the editors of the <i>Révolution</i>, Hennett de Kesler, who
+      afterwards became an intrepid exile, completed the information of Mathieu
+      (de la Drôme). He recounted the action taken by two members of the
+      Assembly with regard to the so-called Minister of the Interior, Morny, and
+      the answer of the said Morny: "If I find any of the Representatives behind
+      the barricades, I will have them shot to the last man," and that other
+      saying of the same witty vagabond respecting the members taken to the Quai
+      d'Orsay, "These are the last Representatives who will be made prisoners."
+      He told us that a placard was at that very moment being printed which
+      declared that "Any one who should be found at a secret meeting would be
+      immediately shot." The placard, in truth, appeared the next morning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Baudin rose up. "The <i>coup d'état</i> redoubles its rage," exclaimed he.
+      "Citizens, let us redouble our energy!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly a man in a blouse entered. He was out of breath. He had run hard.
+      He told us that he had just seen, and he repeated, had seen with "his own
+      eyes," in the Rue Popincourt, a regiment marching in silence, and wending
+      its way towards the blind alley of No. 82, that we were surrounded, and
+      that we were about to be attacked. He begged us to disperse immediately.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Citizen Representatives," called out Cournet, "I have placed scouts in
+      the blind alley who will fall back and warn us if the regiment penetrates
+      thither. The door is narrow and will be barricaded in the twinkling of an
+      eye. We are here, with you, fifty armed and resolute men, and at the first
+      shot we shall be two hundred. We are provided with ammunition. You can
+      deliberate calmly."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And as he concluded he raised his right arm, and from his sleeve fell a
+      large poniard, which he had concealed, and with the other hand he rattled
+      in his pocket the butts of a pair of pistols.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Very well," said I, "let us continue."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Three of the youngest and most eloquent orators of the Left, Bancel,
+      Arnauld (de l'Ariége) and Victor Chauffour delivered their opinions in
+      succession. All three were imbued with this notion, that our appeal to
+      arms not having yet been placarded, the different incidents of the
+      Boulevarde du Temple and of the Café Bonvalet having brought about no
+      results, none of our decrees, owing to the repressive measures of
+      Bonaparte, having yet succeeded in appearing, while the events at the
+      Mairie of the Tenth Arrondissement began to be spread abroad through
+      Paris, it seemed as though the Right had commenced active resistance
+      before the Left. A generous rivalry for the public safety spurred them on.
+      It was delightful to them to know that a regiment ready to attack was
+      close by, within a few steps, and that perhaps in a few moments their
+      blood would flow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Moreover, advice abounded, and with advice, uncertainty. Some illusions
+      were still entertained. A workman, leaning close to me against the
+      fireplace, said in a low voice to one of his comrades that the People must
+      not be reckoned upon, and that if we fought "We should perpetrate a
+      madness."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The incidents and events of the day had in some degree modified my opinion
+      as to the course to be followed in this grave crisis. The silence of the
+      crowd at the moment when Arnauld (de l'Ariége) and I had apostrophized the
+      troops, had destroyed the impression which a few hours before the
+      enthusiasm of the people on the Boulevard du Temple had left with me. The
+      hesitation of Auguste had impressed me, the Society of Cabinet Makers
+      appeared to shun us, the torpor of the Faubourg St. Antoine was manifest,
+      the inertness of the Faubourg St. Marceau was not less so. I ought to have
+      received notice from the engineer before eleven o'clock, and eleven
+      o'clock was past. Our hopes died away one after another. Nevertheless, all
+      the more reason, in my opinion, to astonish and awaken Paris by an
+      extraordinary spectacle, by a daring act of life and collective power on
+      the part of the Representatives of the Left, by the daring of an immense
+      devotion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It will be seen later on what a combination of accidental circumstances
+      prevented this idea from being realized as I then purposed. The
+      Representatives have done their whole duty. Providence perhaps has not
+      done all on its side. Be it as it may, supposing that we were not at once
+      carried off by some nocturnal and immediate combat, and that at the hour
+      at which I was speaking we had still a "to-morrow," I felt the necessity
+      of fixing every eye upon the course which should be adopted on the day
+      which was about to follow.&mdash;I spoke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I began by completely unveiling the situation. I painted the picture in
+      four words: the Constitution thrown into the gutter; the Assembly driven
+      to prison with the butt-end of a musket, the Council of State dispersed;
+      the High Court expelled by a galley-sergeant, a manifest beginning of
+      victory for Louis Bonaparte, Paris ensnared in the army as though in a
+      net; bewilderment everywhere, all authority overthrown; all compacts
+      annulled; two things only remained standing, the <i>coup d'état</i> and
+      ourselves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ourselves! and who are we?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We are," said I, "we are Truth and Justice! We are the supreme and
+      sovereign power, the People incarnate&mdash;Right!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I continued,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Louis Bonaparte at every minute which elapses advances a step further in
+      his crime. For him nothing is inviolable, nothing is sacred; this morning
+      he violated the Palace of the Representatives of the Nation, a few hours
+      later he laid violent hands on their persons; to-morrow, perhaps in a few
+      moments, he will shed their blood. Well then! he marches upon us, let us
+      march upon him. The danger grows greater, let us grow greater with the
+      danger."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A movement of assent passed through the Assembly. I continued,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I repeat and insist. Let us show no mercy to this wretched Bonaparte for
+      any of the enormities which his outrage contains. As he has drawn the wine&mdash;I
+      should say the blood&mdash;he must drink it up. We are not individuals, we
+      are the Nation. Each of us walks forth clothed with the Sovereignty of the
+      people. He cannot strike our persons without rending that. Let us compel
+      his volleys to pierce our sashes as well as our breasts. This man is on a
+      road where logic grasps him and leads him to parricide. What he is killing
+      in this moment is the country! Well, then! when the ball of Executive
+      Power pierces the sash of Legislative Power, it is visible parricide! It
+      is this that must be understood!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We are quite ready!" they cried out. "What measures would you advise us
+      to adopt?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No half measures," answered I; "a deed of grandeur! To-morrow&mdash;if we
+      leave here this night&mdash;let us all meet in the Faubourg St. Antoine."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They interposed, "Why the Faubourg St. Antoine?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes," resumed I, "the Faubourg St. Antoine! I cannot believe that the
+      heart of the People has ceased to beat there. Let us all meet to-morrow in
+      the Faubourg St. Antoine. Opposite the Lenoir Market there is a hall which
+      was used by a club in 1848."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They cried out to me, "The Salle Roysin."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That is it," said I, "The Salle Roysin. We who remain free number a
+      hundred and twenty Republican Representatives. Let us install ourselves in
+      this hall. Let us install ourselves in the fulness and majesty of the
+      Legislative Power. Henceforward we are the Assembly, the whole of the
+      Assembly! Let us sit there, deliberate there, in our official sashes, in
+      the midst of the People. Let us summon the Faubourg St. Antoine to its
+      duty, let us shelter there the National Representation, let us shelter
+      there the popular sovereignty. Let us intrust the People to the keeping of
+      the People. Let us adjure them to protect themselves. If necessary, let us
+      order them!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A voice interrupted me: "You cannot give orders to the People!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes!" I cried, "When it is a question of public safety, of the universal
+      safety, when it is a question of the future of every European nationality,
+      when it is a question of defending the Republic, Liberty, Civilization,
+      the Revolution, we have the right&mdash;we, the Representatives of the
+      entire nation&mdash;to give, in the name of the French people, orders to
+      the people of Paris! Let us, therefore, meet to-morrow at this Salle
+      Roysin; but at what time? Not too early in the morning. In broad day. It
+      is necessary that the shops should be open, that people should be coming
+      and going, that the population should be moving about, that there should
+      be plenty of people in the streets, that they should see us, that they
+      should recognize us, that the grandeur of our example should strike every
+      eye and stir every heart. Let us all be there between nine and ten o'clock
+      in the morning. If we cannot obtain the Salle Roysin we will take the
+      first church at hand, a stable, a shed, some enclosure where we can
+      deliberate; at need, as Michel de Bourges has said, we will hold our
+      sittings in a square bounded by four barricades. But provisionally I
+      suggest the Salle Roysin. Do not forget that in such a crisis there must
+      be no vacuum before the nation. That alarms it. There must be a government
+      somewhere, and it must be known. The rebellion at the Elysée, the
+      Government at the Faubourg St. Antoine; the Left the Government, the
+      Faubourg St. Antoine the citadel; such are the ideas which from to-morrow
+      we must impress upon the mind of Paris. To the Salle Roysin, then! Thence
+      in the midst of the dauntless throng of workmen of that great district of
+      Paris, enclosed in the Faubourg as in a fortress, being both Legislators
+      and Generals, multiplying and inventing means of defence and of attack,
+      launching Proclamations and unearthing the pavements, employing the women
+      in writing out placards while the men are fighting, we will issue a
+      warrant against Louis Bonaparte, we will issue warrants against his
+      accomplices, we will declare the military chiefs traitors, we will outlaw
+      in a body all the crime and all the criminals, we will summon the citizens
+      to arms, we will recall the army to duty, we will rise up before Louis
+      Bonaparte, terrible as the living Republic, we will fight on the one hand
+      with the power of the Law, and on the other with the power of the People,
+      we will overwhelm this miserable rebel, and will rise up above his head
+      both as a great Lawful Power and a great Revolutionary Power!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While speaking I became intoxicated with my own ideas. My enthusiasm
+      communicated itself to the meeting. They cheered me. I saw that I was
+      becoming somewhat too hopeful, that I allowed myself to be carried away,
+      and that I carried them away, that I presented to them success as
+      possible, as even easy, at a moment when it was important that no one
+      should entertain an illusion. The truth was gloomy, and it was my duty to
+      tell it. I let silence be re-established, and I signed with my hand that I
+      had a last word to say. I then resumed, lowering my voice,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Listen, calculate carefully what you are doing. On one side a hundred
+      thousand men, seventeen harnessed batteries, six thousand cannon-mouths in
+      the forts, magazines, arsenals, ammunition sufficient to carry out a
+      Russian campaign; on the other a hundred and twenty Representatives, a
+      thousand or twelve hundred patriots, six hundred muskets, two cartridges
+      per man, not a drum to beat to arms, not a bell to sound the tocsin, not a
+      printing office to print a Proclamation; barely here and there a
+      lithographic press, and a cellar where a hand-bill can be hurriedly and
+      furtively printed with the brush; the penalty of death against any one who
+      unearths a paving stone, penalty of death against any one who would enlist
+      in our ranks, penalty of death against any one who is found in a secret
+      meeting, penalty of death against any one who shall post up an appeal to
+      arms; if you are taken during the combat, death; if you are taken after
+      the combat, transportation or exile; on the one side an army and a Crime;
+      on the other a handful of men and Right. Such is this struggle. Do you
+      accept it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A unanimous shout answered me, "Yes! yes!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This shout did not come from the mouths, it came from the souls. Baudin,
+      still seated next to me, pressed my hand in silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was settled therefore at once that they should meet again on the next
+      day, Wednesday, between nine and ten in the morning, at the Salle Roysin,
+      that they should arrive singly or by little separate groups, and that they
+      should let those who were absent know of this rendezvous. This done, there
+      remained nothing more but to separate. It was about midnight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One of Cournet's scouts entered. "Citizen Representatives," he said, "the
+      regiment is no longer there. The street is free."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The regiment, which had probably come from the Popincourt barracks close
+      at hand, had occupied the street opposite the blind alley for more than
+      half an hour, and then had returned to the barracks. Had they judged the
+      attack inopportune or dangerous at night in that narrow blind alley, and
+      in the centre of this formidable Popincourt district, where the
+      insurrection had so long held its own in June, 1848? It appeared certain
+      that the soldiers had searched several houses in the neighborhood.
+      According to details which we learned subsequently, we were followed after
+      leaving No. 2, Quai Jemmapes, by an agent of police, who saw us enter the
+      house where a M. Cornet was lodging, and who at once proceeded to the
+      Prefecture to denounce our place of refuge to his chiefs. The regiment
+      sent to arrest us surrounded the house, ransacked it from attic to cellar,
+      found nothing, and went away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This quasi-synonym of Cornet and Cournet lead misled the bloodhounds of
+      the <i>coup d'état</i>. Chance, we see, had interposed usefully in our
+      affairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was talking at the door with Baudin, and we were making some last
+      arrangements, when a young man with a chestnut beard, dressed like a man
+      of fashion, and possessing all the manners of one, and whom I had noticed
+      while speaking, came up to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Monsieur Victor Hugo," said he, "where are you going to sleep?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Up to that moment I had not thought of this.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was far from prudent to go home.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "In truth," I answered, "I have not the least idea."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Will you come to my house?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I shall be very happy."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He told me his mane. It was M. de la R&mdash;&mdash;. He knew my brother
+      Abel's wife and family, the Montferriers, relations of the Chambacères,
+      and he lived in the Rue Caumartin. He had been a Prefect under the
+      Provisional Government. There was a carriage in waiting. We got in, and as
+      Baudin told me that he would pass the night at Cournet's, I gave him the
+      address of M. do la R&mdash;&mdash;, so that he could send for me if any
+      notice of the movement came from the Faubourg St. Marceau or elsewhere.
+      But I hoped for nothing more that night, and I was right.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      About a quarter of an hour after the separation of the Representatives,
+      and after we had left the Rue Popincourt, Jules Favre, Madier de Montajau,
+      de Flotte, and Carnot, to whom we had sent word to the Rue des Moulins,
+      arrived at Cournet's, accompanied by Schoelcher, by Charamaule, by Aubry
+      (du Nord), and by Bastide. Some Representatives were still remaining at
+      Cournet's. Several, like Baudin, were going to pass the night there. They
+      told our colleagues what had been settled respecting my proposition, and
+      of the rendezvous at the Salle Roysin; only it appears that there was some
+      doubt regarding the hour agreed upon, and that Baudin in particular did
+      not exactly remember it, and that our colleagues believed that the
+      rendezvous, which had been fixed for nine o'clock in the morning, was
+      fixed for eight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This alteration in the hour, due to the treachery of memory for which no
+      one can be blamed, prevented the realization of the plan which I had
+      conceived of an Assembly holding its sittings in the Faubourg, and giving
+      battle to Louis Bonaparte, but gave us as a compensation the heroic
+      exploits of the Ste. Marguerite barricade.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0020" id="link2HCH0020"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XX. THE BURIAL OF A GREAT ANNIVERSARY
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Such was the first day. Let us look at it steadfastly. It deserves it. It
+      is the anniversary of Austerlitz; the Nephew commemorates the Uncle.
+      Austerlitz is the most brilliant battle of history; the Nephew set himself
+      this problem&mdash;how to commit a baseness equal to this magnificence. He
+      succeeded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This first day, which will be followed by others, is already complete.
+      Everything is there. It is the most terrible attempt at a thrust backwards
+      that has ever been essayed. Never has such a crumbling of civilization
+      been seen. All that formed the edifice is now in ruin; the soil is strewn
+      with the fragments. In one night the inviolability of the Law, the Right
+      of the Citizen, the Dignity of the Judge, and the Honor of the Soldier
+      have disappeared. Terrible substitutions have taken place; there was the
+      oath, there is pergury; there was the flag, there is a rag; there was the
+      Army, there is a band of brigands; there was Justice, there is treason;
+      there was a code of laws, there is the sabre; there was a Government,
+      there is a crew of swindlers; there was France, there is a den of thieves.
+      This called itself Society Saved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is the rescue of the traveller by the highwayman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      France was passing by, Bonaparte cried, "Stand and deliver!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The hypocrisy which has preceded the Crime, equals in deformity the
+      impudence which has followed it. The nation was trustful and calm. There
+      was a sudden and cynical shock. History has recorded nothing equal to the
+      Second of December. Here there was no glory, nothing but meanness. No
+      deceptive picture. He could have declared himself honest; He declares
+      himself infamous; nothing more simple. This day, almost unintelligible in
+      its success, has proved that Politics possess their obscene side. Louis
+      Bonaparte has shown himself unmasked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yesterday President of the Republic, to-day a scavenger. He has sworn, he
+      still swears: but the tone has changed. The oath has become an
+      imprecation. Yesterday he called himself a maiden, to-day he becomes a
+      brazen woman, and laughs at his dupes. Picture to yourself Joan of Arc
+      confessing herself to be Messalina. Such is the Second of December.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Women are mixed up in this treason. It is an outrage which savors both of
+      the boudoir and of the galleys. There wafts across the fetidness of blood
+      an undefined scent of patchouli. The accomplices of this act of brigandage
+      are most agreeable men&mdash;Romieu, Morny. Getting into debt leads one to
+      commit crimes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Europe was astounded. It was a thunder bolt from a thief. It must be
+      acknowledged that thunder can fall into bad hands, Palmerston, that
+      traitor, approved of it. Old Metternich, a dreamer in his villa at
+      Rennweg, shook his head. As to Soult, the man of Austerlitz after
+      Napoleon, he did what he ought to do, on the very day of the Crime he
+      died, Alas! and Austerlitz also.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0022" id="link2H_4_0022"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      THE SECOND DAY&mdash;THE STRUGGLE.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0021" id="link2HCH0021"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER I. THEY COME TO ARREST ME
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      In order to reach the Rue Caumartin from the Rue Popincourt, all Paris has
+      to be crossed. We found a great apparent calm everywhere. It was one
+      o'clock in the morning when we reached M. de la R&mdash;&mdash;'s house.
+      The <i>fiacre</i> stopped near a grated door, which M. de la R&mdash;&mdash;
+      opened with a latch-key; on the right, under the archway, a staircase
+      ascended to the first floor of a solitary detached building which M. de la
+      R&mdash;&mdash; inhabited, and into which he led me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We entered a little drawing-room very richly furnished, lighted with a
+      night-lamp, and separated from the bedroom by a tapestry curtain
+      two-thirds drown. M. de la R&mdash;&mdash; went into the bedroom, and a
+      few minutes afterwards came back again, accompanied by a charming woman,
+      pale and fair, in a dressing-gown, her hair down, handsome, fresh,
+      bewildered, gentle nevertheless, and looking at me with that alarm which
+      in a young face confers an additional grace. Madame de la R&mdash;&mdash;
+      had just been awakened by her husband. She remained a moment on the
+      threshold of her chamber, smiling, half asleep, greatly astonished,
+      somewhat frightened, looking by turns at her husband and at me, never
+      having dreamed perhaps what civil war really meant, and seeing it enter
+      abruptly into her rooms in the middle of the night under this disquieting
+      form of an unknown person who asks for a refuge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I made Madame de la R&mdash;&mdash; a thousand apologies, which she
+      received with perfect kindness, and the charming woman profited by the
+      incident to go and caress a pretty little girl of two years old who was
+      sleeping at the end of the room in her cot, and the child whom she kissed
+      caused her to forgive the refugee who had awakened her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While chatting M. de la R&mdash;&mdash; lighted a capital fire in the
+      grate, and his wife, with a pillow and cushions, a hooded cloak belonging
+      to him, and a pelisse belonging to herself, improvised opposite the fire a
+      bed on a sofa, somewhat short, and which we lengthened by means of an
+      arm-chair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During the deliberation in the Rue Popincourt, at which I had just
+      presided, Baudin had lent me his pencil to jot down some names. I still
+      had this pencil with me. I made use of it to write a letter to my wife,
+      which Madame de la R&mdash;&mdash; undertook to convey herself to Madame
+      Victor Hugo the next day. While emptying my pockets I found a box for the
+      "Italiens," which I offered to Madame de la R&mdash;&mdash;. On that
+      evening (Tuesday, December 2d) they were to play <i>Hernani</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I looked at that cot, these two handsome, happy young people, and at
+      myself, my disordered hair and clothes, my boots covered with mud, gloomy
+      thoughts in my mind, and I felt like an owl in a nest of nightingales.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A few moments afterwards M. and Madame de la R&mdash;&mdash; had
+      disappeared into their bedroom, and the half-opened curtain was closed. I
+      stretched myself, fully dressed as I was, upon the sofa, and this gentle
+      nest disturbed by me subsided into its graceful silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One can sleep on the eve of a battle between two armies, but on the eve of
+      a battle between citizens there can be no sleep. I counted each hour as it
+      sounded from a neighboring church; throughout the night there passed down
+      the street, which was beneath the windows of the room where I was lying,
+      carriages which were fleeing from Paris. They succeeded each other rapidly
+      and hurriedly, one might have imagined it was the exit from a ball. Not
+      being able to sleep, I got up. I had slightly parted the muslin curtains
+      of a window, and I tried to look outside; the darkness was complete. No
+      stars, clouds were flying by with the turbulent violence of a winter
+      night. A melancholy wind howled. This wind of clouds resembled the wind of
+      events.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I watched the sleeping baby. I waited for dawn. It came. M. de la R&mdash;&mdash;
+      had explained at my request in what manner I could go out without
+      disturbing any one. I kissed the child's forehead, and left the room. I
+      went downstairs, closing the doors behind me as gently as I could, so not
+      to wake Madame de la R&mdash;&mdash;. I opened the iron door and went out
+      into the street. It was deserted, the shops were still shut, and a
+      milkwoman, with her donkey by her side, was quietly arranging her cans on
+      the pavement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have not seen M. de la R&mdash;&mdash; again. I learned since that he
+      wrote to me in my exile, and that his letter was intercepted. He has, I
+      believe, quitted France. May this touching page convey to him my kind
+      remembrances.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Rue Caumartin leads into the Rue St. Lazare. I went towards it. It was
+      broad daylight. At every moment I was overtaken and passed by <i>fiacres</i>
+      laden with trunks and packages, which were hastening towards the Havre
+      railway station. Passers-by began to appear. Some baggage trains were
+      mounting the Rue St. Lazare at the same time as myself. Opposite No. 42,
+      formerly inhabited by Mdlle. Mars, I saw a new bill posted on the wall. I
+      went up to it, I recognized the type of the National Printing Office, and
+      I read,
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  "COMPOSITION OF THE NEW MINISTRY.
+
+  "<i>Interior</i>           &mdash;M. de Morny.
+  "<i>War</i>                &mdash;The General of Division St. Arnaud.
+  "<i>Foreign Affairs</i>    &mdash;M. de Turgot.
+  "<i>Justice</i>            &mdash;M. Rouher.
+  "<i>Finance</i>            &mdash;M. Fould.
+  "<i>Marine</i>             &mdash;M. Ducos.
+  "<i>Public Works</i>       &mdash;M. Magne.
+  "<i>Public Instruction</i> &mdash;M.H. Fortuol.
+  "<i>Commerce</i>           &mdash;M. Lefebre-Duruflé."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      I tore down the bill, and threw it into the gutter! The soldiers of the
+      party who were leading the wagons watched me do it, and went their way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the Rue St. Georges, near a side-door, there was another bill. It was
+      the "Appeal to the People." Some persons were reading it. I tore it down,
+      notwithstanding the resistance of the porter, who appeared to me to be
+      entrusted with the duty of protecting it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As I passed by the Place Bréda some <i>fiacres</i> had already arrived
+      there. I took one. I was near home, the temptation was too great, I went
+      there. On seeing me cross the courtyard the porter looked at me with a
+      stupefied air. I rang the bell. My servant, Isidore, opened the door, and
+      exclaimed with a great cry, "Ah! it is you, sir! They came during the
+      night to arrest you." I went into my wife's room. She was in bed, but not
+      asleep, and she told me what had happened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had gone to bed at eleven o'clock. Towards half-past twelve, during
+      that species of drowsiness which resembles sleeplessness, she heard men's
+      voices. It seemed to her that Isidore was speaking to some one in the
+      antechamber. At first she did not take any notice, and tried to go to
+      sleep again, but the noise of voices continued. She sat up, and rang the
+      bell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Isidore came in. She asked him,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Is any one there?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, madame."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Who is it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A man who wishes to speak to master."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Your master is out."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That is what I have told him, madame."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, is not the gentleman going?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, madame, he says that he urgently needs to speak to Monsieur Victor
+      Hugo, and that he will wait for him."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Isidore had stopped on the threshold of the bedroom. While he spoke a fat,
+      fresh-looking man in an overcoat, under which could be seen a black coat,
+      appeared at the door behind him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame Victor Hugo noticed this man, who was silently listening.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Is it you, sir, who wish to speak to Monsieur Victor Hugo?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, madame."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But what is it about? Is it regarding politics?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The man did not answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "As to politics," continued my wife, "what is happening?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I believe, madame, that all is at an end."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "In what sense?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "In the sense of the President."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My wife looked fixedly at the man, and said to him,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You have come to arrest my husband, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is true, madame," answered the man, opening his overcoat, which
+      revealed the sash of a Commissary of Police.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He added after a pause, "I am a Commissary of Police, and I am the bearer
+      of a warrant to arrest M. Victor Hugo. I must institute a search and look
+      through the house."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What is your name, sir?" asked Madame Victor Hugo.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My name is Hivert."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You know the terms of the Constitution?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, madam."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You know that the Representatives of the People are inviolable!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, madame."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Very well, sir," she said coldly, "you know that you are committing a
+      crime. Days like this have a to-morrow; proceed."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Sieur Hivert attempted a few words of explanation, or we should rather
+      say justification; he muttered the word "conscience," he stammered the
+      word "honor." Madame Victor Hugo, who had been calm until then, could not
+      help interrupting him with some abruptness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Do your business, sir, and do not argue; you know that every official who
+      lays a hand on a Representative of the People commits an act of treason.
+      You know that in presence of the Representatives the President is only an
+      official like the others, the chief charged with carrying out their
+      orders. You dare to come to arrest a Representative in his own home like a
+      criminal! There is in truth a criminal here who ought to be arrested&mdash;yourself!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Sieur Hivert looked sheepish and left the room, and through the
+      half-open door my wife could see, behind the well-fed, well-clothed, and
+      bald Commissary, seven or eight poor raw-boned devils, wearing dirty coats
+      which reached to their feet, and shocking old hats jammed down over their
+      eyes&mdash;wolves led by a dog. They examined the room, opened here and
+      there a few cupboards, and went away&mdash;with a sorrowful air&mdash;as
+      Isidore said to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Commissary Hivert, above all, hung his head; he raised it, however,
+      for one moment. Isidore, indignant at seeing these men thus hunt for his
+      master in every corner, ventured to defy them. He opened a drawer and
+      said, "Look and see if he is not in here!" The Commissary of Police darted
+      a furious glance at him: "Lackey, take care!" The lackey was himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These men having gone, it was noticed that several of my papers were
+      missing. Fragments of manuscripts had been stolen, amongst others one
+      dated July, 1848, and directed against the military dictatorship of
+      Cavaignac, and in which there were verses written respecting the
+      Censorship, the councils of war, and the suppression of the newspapers,
+      and in particular respecting the imprisonment of a great journalist&mdash;Emile
+      de Girardin:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+    "... O honte, un lansquenet
+    Gauche, et parodiant César dont il hérite,
+    Gouverne les esprits du fond de sa guérite!"
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      These manuscripts are lost.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The police might come back at any moment, in fact they did come back a few
+      minutes after I had left. I kissed my wife; I would not wake my daughter,
+      who had just fallen asleep, and I went downstairs again. Some affrighted
+      neighbors were waiting for me in the courtyard. I cried out to them
+      laughingly, "Not caught yet!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A quarter of an hour afterwards I reached No. 10, Rue des Moulins. It was
+      not then eight o'clock in the morning, and thinking that my colleagues of
+      the Committee of Insurrection had passed the night there, I thought it
+      might be useful to go and fetch them, so that we might proceed all
+      together to the Salle Roysin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I found only Madame Landrin in the Rue des Moulins. It was thought that
+      the house was denounced and watched, and my colleagues had changed their
+      quarters to No. 7, Rue Villedo, the house of the ex-Constituent Leblond,
+      legal adviser to the Workmen's Association. Jules Favre had passed the
+      night there. Madame Landrin was breakfasting. She offered me a place by
+      her side, but time pressed. I carried off a morsel of bread, and left.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At No. 7, Rue Villedo, the maid-servant who opened the door to me ushered
+      me into a room where were Carnot, Michel de Bourges, Jules Favre, and the
+      master of the house, our former colleague, Constituent Leblond.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I have a carriage downstairs," I said to them; "the rendezvous is at the
+      Salle Roysin in the Faubourg St. Antoine; let us go."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This, however, was not their opinion. According to them the attempts made
+      on the previous evening in the Faubourg St. Antoine had revealed this
+      portion of the situation; they sufficed; it was useless to persist; it was
+      obvious that the working-class districts would not rise; we must turn to
+      the side of the tradesmen's districts, renounce our attempt to rouse the
+      extremities of the city, and agitate the centre. We were the Committee of
+      Resistance, the soul of the insurrection; if we were to go to the Faubourg
+      St. Antoine, which was occupied by a considerable force, we should give
+      ourselves up to Louis Bonaparte. They reminded me of what I myself had
+      said on the subject the previous evening in the Rue Blanche. We must
+      immediately organize the insurrection against the <i>coup d'état</i> and
+      organize it in practicable districts, that is to say, in the old
+      labyrinths of the streets St. Denis and St. Martin; we must draw up
+      proclamations, prepare decrees, create some method of publicity; they were
+      waiting for important communications from Workmen's Associations and
+      Secret Societies. The great blow which I wished to strike by our solemn
+      meeting at the Salle Roysin would prove a failure; they thought it their
+      duty to remain where they were; and the Committee being few in number, and
+      the work to be done being enormous, they begged me not to leave them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They were men of great hearts and great courage who spoke to me; they were
+      evidently right; but for myself I could not fail to go to the rendezvous
+      which I myself had fixed. All the reasons which they had given me were
+      good, nevertheless I could have opposed some doubts, but the discussion
+      would have taken too much time, and the hour drew nigh. I did not make any
+      objections, and I went out of the room, making some excuse. My hat was in
+      the antechamber, my <i>fiacre</i> was waiting for me, and I drove off to
+      the Faubourg St. Antoine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The centre of Paris seemed to have retained its everyday appearance.
+      People came and went, bought and sold, chatted and laughed as usual. In
+      the Rue Montorgueil I heard a street organ. Only on nearing the Faubourg
+      St. Antoine the phenomenon which I had already noticed on the previous
+      evening became more and more apparent; solitude reigned, and a certain
+      dreary peacefulness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We reached the Place de la Bastille.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My driver stopped.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Go on," I said to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0022" id="link2HCH0022"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER II. FROM THE BASTILLE TO THE RUE DE COTTE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The Place de la Bastille was at the same time empty and filled. Three
+      regiments in battle array were there; not one passer-by.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Four harnessed batteries were drawn up at the foot of the column. Here and
+      there knots of officers talked together in a low voice,&mdash;sinister
+      men.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One of these groups, the principal, attracted my attention. That one was
+      silent, there was no talking. There were several men on horseback; one in
+      front of the others, in a general's uniform, with a hat surmounted with
+      black feathers, behind this man were two colonels, and behind the colonels
+      a party of <i>aides-de-camp</i> and staff officers. This lace-trimmed
+      company remained immovable, and as though pointing like a dog between the
+      column and the entrance to the Faubourg. At a short distance from this
+      group, spread out, and occupying the whole of the square, were the
+      regiments drawn up and the cannon in their batteries.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My driver again stopped.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Go on," I said; "drive into the Faubourg."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But they will prevent us, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We shall see."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The truth was that they did not prevent us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The driver continued on his way, but hesitatingly, and at a walking pace.
+      The appearance of a <i>fiacre</i> in the square had caused some surprise,
+      and the inhabitants began to come out of their houses. Several came up to
+      my carriage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We passed by a group of men with huge epaulets. These men, whose tactics
+      we understood later on, did not even appear to see us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The emotion which I had felt on the previous day before a regiment of
+      cuirassiers again seized me. To see before me the assassins of the
+      country, at a few steps, standing upright, in the insolence of a peaceful
+      triumph, was beyond my strength: I could not contain myself. I drew out my
+      sash. I held it in my hand, and putting my arm and head out of the window
+      of the <i>fiacre</i>, and shaking the sash, I shouted,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Soldiers! Look at this sash. It is the symbol of Law, it is the National
+      Assembly visible. Where there this sash is there is Right. Well, then,
+      this is what Right commands you. You are being deceived. Go back to your
+      duty. It is a Representative of the People who is speaking to you, and he
+      who represents the People represents the army. Soldiers, before becoming
+      soldiers you have been peasants, you have been workmen, you have been and
+      you are still citizens. Citizens, listen to me when I speak to you. The
+      Law alone has the right to command you. Well, to-day the law is violated.
+      By whom? By you. Louis Bonaparte draws you into a crime. Soldiers, you who
+      are Honor, listen to me, for I am Duty. Soldiers, Louis Bonaparte
+      assassinates the Republic. Defend it. Louis Bonaparte is a bandit; all his
+      accomplices will follow him to the galleys. They are there already. He who
+      is worthy of the galleys is in the galleys. To merit fetters is to wear
+      them. Look at that man who is at your head, and who dares to command you.
+      You take him for a general, he is a convict."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The soldiers seemed petrified.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Some one who was there (I thank his generous, devoted spirit) touched my
+      arm, and whispered in my ear, "You will get yourself shot."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I did not heed, and I listened to nothing. I continued, still waving
+      my sash,&mdash;"You, who are there, dressed up like a general, it is you
+      to whom I speak, sir. You know who I am, I am a Representative of the
+      People, and I know who you are. I have told you you are a criminal. Now,
+      do you wish to know my name? This is it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And I called out my name to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And I added,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Now tell me yours."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He did not answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I continued,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Very well, I do not want to know your name as a general, I shall know
+      your number as a galley slave."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The man in the general's uniform hung his head, the others were silent. I
+      could read all their looks, however, although they did not raise their
+      eyes. I saw them cast down, and I felt that they were furious. I had an
+      overwhelming contempt for them, and I passed on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What was the name of this general? I did not know then, and I do not know
+      now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One of the apologies for the <i>coup d'état</i> in relating this incident,
+      and characterizing it as "an insensate and culpable provocation," states
+      that "the moderation shown by the military leaders on this occasion did
+      honor to General &mdash;&mdash;:" We leave to the author of this panegyric
+      the responsibility of that name and of this eulogium.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I entered the Rue de Faubourg St. Antoine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My driver, who now knew my name, hesitated no longer, and whipped up his
+      horse. These Paris coachmen are a brave and intelligent race.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As I passed the first shops of the main street nine o'clock sounded from
+      the Church St. Paul.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Good," I said to myself, "I am in time."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Faubourg presented an extraordinary aspect. The entrance was guarded,
+      but not closed, by two companies of infantry. Two other companies were
+      drawn up in echelons farther on, at short distances, occupying the street,
+      but leaving a free passage. The shops, which were open at the end of the
+      Faubourg, were half closed a hundred yards farther up. The inhabitants,
+      amongst whom I noticed numerous workmen in blouses, were talking together
+      at their doors, and watching the proceedings. I noticed at each step the
+      placards of the <i>coup d'état</i> untouched.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Beyond the fountain which stands at the corner of the Rue de Charonne the
+      shops were closed. Two lines of soldiers extended on either side of the
+      street of the Faubourg on the kerb of the pavement; the soldiers were
+      stationed at every five paces, with the butts of their muskets resting on
+      their hips, their chests drawn in, their right hand on the trigger, ready
+      to bring to the present, keeping silence in the attitude of expectation.
+      From that point a piece of cannon was stationed at the mouth of each of
+      the side streets which open out of the main road of the Faubourg.
+      Occasionally there was a mortar. To obtain a clear idea of this military
+      arrangement one must imagine two rosaries, extending along the two sides
+      of the Faubourg St. Antoine, of which the soldiers should form the links
+      and the cannon the beads.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile my driver became uneasy. He turned round to me and said, "It
+      looks as though we should find barricades out there, sir; shall we turn
+      back?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Keep on," I replied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He continued to drive straight on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly it became impossible to do so. A company of infantry ranged three
+      deep occupied the whole of the street from one pavement to the other. On
+      the right there was a small street. I said to the driver,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Take that turning."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He turned to the right and then to the left. We turned into a labyrinth of
+      streets.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly I heard a shot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The driver asked me,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Which way are we to go, sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "In the direction in which you hear the shots."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We were in a narrow street; on my left I saw the inscription above a door,
+      "Grand Lavoir," and on my right a square with a central building, which
+      looked like a market. The square and the street were deserted. I asked the
+      driver,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What street are we in?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "In the Rue de Cotte."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Where is the Café Roysin?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Straight before us."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Drive there."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He drove on, but slowly. There was another explosion, this time close by
+      us, the end of the street became filled with smoke; at the moment we were
+      passing No. 22, which has a side-door above which I read, "Petit Lavoir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly a voice called out to the driver, "Stop!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The driver pulled up, and the window of the <i>fiacre</i> being down, a
+      hand was stretched towards mine. I recognized Alexander Rey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This daring man was pale.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Go no further," said he; "all is at an end."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What do you mean, all at an end?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, they must have anticipated the time appointed; the barricade is
+      taken: I have just come from it. It is a few steps from here straight
+      before us."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And he added,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Baudin is killed."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The smoke rolled away from the end of the street.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Look," said Alexander Rey to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I saw, a hundred steps before us, at the junction of the Rue de Cotte and
+      the Rue Ste. Marguerite, a low barricade which the soldiers were pulling
+      down. A corpse was being borne away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was Baudin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0023" id="link2HCH0023"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER III. THE ST. ANTOINE BARRICADE
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      This is what had happened.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      During that same night, and as early as four o'clock in the morning, De
+      Flotte was in the Faubourg St. Antoine. He was anxious, in case any
+      movement took place before daylight, that a Representative of the People
+      should be present, and he was one of those who, when the glorious
+      insurrection of Right should burst forth, wished to unearth the
+      paving-stones for the first barricade.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But nothing was stirring. De Flotte, alone in the midst of this deserted
+      and sleeping Faubourg, wandered from street to street throughout the
+      night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Day breaks late in December. Before the first streaks of dawn De Flotte
+      was at the rendezvous opposite the Lenoir Market.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This spot was only weakly guarded. The only troops in the neighborhood
+      were the post itself of the Lenoir Market, and another post at a short
+      distance which occupied the guard-house at the corner of the Faubourg and
+      the Rue de Montreuil, close to the old Tree of Liberty planted in 1793 by
+      Santerre. Neither of these posts were commanded by officers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      De Flotte reconnoitred the position. He walked some time up and down the
+      pavement, and then seeing no one coming as yet, and fearing to excite
+      attention, he went away, and returned to the side-streets of the Faubourg.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For his part Aubry (du Nord) got up at five o'clock. Having gone home in
+      the middle of the night, on his return from the Rue Popincourt, he had
+      only taken three hours' rest. His porter told him that some suspicious
+      persons had inquired for him during the evening of the 2d, and that they
+      had been to the house opposite, No. 12 of the same street, Rue Racine, to
+      arrest Huguenin. This determined Aubry to leave his house before daylight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He walked to the Faubourg St. Antoine. As he reached the place of
+      rendezvous he met Cournet and the others from the Rue Popincourt. They
+      were almost immediately joined by Malardier.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was dawn. The Faubourg was solitary. They walked along wrapt in thought
+      and speaking in a low voice. Suddenly an impetuous and singular procession
+      passed them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They looked round. It was a detachment of Lancers which surrounded
+      something which in the dim light they recognized to be a police-van. The
+      vehicle rolled noiselessly along the macadamized road.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They were debating what this could mean, when a second and similar group
+      appeared, then a third, and then a fourth. Ten police vans passed in this
+      manner, following each other very closely, and almost touching.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Those are our colleagues!" exclaimed Aubry (du Nord).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In truth the last batch of the Representatives, prisoners of the Quai
+      d'Orsay, the batch destined for Vincennes, was passing through the
+      Faubourg. It was about seven o'clock in the morning. Some shops were being
+      opened and were lighted inside, and a few passers-by came out of the
+      houses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Three carriages defiled one after the other, closed, guarded, dreary,
+      dumb; no voice came out, no cry, no whisper. They were carrying off in the
+      midst of swords, of sabres, and of lances, with the rapidity and fury of
+      the whirlwind, something which kept silence; and that something which they
+      were carrying off, and which maintained this sinister silence, was the
+      broken Tribune, the Sovereignty of the Assemblies, the supreme initiative
+      whence all civilization is derived; it was the word which contains the
+      future of the world, it was the speech of France!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A last carriage arrived, which by some chance had been delayed. It was
+      about two or three hundred yards behind the principal convoy, and was only
+      escorted by three Lancers. It was not a police-van, it was an omnibus, the
+      only one in the convoy. Behind the conductor, who was a police agent,
+      there could distinctly be seen the Representatives heaped up in the
+      interior. It seemed easy to rescue them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Cournet appealed to the passers-by; "Citizens," he cried, "these are your
+      Representatives, who are being carried off! You have just seen them pass
+      in the vans of convicts! Bonaparte arrests them contrary to every law. Let
+      us rescue them! To arms!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A knot formed of men in blouses and of workmen going to work. A shout came
+      from the knot, "Long live the Republic!" and some men rushed towards the
+      vehicle. The carriage and the Lancers broke into a gallop.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "To arms!" repeated Cournet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "To arms!" repeated the men of the people.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a moment of impulse. Who knows what might have happened? It
+      would have been a singular accident if the first barricade against the <i>coup
+      d'état</i> had been made with this omnibus, which, after having aided in
+      the crime, would this have aided in the punishment. But at the moment when
+      the people threw themselves on the vehicle they saw several of the
+      Representative-prisoners which it contained sign to them with both hands
+      to refrain. "Eh!" said a workman, "they do not wish it!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A second repeated, "They do not wish for liberty!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another added, "They did not wish us to have it, they do not wish it for
+      themselves."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All was said, and the omnibus was allowed to pass on. A moment afterwards
+      the rear-guard of the escort came up and passed by at a sharp trots and
+      the group which surrounded Aubry (du Nord), Malardier, and Cournet
+      dispersed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Café Roysin had just opened. It may be remembered that the large hall
+      of this <i>café</i> had served for the meeting of a famous club in 1848.
+      It was there, it may also be remembered, that the rendezvous had been
+      settled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Café Roysin is entered by a passage opening out upon the street, a
+      lobby of some yards in length is next crossed, and then comes a large
+      hall, with high windows, and looking-glasses on the walls, containing in
+      the centre several billiard-tables, some small marble-topped tables,
+      chairs, and velvet-covered benches. It was this hall, badly arranged,
+      however, for a meeting where we could have deliberated, which had been the
+      hall of the Roysin Club. Cournet, Aubry, and Malardier installed
+      themselves there. On entering they did not disguise who they were; they
+      were welcomed, and shown an exit through the garden in case of necessity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      De Flotte had just joined them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Eight o'clock was striking when the Representatives began to arrive.
+      Bruckner, Maigne, and Brillier first, and then successively Charamaule,
+      Cassal, Dulac, Bourzat, Madier de Montjau, and Baudin. Bourzat, on account
+      of the mud, as was his custom, wore wooden shoes. Whoever thought Bourzat
+      a peasant would be mistaken. He rather resembled a Benedictine monk.
+      Bourzat, with his southern imagination, his quick intelligence, keen,
+      lettered, refined, possesses an encyclopedia in his head, and wooden shoes
+      on his feet. Why not? He is Mind and People. The ex-Constituent Bastide
+      came in with Madier de Montjau. Baudin shook the hands of all with warmth,
+      but he did not speak. He was pensive. "What is the matter with you,
+      Baudin?" asked Aubry (du Nord). "Are you mournful?" "I?" said Baudin,
+      raising his head, "I have never been more happy."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Did he feel himself already chosen? When we are so near death, all radiant
+      with glory, which smiles upon us through the gloom, perhaps we are
+      conscious of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A certain number of men, strangers to the Assembly, all as determined as
+      the Representatives themselves, accompanied them and surrounded them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Cournet was the leader. Amongst them there were workmen, but no blouses.
+      In order not to alarm the middle classes the workmen had been requested,
+      notably those employed by Derosne and Cail, to come in coats.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Baudin had with him a copy of the Proclamation which I had dictated to him
+      on the previous day. Cournet unfolded it and read it. "Let us at once post
+      it up in the Faubourg," said he. "The People must know that Louis
+      Bonaparte is outlawed." A lithographic workman who was there offered to
+      print it without delay. All the Representatives present signed it, and
+      they added my name to their signatures. Aubry (du Nord) headed it with
+      these words, "National Assembly." The workman carried off the
+      Proclamation, and kept his word. Some hours afterwards Aubry (du Nord),
+      and later on a friend of Cournet's named Gay, met him in the Faubourg du
+      Temple paste-pot in hand, posting the Proclamation at every street corner,
+      even next to the Maupas placard, which threatened the penalty of death to
+      any one who should be found posting an appeal to arms. Groups read the two
+      bills at the same time. We may mention an incident which ought to be
+      noted, a sergeant of the line, in uniform, in red trousers, accompanied
+      him and protected him. He was doubtless a soldier who had lately left the
+      service.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The time fixed on the preceding evening for the general rendezvous was
+      from nine to ten in the morning. This hour had been chosen so that there
+      should be time to give notice to all the members of the Left; it was
+      expedient to wait until the Representatives should arrive, so that the
+      group should the more resemble an Assembly, and that its manifestation
+      should have more authority on the Faubourg.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Several of the Representatives who had already arrived had no sash of
+      office. Some were made hastily in a neighboring house with strips of red,
+      white, and blue calico, and were brought to them. Baudin and De Flotte
+      were amongst those who girded on these improvised sashes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile it was not yet nine o'clock, when impatience already began to be
+      manifested around them.<a href="#linknoteref-9" name="linknote-9"
+      id="linknote-9"><small>9</small></a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Many shared this glorious impatience.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Baudin wished to wait.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Do not anticipate the hour," said he; "let us allow our colleagues time
+      to arrive."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But they murmured round Baudin, "No, begin, give the signal, go outside.
+      The Faubourg only waits to see your sashes to rise. You are few in number,
+      but they know that your friends will rejoin you. That is sufficient.
+      Begin."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The result proved that this undue haste could only produce a failure.
+      Meanwhile they considered that the first example which the Representatives
+      of the People ought to set was personal courage. The spark must not be
+      allowed to die out. To march the first, to march at the head, such was
+      their duty. The semblance of any hesitation would have been in truth more
+      disastrous than any degree of rashness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Schoelcher is of an heroic nature, he has the grand impatience of danger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Let us go," he cried; "our friends will join us, let us go outside."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They had no arms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Let us disarm the post which is over there," said Schoelcher.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They left the Salle Roysin in order, two by two, arm in arm. Fifteen or
+      twenty men of the people escorted them. They went before them, crying,
+      "Long live the Republic! To arms!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Some children preceded and followed them, shouting, "Long live the
+      Mountain!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The entrances of the closed shops were half opened. A few men appeared at
+      the doors, a few women showed themselves at the windows. Knots of workmen
+      going to their work watched them pass. They cried, "Long live our
+      Representatives! Long live the Republic!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sympathy was everywhere, but insurrection nowhere. The procession gathered
+      few adherents on the way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A man who was leading a saddled horse joined them. They did not know this
+      man, nor whence this horse came. It seemed as if the man offered his
+      services to any one who wished to fly. Representative Dulac ordered this
+      man to be off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In this manner they reached the guard-house of the Rue de Montrenil. At
+      their approach the sentry gave the alarm, and the soldiers came out of the
+      guard-house in disorder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Schoelcher, calm, impassive, in ruffles and a white tie, clothed, as
+      usual, in black, buttoned to the neck in his tight frock coat, with the
+      intrepid and brotherly air of a Quaker, walked straight up to them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Comrades," he said to them, "we are the Representatives of the People,
+      and come in the name of the people to demand your arms for the defence of
+      the Constitution and of the Laws!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The post allowed itself to be disarmed. The sergeant alone made any show
+      of resistance, but they said to him, "You are alone," and he yielded. The
+      Representatives distributed the guns and the cartridges to the resolute
+      band which surrounded them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Some soldiers exclaimed, "Why do you take away our muskets! We would fight
+      for you and with you!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Representatives consulted whether they should accept this offer.
+      Schoelcher was inclined to do so. But one of them remarked that some
+      Mobile Guards had made the same overtures to the insurgents of June, and
+      had turned against the Insurrection the arms which the Insurrection had
+      left them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The muskets therefore were not restored.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The disarming having been accomplished, the muskets were counted; there
+      were fifteen of them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We are a hundred and fifty," said Cournet, "we have not enough muskets."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, then," said Schoelcher, "where is there a post?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "At the Lenoir Market."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Let us disarm it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With Schoelcher at their head and escorted by fifteen armed men the
+      Representatives proceeded to the Lenoir Market. The post of the Lenoir
+      Market allowed themselves to be disarmed even more willingly than the post
+      in the Rue de Montreuil. The soldiers turned themselves round so that the
+      cartridges might be taken from their pouches.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The muskets were immediately loaded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Now," exclaimed De Flotte, "we have thirty guns, let us look for a street
+      corner, and raise a barricade."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There were at that time about two hundred combatants.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They went up the Rue de Montreuil.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After some fifty steps Schoelcher said, "Where are we going? We are
+      turning our backs on the Bastille. We are turning our backs upon the
+      conflict."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They returned towards the Faubourg.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They shouted, "To arms!" They Where answered by "Long live our
+      Representatives!" But only a few young men joined them. It was evident
+      that the breeze of insurrection was not blowing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Never mind," said De Flotte, "let us begin the battle. Let us achieve the
+      glory of being the first killed."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As they reached the point where the Streets Ste. Marguerite and de Cotte
+      open out and divide the Faubourg, a peasant's cart laden with dung entered
+      the Rue Ste. Marguerite.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Here," exclaimed De Flotte.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They stopped the dung-cart, and overturned it in the middle of the
+      Faubourg St. Antoine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A milkwoman came up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They overturned the milk-cart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A baker was passing in his bread-cart. He saw what was being done,
+      attempted to escape, and urged his horse to a gallop. Two or three street
+      Arabs&mdash;those children of Paris brave as lions and agile as cats&mdash;sped
+      after the baker, ran past his horse, which was still galloping, stopped
+      it, and brought back the cart to the barricade which had been begun.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They overturned the bread-cart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An omnibus came up on the road from the Bastille.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Very well!" said the conductor, "I see what is going on."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He descended with a good grace, and told his passengers to get down, while
+      the coachman unharnessed his horses and went away shaking his cloak.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They overturned the omnibus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The four vehicles placed end to end barely barred the street of the
+      Faubourg, which in this part is very wide. While putting them in line the
+      men of the barricade said,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Let us not injure the carts more than we can help."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This formed an indifferent barricade, very low, too short, and which left
+      the pavements free on either side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this moment a staff officer passed by followed by an orderly, saw the
+      barricade, and fled at a gallop.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Schoelcher calmly inspected the overturned vehicles. When he reached the
+      peasant's cart, which made a higher heap than the others, he said, "that
+      is the only good one."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The barricade grew larger. They threw a few empty baskets upon it, which
+      made it thicker and larger without strengthening it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They were still working when a child came up to them shouting, "The
+      soldiers!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In truth two companies arrived from the Bastille, at the double, through
+      the Faubourg, told off in squads at short distances apart, and barring the
+      whole of the street.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The doors and the windows were hastily closed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During this time, at a corner of the barricade, Bastide, impassive, was
+      gravely telling a story to Madier de Montjau. "Madier," said he, "nearly
+      two hundred years ago the Prince de Condé, ready to give battle in this
+      very Faubourg St. Antoine, where we now are, asked an officer who was
+      accompanying him, 'Have you ever seen a battle lost?'&mdash;'No, sire.'
+      'Well, then, you will see one now.'&mdash;Madier, I tell you to-day,&mdash;you
+      will speedily see a barricade taken."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the meanwhile those who were armed had assumed their places for the
+      conflict behind the barricade.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The critical moment drew nigh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Citizens," cried Schoelcher, "do not fire a shot. When the Army and the
+      Faubourgs fight, the blood of the People is shed on both sides. Let us
+      speak to the soldiers first."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He mounted on one of the baskets which heightened the barricade. The other
+      Representatives arranged themselves near him on the omnibus. Malardier and
+      Dulac were on his right. Dulac said to him, "You scarcely know me, Citizen
+      Schoelcher, but I love you. Let me have the charge of remaining by your
+      side. I only belong to the second rank in the Assembly, but I want to be
+      in the first rank of the battle."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this moment some men in blouses, those whom the Second of December had
+      enlisted, appeared at the corner of the Rue Ste. Marguerite, close to the
+      barricade, and shouted, "Down with the 'Twenty-five francs!'"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Baudin who had already selected his post for the combat, and who was
+      standing on the barricade, looked fixedly at these men, and said to them,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You shall see how one can die for 'twenty-five francs!'"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a noise in the street. Some few doors which had remained half
+      opened were closed. The two attacking columns had arrived in sight of the
+      barricade. Further on could be seen confusedly other lines of bayonets.
+      They were those which had barred my passage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Schoelcher, raising his arm with authority, signed to the captain, who
+      commanded the first squad, to halt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The captain made a negative sign with his sword. The whole of the Second
+      of December was in these two gestures. The Law said, "Halt!" The Sabre
+      answered, "No!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The two companies continued to advance, but slowly, and keeping at the
+      same distance from each other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Schoelcher came down from the barricade into the street. De Flotte, Dulac,
+      Malardier, Brillier, Maigne, and Bruckner followed him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then was seen a grand spectacle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Seven Representatives of the People, armed only with their sashes, that is
+      to say, majestically clothed with Law and Right, advanced in the street
+      beyond the barricade, and marched straight to the soldiers, who awaited
+      them with their guns pointed at them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The other Representatives who had remained at the barricade made their
+      last preparations for resistance. The combatants maintained an intrepid
+      bearing. The Naval Lieutenant Cournet towered above them all with his tall
+      stature. Baudin, still standing on the overturned omnibus, leaned half
+      over the barricade.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On seeing the Representatives approach, the soldiers and their officers
+      were for the moment bewildered. Meanwhile the captain signed to the
+      Representatives to stop.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They stopped, and Schoelcher said in an impressive voice,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Soldiers! we are the Representatives of the Sovereign People, we are your
+      Representatives, we are the Elect of Universal Suffrage. In the name of
+      the Constitution, in the name of Universal Suffrage, in the name of the
+      Republic, we, who are the National Assembly, we, who are the Law, order
+      you to join us, we summon you to obey. We ourselves are your leaders. The
+      Army belongs to the People, and the Representatives of the People are the
+      Chiefs of the Army. Soldiers! Louis Bonaparte violates the Constitution,
+      we have outlawed him. Obey us."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The officer who was in command, a captain named Petit, did not allow him
+      to finish.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Gentlemen," he said, "I have my orders. I belong to the People. I am a
+      Republican as you are, but I am only an instrument."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You know the Constitution?" said Schoelcher.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I only know my instructions."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "There is an instruction above all other instructions," continued
+      Schoelcher, "obligatory upon the Soldier as upon the Citizen&mdash;the
+      Law."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He turned again towards the soldiers to harangue them, but the captain
+      cried out to him,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not another word! You shall not go on! If you add one word, I shall give
+      the order to fire."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What does that matter to us?" said Schoelcher.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this moment an officer arrived on horseback. It was the major of the
+      regiment. He whispered for a moment to the captain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Gentlemen! Representatives!" continued the captain, waving his sword,
+      "withdraw, or I shall fire."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Fire!" shouted De Flotte.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Representatives&mdash;strange and heroic copy of Fontenoy&mdash;took
+      off their hats, and faced the muskets.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Schoelcher alone kept his hat on his head, and waited with his arms
+      crossed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Fix bayonets," said the captain. And turning towards the squads,
+      "Charge!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Vive la République!" cried out the Representatives.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The bayonets were lowered, the companies moved forward, the soldiers came
+      on at the double upon the motionless Representatives.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a terrible and superb moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The seven Representatives saw the bayonets at their breasts without a
+      word, without a gesture, without one step backwards. But the hesitation
+      which was not in their soul was in the heart of the soldiers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The soldiers felt distinctly that this was a double stain upon their
+      uniform&mdash;the outrage upon the Representatives of the People&mdash;which
+      was treason, and the slaughter of unarmed men, which was cowardice. Now
+      treason and cowardice are two epaulets to which a general sometimes
+      becomes reconciled, the soldier&mdash;never.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the bayonets were so close to the Representatives that they touched
+      their breasts, they turned aside of their own accord, and the soldier's by
+      an unanimous movement passed between the Representatives without doing
+      them any harm. Schoelcher alone had his coat pierced in two places, and in
+      his opinion this was awkwardness instead of intention. One of the soldiers
+      who faced him wished to push him away from the captain, and touched him
+      with his bayonet. The point encountered the book of the addresses of the
+      Representatives, which Schoelcher had in his pocket, and only pierced his
+      clothing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A soldier said to De Flotte, "Citizen, we do not wish to hurt you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nevertheless a soldier came up to Bruckner and pointed his gun at him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well," said Bruckner, "fire."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The soldier, touched, lowered his arm, and shook Bruckner's hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was singular that, notwithstanding the order given by the officers, the
+      two companies successively came up to the Representatives, charged with
+      the bayonet, and turned aside. Instructions may order, but instinct
+      prevails; instructions may be crime, but instinct is honor. Major P&mdash;&mdash;
+      said afterwards, "They had told us that we should have to deal with
+      brigands, we had to deal with heroes."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile those on the barricade were growing uneasy, and seeing their
+      colleagues surrounded, and wishing to succor them, they fired a musket
+      shot. This unfortunate shot killed a soldier between De Flotte and
+      Schoelcher.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The officer who commanded the second attacking squad passed close to
+      Schoelcher as the poor soldier fell. Schoelcher pointed out the fallen man
+      to the officer, and said to him, "Lieutenant, look!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The officer answered by a gesture of despair,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What would you have us do?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The two companies replied to the shot by a general volley, and rushed to
+      the assault of the barricade, leaving behind them the seven
+      Representatives astounded at being still alive.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The barricade replied by a volley, but it could not hold out. It was
+      carried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Baudin was killed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had remained standing in his position on the omnibus. Three balls
+      reached him. One struck him in the right eye and penetrated into the
+      brain. He fell. He never regained consciousness. Half-an-hour afterwards
+      he was dead. His body was taken to the Ste. Marguerite Hospital.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bourzat, who was close to Baudin, with Aubry (du Nord), had his coat
+      pierced by a ball.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We must again remark a curious incident,&mdash;the soldiers made no
+      prisoner on this barricade. Those who defended it dispersed through the
+      streets of the Faubourg, or took refuge in the neighboring houses.
+      Representative Maigne, pushed by some affrighted women behind a door, was
+      shut in with one of the soldiers who had just taken the barricade. A
+      moment afterwards the soldier and the Representative went out together.
+      The Representatives could freely leave this first field of battle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this solemn moment of the struggle a last glimmer of Justice and of
+      Right still flickered, and military honesty recoiled with a sort of dread
+      anxiety before the outrage upon which they were entering. There is the
+      intoxication of good, and there is an intoxication of evil: this
+      intoxication later on drowned the conscience of the Army.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The French Army is not made to commit crimes. When the struggle became
+      prolonged, and ferocious orders of the day had to be executed, the
+      soldiers must have been maddened. They obeyed not coldly, which would have
+      been monstrous, but with anger, and this History will invoke as their
+      excuse; and with many, perhaps, despair was at the root of their anger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The fallen soldier had remained on the ground. It was Schoelcher who
+      raised him. A few women, weeping, but brave, came out of a house. Some
+      soldiers came up. They carried him, Schoelcher holding his head, first to
+      a fruiterer's shop, then to the Ste. Marguerite Hospital, where they had
+      already taken Baudin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was a conscript. The ball had entered his side. Through his gray
+      overcoat buttoned to the collar, could be seen a hole stained with blood.
+      His head had sunk on his shoulder, his pale countenance, encircled by the
+      chinstrap of his shako, had no longer any expression, the blood oozed out
+      of his mouth. He seemed barely eighteen years old. Already a soldier and
+      still a boy. He was dead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This poor soldier was the first victim of the <i>coup d'état</i>. Baudin
+      was the second.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before being a Republican Baudin had been a tutor. He came from that
+      intelligent and brave race of schoolmasters ever persecuted, who have
+      fallen from the Guizot Law into the Falloux Law, and from the Falloux Law
+      into the Dupanloup Law. The crime of the schoolmaster is to hold a book
+      open; that suffices, the Church condemns him. There is now, in France, in
+      each village, a lighted torch&mdash;the schoolmaster&mdash;and a mouth
+      which blows upon it&mdash;the curé. The schoolmasters of France, who knew
+      how to die of hunger for Truth and for Science, were worthy that one of
+      their race should be killed for Liberty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first time that I saw Baudin was at the Assembly on January 13, 1850.
+      I wished to speak against the Law of Instruction. I had not put my name
+      down; Baudin's name stood second. He offered me his turn. I accepted, and
+      I was able to speak two days afterwards, on the 15th.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Baudin was one of the targets of Sieur Dupin, for calls to order and
+      official annoyances. He shared this honor with the Representatives Miot
+      and Valentin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Baudin ascended the Tribune several times. His mode of speaking, outwardly
+      hesitating, was energetic in the main. He sat on the crest of the
+      Mountain. He had a firm spirit and timid manners. Thence there was in his
+      constitution an indescribable embarrassment, mingled with decision. He was
+      a man of middle height. His face ruddy and full, his broad chest, his wide
+      shoulders announced the robust man, the laborer-schoolmaster, the
+      peasant-thinker. In this he resembled Bourzat. Baudin leaned his head on
+      his shoulder, listened with intelligence, and spoke with a gentle and
+      grave voice. He had the melancholy air and the bitter smile of the doomed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the evening of the Second of December I had asked him, "How old are
+      you?" He had answered me, "Not quite thirty-three years."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And you?" said he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Forty-nine."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And he replied,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "To-day we are of the same age."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He thought in truth of that to-morrow which awaited us, and in which was
+      hidden that "perhaps" which is the great leveller.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first shots had been fired, a Representative had fallen, and the
+      people did not rise! What bandage had they on their eyes, what weight had
+      they on their hearts? Alas! the gloom which Louis Bonaparte had known how
+      to cast over his crime, far from lifting, grew denser. For the first time
+      in the sixty years, that the Providential era of Revolutions had been
+      open, Paris, the city of intelligence, seemed not to understand!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On leaving the barricade of the Rue Ste. Marguerite, De Flotte went to the
+      Faubourg St. Marceau, Madier de Montjau went to Belleville, Charamaule and
+      Maigne proceeded to the Boulevards. Schoelcher, Dulac, Malardier, and
+      Brillier again went up the Faubourg St. Antoine by the side streets which
+      the soldiers had not yet occupied. They shouted, "Vive la République!"
+      They harangued the people on the doorsteps: "Is it the Empire that you
+      want?" exclaimed Schoelcher. They even went as far as to sing the
+      "Marseillaise." People took off their hats as they passed and shouted
+      "Long live the Representatives!" But that was all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They were thirsty and weary. In the Rue de Reuilly a man came out of a
+      door with a bottle in his hand, and offered them drink.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sartin joined them on the way. In the Rue de Charonne they entered the
+      meeting-place of the Association of Cabinet Makers, hoping to find there
+      the committee of the association in session. There was no one there. But
+      nothing discouraged them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As they reached the Place de la Bastille, Dulac said to Schoelcher, "I
+      will ask permission to leave you for an hour or two, for this reason: I am
+      alone in Paris with my little daughter, who is seven years old. For the
+      past week she has had scarlet fever. Yesterday, when the <i>coup d'état</i>
+      burst forth, she was at death's door. I have no one but this child in the
+      world. I left her this morning to come with you, and she said to me,
+      'Papa, where are you going?' As I am not killed, I will go and see if she
+      is not dead."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two hours afterwards the child was still living, and we were holding a
+      permanent sitting at No. 15, Rue Richelieu, Jules Favre, Carnot, Michel de
+      Bourges, and myself, when Dulac entered, and said to us, "I have come to
+      place myself at your disposal."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a href="#linknote-9" name="linknoteref-9" id="linknoteref-9_"><small>9</small></a>
+      <i>"There was also a misunderstanding respecting the appointed time. Some
+      made a mistake, and thought it was nine o'clock. The first arrivals
+      impatiently awaited their colleagues. They were, as we have said, some
+      twelve or fifteen in number at half-past eight. 'Time is being lost,'
+      exclaimed one of them who had hardly entered; 'let us gird on our sashes;
+      let us show the Representatives to the People, let us join it in raising
+      barricades.' We shall perhaps save the country, at all events we shall
+      save the honor of our party. 'Come, let us to the barricades!' This advice
+      was immediately and unanimously acclaimed: one alone, Citizen Baudin,
+      interposed the forcible objection, 'we are not sufficiently numerous to
+      adopt such a resolution.' But he spiritedly joined in the general
+      enthusiasm, and with a calm conscience, after having reserved the
+      principle, he was not the last to gird on his sash."&mdash;SCHOELCHER, <i>Histoire
+      des Crimes du 2d Decembre</i>, pp. 130-131.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0024" id="link2HCH0024"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IV. THE WORKMEN'S SOCIETIES ASK US FOR THE ORDER TO FIGHT
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      In presence of the fact of the barricade of the Faubourg St. Antoine so
+      heroically constructed by the Representatives, so sadly neglected by the
+      populace, the last illusions, even mine, should have been dispersed.
+      Baudin killed, the Faubourg cold. Such things spoke aloud. It was a
+      supreme, manifest, absolute demonstration of that fact, the inaction of
+      the people, to which I could not resign myself&mdash;a deplorable
+      inaction, if they understood, a self-treason, if they did not understand,
+      a fatal neutrality in every case, a calamity of which all the
+      responsibility, we repeat, recoiled not upon the people but upon those who
+      in June, 1848, after having promised them amnesty, had refused it, and who
+      had unhinged the great soul of the people of Paris by breaking faith with
+      them. What the Constituent Assembly had sown the Legislative Assembly
+      harvested. We, innocent of the fault, had to submit to the consequence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The spark which we had seen flash for an instant through the crowd&mdash;Michel
+      de Bourges from the height of Bonvalet's balcony, myself from the
+      Boulevard du Temple&mdash;this spark seemed extinguished. Maigne firstly,
+      then Brillier, then Bruckner, later on Charmaule, Madier de Montjau,
+      Bastide, and Dulac came to report to us what had passed at the barricade
+      of St. Antoine, the motives which had decided the Representatives present
+      not to await the hour appointed for the rendezvous, and Baudin's death.
+      The report which I made myself of what I had seen, and which Cassal and
+      Alexander Rey completed by adding new circumstances, enabled us to
+      ascertain the situation. The Committee could no longer hesitate: I myself
+      renounced the hopes which I had based upon a grand manifestation, upon a
+      powerful reply to the <i>coup d'état</i>, upon a sort of pitched battle
+      waged by the guardians of the Republic against the banditti of the Elysée.
+      The Faubourgs failed us; we possessed the lever&mdash;Right, but the mass
+      to be raised, the People, we did not possess. There was nothing more to
+      hope for, as those two great orators, Michel de Bourges and Jules Favre,
+      with their keen political perception, had declared from the first, save a
+      slow long struggle, avoiding decisive engagements, changing quarters,
+      keeping Paris on the alert, saying to each, It is not at an end; leaving
+      time for the departments to prepare their resistance, wearying the troops
+      out, and in which struggle the Parisian people, who do not long smell
+      powder with impunity, would perhaps ultimately take fire. Barricades
+      raised everywhere, barely defended, re-made immediately, disappearing and
+      multiplying themselves at the same time, such was the strategy indicated
+      by the situation. The Committee adopted it, and sent orders in every
+      direction to this effect. At that moment we were sitting at No. 15, Rue
+      Richelieu, at the house of our colleague Grévy, who had been arrested in
+      the Tenth Arrondissement on the preceding day, who was at Mazas. His
+      brother had offered us his house for our deliberations. The
+      Representatives, our natural emissaries, flocked around us, and scattered
+      themselves throughout Paris, with our instructions to organize resistance
+      at every point. They were the arms and the Committee was the soul. A
+      certain number of ex-Constituents, intrepid men, Garnier-Pagès, Marie,
+      Martin (de Strasbourg), Senart, formerly President of the Constituent
+      Assembly, Bastide, Laissac, Landrin, had joined the Representatives on the
+      preceding day. They established, therefore, in all the districts where it
+      was possible Committees of Permanence in connection with us, the Central
+      Committee, and composed either of Representatives or of faithful citizens.
+      For our watchword we chose "Baudin."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Towards noon the centre of Paris began to grow agitated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Our appeal to arms was first seen placarded on the Place de la Bourse and
+      the Rue Montmartre. Groups pressed round to read it, and battled with the
+      police, who endeavored to tear down the bills. Other lithographic placards
+      contained in two parallel columns the decree of deposition drawn up by the
+      Right at the Mairie of the Tenth Arrondissement, and the decree of
+      outlawry voted by the Left. There were distributed, printed on gray paper
+      in large type, the judgment of the High Court of Justice, declaring Louis
+      Bonaparte attainted with the Crime of High Treason, and signed "Hardouin"
+      (President), "Delapalme," "Moreau" (of the Seine), "Cauchy," "Bataille"
+      (Judges). This last name was thus mis-spelt by mistake, it should read
+      "Pataille."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At that moment people generally believed, and we ourselves believed, in
+      this judgment, which, as we have seen, was not the genuine judgment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the same time they posted in the populous quarters, at the corner of
+      every street, two Proclamations. The first ran thus:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  "TO THE PEOPLE.
+
+  "ARTICLE III.<a href="#linknoteref-10" name="linknote-10" id="linknote-10">10</a>
+
+  "The Constitution is confided to the keeping and to the patriotism of
+  French citizens. Louis NAPOLEON is outlawed.
+
+  "The State of Siege is abolished.
+
+  "Universal suffrage is re-established.
+
+  "LONG LIVE THE REPUBLIC.
+
+  "To ARMS!
+
+  "For the United Mountain.
+
+  "The Delegate, VICTOR HUGO."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The second ran thus:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  "INHABITANTS OF PARIS.
+
+  "The National Guards and the People of the Departments are marching on
+  Paris to aid you in seizing the TRAITOR, Louis Napoléon BONAPARTE.
+
+  "For the Representatives of the People,
+
+  "VICTOR HUGO, President.
+
+  "SCHOELCHER, Secretary."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      This last placard, printed on little squares of paper, was distributed
+      abroad, says an historian of the <i>coup d'état</i>, by thousands of
+      copies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For their part the criminals installed in the Government offices replied
+      by threats: the great white placards, that is to say, the official bills,
+      were largely multiplied. On one could be read:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  "WE, PREFECT OF THE POLICE,
+
+  "Decree as follows:&mdash;
+
+  "ARTICLE I. All meetings are rigorously prohibited. They will be
+  immediately dispersed by force.
+
+  "ARTICLE II. All seditious shouts, all reading in public, all posting
+  of political documents not emanating from a regularly constituted
+  authority, are equally prohibited.
+
+  "ARTICLE III. The agents of the Public Police will enforce the execution
+  of the present decree.
+
+  "Given at the Prefecture of Police, December 3, 1851.
+
+  "DE MAUPAS, Prefect of Police.
+
+  "Seen and approved,
+
+  "DE MORNY, Minister of the Interior."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      On another could be read,&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  "THE MINISTER OF WAR,
+
+  "By virtue of the Law on the State of Siege,
+
+  "Decrees:&mdash;
+
+  "Every person taken constructing or defending a barricade, or carrying
+  arms, WILL BE SHOT.
+
+  "General of Division,
+
+  "Minister of war,
+
+  "DE SAINT-ARNAUD."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      We reproduce this Proclamation exactly, even to the punctuation. The words
+      "Will be shot" were in capital letters in the placards signed "De
+      Saint-Arnaud."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Boulevards were thronged with an excited crowd. The agitation
+      increasing in the centre reached three Arrondissements, the 6th, 7th, and
+      the 12th. The district of the schools began to disorderly. The Students of
+      Law and of Medicine cheered De Flotte on the Place de Panthéon. Madier de
+      Montjau, ardent and eloquent, went through and aroused Belleville. The
+      troops, growing more numerous every moment, took possession of all the
+      strategical points of Paris.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At one o'clock, a young man was brought to us by the legal adviser of the
+      Workmen's Societies, the ex-Constituent Leblond, at whose house the
+      Committee had deliberated that morning. We were sitting in permanence,
+      Carnot, Jules Favre, Michel de Bourges, and myself. This young man, who
+      had an earnest mode of speaking and an intelligent countenance, was named
+      King. He had been sent to us by the Committee of the Workmen's Society,
+      from whom he was delegated. "The Workmen's Societies," he said to us,
+      "place themselves at the disposal of the Committee of Legal Insurrection
+      appointed by the Left. They can throw into the struggle five or six
+      thousand resolute men. They will manufacture powder; as for guns, they
+      will be found." The Workmen's Society requested from us an order to fight
+      signed by us. Jules Favre took a pen and wrote,&mdash;"The undersigned
+      Representatives authorize Citizen King and his friends to defend with
+      them, and with arms in their hands, Universal Suffrage, the Republic, the
+      Laws." He dated it, and we all four signed it. "That is enough," said the
+      delegate to us, "you will hear of us."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two hours afterwards it was reported to us that the conflict had begun.
+      They were fighting in the Rue Aumaire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a href="#linknote-10" name="linknoteref-10" id="linknoteref-10_"><small>10</small></a>
+      A typographical error&mdash;it should read "Article LXVIII." On the
+      subject of this placard the author of this book received the following
+      letter. It does honor to those who wrote it:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  "CITIZEN VICTOR HUGO,&mdash;We know that you have made an appeal to arms. We
+  have not been able to obtain it. We replace it by these bills which we
+  sign with your name. You will not disown us. When France is in danger
+  your name belongs to all; your name is a Public Power.
+
+  "FELIX BONY.
+
+  "DABAT."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0025" id="link2HCH0025"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER V. BAUDINS'S CORPSE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      With regard to the Faubourg St. Antoine, we had, as I said, lost nearly
+      all hope, but the men of the <i>coup d'état</i> had not lost all
+      uneasiness. Since the attempts at rising and the barricades of the morning
+      a rigorous supervision had been organized. Any one who entered the
+      Faubourg ran the risk of being examined, followed, and upon the slightest
+      suspicion, arrested. The supervision was nevertheless sometimes at fault.
+      About two o'clock a short man, with an earnest and attentive air, crossed
+      the Faubourg. A <i>sergent de ville</i> and a police agent in plain
+      clothes barred his passage. "Who are you?" "You seem a passenger." "Where
+      are you going?" "Over there, close by, to Bartholomé's, the overseer of
+      the sugar manufactory.&mdash;" They search him. He himself opened his
+      pocket-book; the police agents turned out the pockets of his waistcoat and
+      unbuttoned his shirt over his breast; finally the <i>sergent de ville</i>
+      said gruffly, "Yet I seem to have seen you here before this morning. Be
+      off!" It was the Representative Gindrier. If they had not stopped at the
+      pockets of his waistcoat&mdash;and if they had searched his great-coat,
+      they would have found his sash there&mdash;Gindrier would have been shot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not to allow themselves to be arrested, to keep their freedom for the
+      combat&mdash;such was the watchword of the members of the Left. That is
+      why we had our sashes upon us, but not outwardly visible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Gindrier had had no food that day; he thought he would go home, and
+      returned to the new district of the Havre Railway Station, where he
+      resided. In the Rue de Calais, which is a lonely street running from Rue
+      Blanche to the Rue de Clichy, a <i>fiacre</i> passed him. Gindrier heard
+      his name called out. He turned round and saw two persons in a <i>fiacre</i>,
+      relations of Baudin, and a man whom he did not know. One of the relations
+      of Baudin, Madame L&mdash;&mdash;, said to him, "Baudin is wounded!" She
+      added, "They have taken him to the St. Antoine Hospital. We are going to
+      fetch him. Come with us." Gindrier got into the <i>fiacre</i>. The
+      stranger, however, was an emissary of the Commissary of Police of the Rue
+      Ste. Marguerite St. Antoine. He had been charged by the commissary of
+      Police to go to Baudin's house, No, 88, Rue de Clichy, to inform the
+      family. Having only found the women at home he had confined himself to
+      telling them that Representative Baudin was wounded. He offered to
+      accompany them, and went with them in the <i>fiacre</i>. They had uttered
+      the name of Gindrier before him. This might have been imprudent. They
+      spoke to him; he declared that he would not betray the Representative, and
+      it was settled that before the Commissary of Police Gindrier should assume
+      to be a relation, and be called Baudin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The poor women still hoped. Perhaps the wound was serious, but Baudin was
+      young, and had a good constitution. "They will save him," said they.
+      Gindrier was silent. At the office of the Commissary of Police the truth
+      was revealed.&mdash;"How is he?" asked Madame L&mdash;&mdash; on entering.
+      "Why?" said the Commissary, "he is dead." "What do you mean? Dead!" "Yes;
+      killed on the spot."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was a painful moment. The despair of these two women who had been so
+      abruptly struck to the heart burst forth in sobs. "Ah, infamous
+      Bonaparte!" cried Madame L&mdash;&mdash;. "He has killed Baudin. Well,
+      then, I will kill him. I will be the Charlotte Corday of this Marat."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Gindrier claimed the body of Baudin. The Commissary of Police only
+      consented to restore it to the family on exacting a promise that they
+      would bury it at once, and without any ostentation, and that they would
+      not exhibit it to the people. "You understand," he said, "that the sight
+      of a Representative killed and bleeding might raise Paris." The <i>coup
+      d'état</i> made corpses, but did not wish that they should be utilized.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On these conditions the Commissary of Police gave Gindrier two men and a
+      safe conduct to fetch the body of Baudin from the hospital where he had
+      been carried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile Baudin's brother, a young man of four-and-twenty, a medical
+      student, came up. This young man has since been arrested and imprisoned.
+      His crime is his brother. Let us continue. They proceeded to the hospital.
+      At the sight of the safe conduct the director ushered Gindrier and young
+      Baudin into the parlor. There were three pallets there covered with white
+      sheets, under which could be traced the motionless forms of three human
+      bodies. The one which occupied the centre bed was Baudin. On his right lay
+      the young soldier killed a minute before him by the side of Schoelcher,
+      and on the left an old woman who had been struck down by a spent ball in
+      the Rue de Cotte, and whom the executioners of the <i>coup d'état</i> had
+      gathered up later on; in the first moment one cannot find out all one's
+      riches.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The three corpses were naked under their winding sheets.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They had left to Baudin alone his shirt and his flannel vest. They had
+      found on him seven francs, his gold watch and chain, his Representative's
+      medal, and a gold pencil-case which he had used in the Rue de Popincourt,
+      after having passed me the other pencil, which I still preserve. Gindrier
+      and young Baudin, bare-headed, approached the centre bed. They raised the
+      shroud, and Baudin's dead face became visible. He was calm, and seemed
+      asleep. No feature appeared contracted. A livid tint began to mottle his
+      face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They drew up an official report. It is customary. It is not sufficient to
+      kill people. An official report must also be drawn up. Young Baudin had to
+      sign it, upon which, on the demand of the Commissary of Police, they "made
+      over" to him the body of his brother. During these signatures, Gindrier in
+      the courtyard of the hospital, attempted if not to console, at least to
+      calm the two despairing women.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly a man who had entered the courtyard, and who had attentively
+      watched him for some moments, came abruptly up to him,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What are you doing there?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What is that to you?" said Gindrier.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You have come to fetch Baudin's body?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Is this your carriage?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Get in at once, and pull down the blinds."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What do you mean?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You are the Representative Gindrier. I know you. You were this morning on
+      the barricade. If any other than myself should see you, you are lost."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Gindrier followed his advice and got into the <i>fiacre</i>. While getting
+      in he asked the man:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Do you belong to the Police?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The man did not answer. A moment after he came and said in a low voice,
+      near the door of the <i>fiacre</i> in which Gindrier was enclosed,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, I eat the bread, but I do not do the work."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The two men sent by the Commissary of Police took Baudin on his wooden bed
+      and carried him to the <i>fiacre</i>. They placed him at the bottom of the
+      <i>fiacre</i> with his face covered, and enveloped from head to foot in a
+      shroud. A workman who was there lent his cloak, which was thrown over the
+      corpse in order not to attract the notice of passers-by. Madame L&mdash;&mdash;
+      took her place by the side of the body, Gindrier opposite, young Baudin
+      next to Gindrier. A <i>fiacre</i> followed, in which were the other
+      relative of Baudin and a medical student named Dutèche. They set off.
+      During the journey the head of the corpse, shaken by the carriage, rolled
+      from shoulder to shoulder; the blood began to flow from the wound and
+      appeared in large red patches through the white sheet. Gindrier with his
+      arms stretched out and his hand placed on its breast, prevented it from
+      falling forwards; Madame L&mdash;&mdash; held it up by the side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They had told the coachman to drive slowly; the journey lasted more than
+      an hour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When they reached No. 88, Rue de Clichy, the bringing out of the body
+      attracted a curious crowd before the door. The neighbors flocked thither.
+      Baudin's brother, assisted by Gindrier and Dutèche, carried up the corpse
+      to the fourth floor, where Baudin resided. It was a new house, and he had
+      only lived there a few months.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They carried him into his room, which was in order, and just as he had
+      left it on the morning of the 2d. The bed, on which he had not slept the
+      preceding night, had not been disturbed. A book which he had been reading
+      had remained on the table, open at the page where he had left off. They
+      unrolled the shroud, and Gindrier cut off his shirt and his flannel vest
+      with a pair of scissors. They washed the body. The ball had entered
+      through the corner of the arch of the right eye, and had gone out at the
+      back of the head. The wound of the eye had not bled. A sort of swelling
+      had formed there; the blood had flowed copiously through the hole at the
+      back of the head. They put clean linen on him, and clean sheets on the
+      bed, and laid him down with his head on the pillow, and his face
+      uncovered. The women were weeping in the next room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Gindrier had already rendered the same service to the ex-Constituent James
+      Demontry. In 1850 James Demontry died in exile at Cologne. Gindrier
+      started for Cologne, went to the cemetery, and had James Demontry exhumed.
+      He had the heart extracted, embalmed it, and enclosed it in a silver vase,
+      which he took to Paris. The party of the Mountain delegated him, with
+      Chollet and Joigneux, to convey this heart to Dijon, Demontry's native
+      place, and to give him a solemn funeral. This funeral was prohibited by an
+      order of Louis Bonaparte, then President of the Republic. The burial of
+      brave and faithful men was unpleasing to Louis Bonaparte&mdash;not so
+      their death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Baudin had been laid out on the bed, the women came in, and all this
+      family, seated round the corpse, wept. Gindrier, whom other duties called
+      elsewhere, went downstairs with Dutèche. A crowd had formed before the
+      door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A man in a blouse, with his hat on his head, mounted on a kerbstone, was
+      speechifying and glorifying the <i>coup d'état</i>. Universal Suffrage
+      re-established, the Law of the 31st May abolished, the "Twenty-five
+      francs" suppressed; Louis Bonaparte has done well, etc.&mdash;Gindrier,
+      standing on the threshold of the door, raised his voice: "Citizens! above
+      lies Baudin, a Representative of the People, killed while defending the
+      People; Baudin the Representative of you all, mark that well! You are
+      before his house; he is there bleeding on his bed, and here is a man who
+      dares in this place to applaud his assassin! Citizens! shall I tell you
+      the name of this man? He is called the Police! Shame and infamy to
+      traitors and to cowards! Respect to the corpse of him who has died for
+      you!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And pushing aside the crowd, Gindrier took the man who had been speaking
+      by the collar, and knocking his hat on to the ground with the back of his
+      hand, he cried, "Hats off!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0026" id="link2HCH0026"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VI. THE DECREES OF THE REPRESENTATIVES WHO REMAINED FREE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The text of the judgment which was believed to have been dawn up by the
+      High Court of Justice had been brought to us by the ex-Constituent Martin
+      (of Strasbourg), a lawyer at the Court of Cassation. At the same time we
+      learned what was happening in the Rue Aumaire. The battle was beginning,
+      it was important to sustain it, and to feed it; it was important ever to
+      place the legal resistance by the side of the armed resistance. The
+      members who had met together on the preceding day at the Mairie of the
+      Tenth Arrondissement had decreed the deposition of Louis Bonaparte; but
+      this decree, drawn up by a meeting almost exclusively composed of the
+      unpopular members of the majority, might have no effect on the masses; it
+      was necessary that the Left should take it up, should adopt it, should
+      imprint upon it a more energetic and more revolutionary accent, and also
+      take possession of the judgment of the High Court, which was believed to
+      be genuine, to lend assistance to this judgment, and put it into
+      execution.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In our appeal to arms we had outlawed Louis Bonaparte. The decree of
+      deposition taken up and counter-signed by us added weight to this
+      outlawry, and completed the revolutionary act by the legal act.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Committee of Resistance called together the Republican
+      Representatives.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The apartments of M. Grévy, where we had been sitting, being too small, we
+      appointed for our meeting-place No. 10. Rue des Moulins, although warned
+      that the police had already made a raid upon this house. But we had no
+      choice; in time of Revolution prudence is impossible, and it is speedily
+      seen that it is useless. Confidence, always confidence; such is the law of
+      those grand actions which at times determine great events. The perpetual
+      improvisation of means, of policy, of expedients, of resources, nothing
+      step by step, everything on the impulse of the moment, the ground never
+      sounded, all risks taken as a whole, the good with the bad, everything
+      chanced on all sides at the same time, the hour, the place, the
+      opportunity, friends, family, liberty, fortune, life,&mdash;such is the
+      revolutionary conflict.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Towards three o'clock about sixty Representatives were meeting at No. 10,
+      Rue des Moulins, in the large drawing-room, out of which opened a little
+      room where the Committee of Resistance was in session.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a gloomy December day, and darkness seemed already to have almost
+      set in. The publisher Hetzel, who might also be called the poet Hetzel, is
+      of a noble mind and of great courage. He has, as is known, shown unusual
+      political qualities as Secretary-General of the Ministry of Foreign
+      Affairs under Bastide; he came to offer himself to us, as the brave and
+      patriotic Hingray had already done in the morning. Hetzel knew that we
+      needed a printing-office above everything; we had not the faculty of
+      speech, and Louis Bonaparte spoke alone. Hetzel had found a printer who
+      had said to him, "<i>Force me, put a pistol to my throat, and I will print
+      whatever you wish</i>." It was only a question, therefore, of getting a
+      few friends together, of seizing this printing-office by main force, of
+      barricading it, and, if necessary, of sustaining a siege, while our
+      Proclamations and our decrees were being printed. Hetzel offered this to
+      us. One incident of his arrival at our meeting-place deserves to be noted.
+      As he drew near the doorway he saw in the twilight of this dreary December
+      day a man standing motionless at a short distance, and who seemed to be
+      lying in wait. He went up to this man, and recognized M. Yon, the former
+      Commissary of Police of the Assembly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What are you doing there?" said Hetzel abruptly. "Are you there to arrest
+      us? In that case, here is what I have got for you," and he took out two
+      pistols from his pocket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      M. Yon answered smiling,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I am in truth watching, not against you, but for you; I am guarding you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      M. Yon, aware of our meeting at Landrin's house and fearing that we should
+      be arrested, was, of his own accord, acting as police for us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hetzel had already revealed his scheme to Representative Labrousse, who
+      was to accompany him and give him the moral support of the Assembly in his
+      perilous expedition. A first rendezvous which had been agreed upon between
+      them at the Café Cardinal having failed, Labrousse had left with the owner
+      of the <i>café</i> for Hetzel a note couched in these terms:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Madame Elizabeth awaits M. Hetzel at No. 10, Rue des Moulins."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In accordance with this note Hetzel had come.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We accepted Hetzel's offer, and it was agreed that at nightfall
+      Representative Versigny, who performed the duties of Secretary to the
+      Committee, should take him our decrees, our Proclamation, such items of
+      news as may have reached us, and all that we should judge proper to
+      publish. It was settled that Hetzel should await Versigny on the pavement
+      at the end of the Rue de Richelieu which runs alongside the Café Cardinal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile Jules Favre, Michel de Bourges and myself had drawn up a final
+      decree, which was to combine the deposition voted by the Right with the
+      outlawry voted by us. We came back into the large room to read it to the
+      assembled Representatives, and for them to sign it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this moment the door opened, and Emile de Girardin appeared. We had not
+      seen him since the previous evening.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Emile de Girardin&mdash;after dispersing from around him that mist which
+      envelopes every combatant in party warfare, and which at a distance
+      changes or obscures the appearance of a man&mdash;Emile de Girardin is an
+      extraordinary thinker, an accurate writer, energetic, logical, skilful,
+      hearty; a journalist in whom, as in all great journalists, can be seen the
+      statesman. We owe to Emile de Girardin this great work of progress, the
+      cheap Press. Emile de Girardin has this great gift, a clearheaded
+      stubbornness. Emile de Girardin is a public watchman; his journal is his
+      sentry-box; he waits, he watches, he spies out, he enlightens, he lies in
+      wait, he cries "Who goes there?" at the slightest alarm, he fires volleys
+      with his pen. He is ready for every form of combat, a sentinel to-day, a
+      General to-morrow. Like all earnest minds he understands, he sees, he
+      recognizes, he handles, so to speak, the great and magnificent identity
+      embraced under these three words, "Revolution, Progress, Liberty;" he
+      wishes for the Revolution, but above all through Progress; he wishes for
+      progress, but solely through Liberty. One can, and according to our
+      opinion sometimes rightly, differ from him as to the road to be taken, as
+      to the attitude to be assumed, and the position to be maintained, but no
+      one can deny his courage, which he has proved in every form, nor reject
+      his object, which is the moral and physical amelioration of the lot of
+      all. Emile de Girardin is more Democratic than Republican, more Socialist
+      than Democratic; on the day when these three ideas, Democracy,
+      Republicanism, Socialism, that is to say, the principle, the form, and the
+      application, are balanced in his mind the oscillations which still exist
+      in him will cease. He has already Power, he will have Stability.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the course of this sitting, as we shall see, I did not always agree
+      with Emile de Girardin. All the more reason that I should record here how
+      greatly I appreciate the mind formed of light and of courage. Emile de
+      Girardin, whatever his failings may be, is one of those men who do honor
+      to the Press of to-day; he unites in the highest degree the dexterity of
+      the combatant with the serenity of the thinker.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I went up to him, and I asked him,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Have you any workmen of the <i>Presse</i> still remaining?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He answered me,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Our presses are under seal, and guarded by the <i>Gendarmerie Mobile</i>,
+      but I have five or six willing workmen, they can produce a few placards
+      with the brush."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well then," said I, "print our decrees and our Proclamation." "I will
+      print anything," answered he, "as long as it is not an appeal to arms."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He added, addressing himself to me, "I know your Proclamation. It is a
+      war-cry, I cannot print that."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They remonstrated at this. He then declared that he for his part made
+      Proclamations, but in a different sense from ours. That according to him
+      Louis Bonaparte should not be combated by force of arms, but by creating a
+      vacuum. By an armed conflict he would be the conqueror, by a vacuum he
+      would be conquered. He urged us to aid him in isolating the "deposed of
+      the Second December." "Let us bring about a vacuum around him!" cried
+      Emile de Girardin, "let us proclaim an universal strike. Let the merchant
+      cease to sell, let the consumer cease from buying, let the workman cease
+      from working, let the butcher cease from killing, let the baker cease from
+      baking, let everything keep holiday, even to the National Printing Office,
+      so that Louis Bonaparte may not find a compositor to compose the <i>Moniteur</i>,
+      not a pressman to machine it, not a bill-sticker to placard it! Isolation,
+      solitude, a void space round this man! Let the nation withdraw from him.
+      Every power from which the nation withdraws falls like a tree from which
+      the roots are divided. Louis Bonaparte abandoned by all in his crime will
+      vanish away. By simply folding our arms as we stand around him he will
+      fall. On the other hand, fire on him and you will consolidate him. The
+      army is intoxicated, the people are dazed and do not interfere, the middle
+      classes are afraid of the President, of the people, of you, of every one!
+      No victory is possible. You will go straight before you, like brave men,
+      you risk your heads, very good; you will carry with you two or three
+      thousand daring men, whose blood mingled with yours, already flows. It is
+      heroic, I grant you. It is not politic. As for me, I will not print an
+      appeal to arms, and I reject the combat. Let us organize an universal
+      strike."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This point of view was haughty and superb, but unfortunately I felt it to
+      be unattainable. Two aspects of the truth seized Girardin, the logical
+      side and the practical side. Here, in my opinion, the practical side was
+      wanting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Michel de Bourges answered him. Michel de Bourges with his sound logic and
+      quick reasoning put his finger on what was for us the immediate question;
+      the crime of Louis Bonaparte, the necessity to rise up erect before this
+      crime. It was rather a conversation than a debate, but Michel de Bourges
+      and Jules Favre, who spoke next, raised it to the highest eloquence. Jules
+      Favre, worthy to understand the powerful mind of Girardin would willingly
+      have adopted this idea, if it had seemed practicable, of the universal
+      strike, of the void around the man; he found it great, but impossible. A
+      nation does not pull up short. Even when struck to the heart, it still
+      moves on. Social movement, which is the animal life of society, survives
+      all political movement. Whatever Emile de Girardin might hope, there would
+      always be a butcher who would kill, a baker who would bake, men must eat!
+      "To make universal labor fold its arms is a chimera!" said Jules Favre, "a
+      dream! The People fight for three days, for four days, for a week; society
+      will not wait indefinitely." As to the situation, it was doubtless
+      terrible, it was doubtless tragical, and blood flowed, but who had brought
+      about this situation? Louis Bonaparte. For ourselves we would accept it,
+      such as it was, and nothing more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Emile de Girardin, steadfast, logical, absolute in his idea, persisted.
+      Some might be shaken. Arguments, which were so abundant in this vigorous
+      and inexhaustible mind, crowded upon him. As for me, I saw Duty before me
+      like a torch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I interrupted him. I cried out, "It is too late to deliberate what we are
+      to do. We have not got to do it. It is done. The gauntlet of the <i>coup
+      d'état</i> is thrown down, the Left takes it up. The matter is as simple
+      as this. The outrage of the Second December is an infamous, insolent,
+      unprecedented defiance to Democracy, to Civilization, to Liberty, to the
+      People, to France. I repeat that we have taken up this gauntlet, we are
+      the Law, but the living Law which at need can arm itself and fight. A gun
+      in our hands is a protest. I do not know whether we shall conquer, but it
+      is our duty to protest. To protest first in Parliament; when Parliament is
+      closed, to protest in the street; when the street is closed, to protest in
+      exile; when exile is fulfilled, to protest in the tomb. Such is our part,
+      our office, our mission. The authority of the Representatives is elastic;
+      the People bestow it, events extend it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While we were deliberating, our colleague, Napoleon Bonaparte, son of the
+      ex-King of Westphalia, came in. He listened. He spoke. He energetically
+      blamed, in a tone of sincere and generous indignation, his cousin's crime,
+      but he declared that in his opinion a written protest would suffice. A
+      protest of the Representatives, a protest of the Council of State, a
+      protest of the Magistracy, a protest of the Press, that this protest would
+      be unanimous and would enlighten France, but that no other form of
+      resistance would obtain unanimity. That as for himself, having always
+      considered the Constitution worthless, having contended against it from
+      the first in the Constituent Assembly, he would not defend it at the last,
+      that he assuredly would not give one drop of blood for it. That the
+      Constitution was dead, but that the Republic was living, and that we must
+      save, not the Constitution, a corpse, but the Republic, the principle!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Remonstrances burst forth. Bancel, young, glowing, eloquent, impetuous,
+      overflowing with self-confidence, cried out that we ought not to look at
+      the shortcomings of the Constitution, but at the enormity of the crime
+      which had been committed, the flagrant treason, the violated oath; he
+      declared that we might have voted against the Constitution in the
+      Constituent Assembly, and yet defend it to-day in the presence of an
+      usurper; that this was logical, and that many amongst us were in this
+      position. He cited me as an example. Victor Hugo, said he, is a proof of
+      this. He concluded thus: "You have been present at the construction of a
+      vessel, you have considered it badly built, you have given advice which
+      has not been listened to. Nevertheless, you have been obliged to embark on
+      board this vessel, your children and your brothers are there with you,
+      your mother is on board. A pirate ranges up, axe in one hand, to scuttle
+      the vessel, a torch in the other to fire it. The crew are resolved to
+      defend themselves and run to arms. Would you say to this crew, 'For my
+      part I consider this vessel badly built, and I will let it be destroyed'?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "In such a case," added Edgar Quinet, "whoever is not on the side of the
+      vessel is on the side of the pirates."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They shouted on all sides, "The decree! Read the decree!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was standing leaning against the fire place. Napoleon Bonaparte came up
+      to me, and whispered in my ear,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You are undertaking," said he, "a battle which is lost beforehand."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I answered him, "I do not look at success, I look at duty."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He replied, "You are a politician, consequently you ought to look forward
+      to success. I repeat, before you go any further, that the battle is lost
+      beforehand."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I resumed, "If we enter upon the conflict the battle is lost. You say so,
+      I believe it; but if we do not enter upon it, honor is lost. I would
+      rather lose the battle than honor."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He remained silent for a moment, then he took my hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Be it so," continued he, "but listen to me. You run, you yourself
+      personally, great dancer. Of all the men in the Assembly you are the one
+      whom the President hates the most. You have from the height of the Tribune
+      nicknamed him, 'Napoleon the Little.' You understand that will never be
+      forgotten. Besides, it was you who dictated the appeal to arms, and that
+      is known. If you are taken, you are lost. You will be shot on the spot, or
+      at least transported. Have you a safe place where you can sleep to-night?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I had not as yet thought of this. "In truth, no," answered I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He continued, "Well, then, come to my house. There is perhaps only one
+      house in Paris where you would be in safety. That is mine. They will not
+      come to look for you there. Come, day or night, at what hour you please, I
+      will await you, and I will open the door to you myself. I live at No. 5,
+      Rue d'Alger."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I thanked him. It was a noble and cordial offer. I was touched by it. I
+      did not make use of it, but I have not forgotten it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They cried out anew, "Read the decree! Sit down! sit down!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a round table before the fire place; a lamp, pens,
+      blotting-books, and paper were brought there; the members of the Committee
+      sat down at this table, the Representatives took their places around them
+      on sofas, on arm-chairs, and on all the chairs which could be found in the
+      adjoining rooms. Some looked about for Napoleon Bonaparte. He had
+      withdrawn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A member requested that in the first place the meeting should declare
+      itself to be the National Assembly, and constitute itself by immediately
+      appointing a President and Secretaries. I remarked that there was no need
+      to declare ourselves the Assembly, that we were the Assembly by right as
+      well as in fact, and the whole Assembly, our absent colleagues being
+      detained by force; that the National Assembly, although mutilated by the
+      <i>coup d'état</i>, ought to preserve its entity and remain constituted
+      afterwards in the same manner as before; that to appoint another President
+      and another staff of Secretaries would be to give Louis Bonaparte an
+      advantage over us, and to acknowledge in some manner the Dissolution; that
+      we ought to do nothing of the sort; that our decrees should be published,
+      not with the signature of a President, whoever he might be, but with the
+      signature of all the members of the Left who had not been arrested, that
+      they would thus carry with them full authority over the People, and full
+      effect. They relinquished the idea of appointing a President. Noël Parfait
+      proposed that our decrees and our resolutions should be drawn up, not with
+      the formula: "The National Assembly decrees," etc.; but with the formula:
+      "The Representatives of the People remaining at liberty decree," etc. In
+      this manner we should preserve all the authority attached to the office of
+      the Representatives of the People without associating the arrested
+      Representatives with the responsibility of our actions. This formula had
+      the additional advantage of separating us from the Right. The people knew
+      that the only Representatives remaining free were the members of the Left.
+      They adopted Noël Parfait's advice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I read aloud the decree of deposition. It was couched in these words:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  "DECLARATION.
+
+  "The Representatives of the people remaining at liberty, by virtue of
+  Article 68 of the Constitution, which runs as follows:&mdash;
+
+    "'Article 68.&mdash;Every measure by which the President of the Republic
+    dissolves the Assembly, prorogues it, or obstructs the exercise of
+    its authority, is a crime of High Treason.
+
+    "'By this action alone the President is deposed from his office; the
+    citizens are bound to refuse him obedience; the executive power
+    passes by right to the National Assembly; the judges of the High
+    Court of Justice should meet together immediately under penalty of
+    treason, and convoke the juries in a place which they shall appoint
+    to proceed to the judgment of the President and his accomplices.'
+
+  "Decree:&mdash;
+
+  "ARTICLE I.&mdash;Louis Bonaparte is deposed from his office of President
+  of the Republic.
+
+  "ARTICLE II.&mdash;All citizens and public officials are bound to refuse
+  him obedience under penalty of complicity.
+
+  "ARTICLE III.&mdash;The judgment drawn up on December 2d by the High Court
+  of Justice, and which declares Louis Bonaparte attainted with the
+  Crime of High Treason, shall be published and executed. Consequently
+  the civil and military authorities are summoned under penalty of
+  Treason to lend their active assistance to the execution of the said
+  judgment.
+
+  "Given at Paris, in permanent session, December 3d, 1851."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The decree having been read, and voted unanimously, we signed it, and the
+      Representatives crowded round the table to add their signatures to ours.
+      Sain remarked that this signing took time, that in addition we numbered
+      barely more than sixty, a large number of the members of the Left being at
+      work in the streets in insurrection. He asked if the Committee, who had
+      full powers from the whole of the Left, had any objection to attach to the
+      decree the names of all the Republican Representatives remaining at
+      liberty, the absent as well as those present. We answered that the decree
+      signed by all would assuredly better answer its purpose. Besides, it was
+      the counsel which I had already given. Bancel had in his pocket on old
+      number of the <i>Moniteur</i> containing the result of a division.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They cut out a list of the names of the members of the Left, the names of
+      those who were arrested were erased, and the list was added to the decree.<a
+      href="#linknoteref-11" name="linknote-11" id="linknote-11"><small>11</small></a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The name of Emile de Girardin upon this list caught my eye. He was still
+      present.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Do you sign this decree?" I asked him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Unhesitatingly."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "In that case will you consent to print it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Immediately."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He continued,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Having no longer any presses, as I have told you, I can only print it as
+      a handbill, and with the brush. It takes a long time, but by eight o'clock
+      this evening you shall have five hundred copies."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And," continued I, "you persist in refusing to print the appeal to arms?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I do persist."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A second copy was made of the decree, which Emile de Girardin took away
+      with him. The deliberation was resumed. At each moment Representatives
+      came in and brought items of news: Amiens in insurrection&mdash;Rheims and
+      Rouen in motion, and marching on Paris&mdash;General Canrobert resisting
+      the <i>coup d'état</i>&mdash;General Castellane hesitating&mdash;the
+      Minister of the United States demanding his passports. We placed little
+      faith in these rumors, and facts proved that we were right.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile Jules Favre had drawn up the following decree, which he
+      proposed, and which was immediately adopted:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  "DECREE.
+
+  "FRENCH REPUBLIC.
+
+  "Liberty,&mdash;Equality,&mdash;Fraternity.
+
+  "The undersigned Representatives remaining at liberty, assembled in
+  Permanent Session,&mdash;
+
+  "Considering the arrest of the majority of our colleagues, and the
+  urgency of the moment:
+
+  "Considering that for the accomplishment of his crime Louis Bonaparte
+  has not contented himself with multiplying the most formidable means of
+  destruction against the lives and property of the citizens of Paris,
+  that he has trampled under foot every law, that he has annihilated all
+  the guarantees of civilized nations:
+
+  "Considering that these criminal madnesses only serve to augment the
+  violent denunciation of every conscience and to hasten the hour of
+  national vengeance, but that it is important to proclaim the Right:
+
+  "Decree:
+
+  "ARTICLE I.&mdash;The State of Siege is raised in all Departments where it
+  has been established, the ordinary laws resume their authority.
+
+  "ARTICLE II.&mdash;It is enjoined upon all military leaders under penalty
+  of Treason immediately to lay down the extraordinary powers which
+  have been conferred upon them.
+
+  "ARTICLE III.&mdash;Officials and agents of the public force are charged
+  under penalty of treason to put this present decree into execution.
+
+  "Given in Permanent Session, 3d December, 1851."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Madier de Montjau and De Flotte entered. They came from outside. They had
+      been in all the districts where the conflict was proceeding, they had seen
+      with their own eyes the hesitation of a part of the population in the
+      presence of these words, "The Law of the 31st May is abolished, Universal
+      Suffrage is re-established." The placards of Louis Bonaparte were
+      manifestly working mischief. It was necessary to oppose effort to effort,
+      and to neglect nothing which could open the eyes of the people. I dictated
+      the following Proclamation:-
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  "PROCLAMATION.
+
+  "People! you are being deceived.
+
+  "Louis Bonaparte says that he has re-established you in your rights,
+  and that he restores to you Universal Suffrage.
+
+  "Louis Bonaparte has lied.
+
+  "Read his placards. He grants you&mdash;what infamous mockery!&mdash;the right
+  of conferring on him, on him <i>alone</i>, the Constituent power; that is
+  to say, the Supreme power, which belongs to you. He grants you the
+  right to appoint him Dictator <i>for ten years</i>. In other words, he
+  grants you the right of abdicating and of crowning him. A right which
+  even you do not possess, O People! for one generation cannot dispose
+  of the sovereignty of the generation which shall follow it.
+
+  "Yes, he grants to you, Sovereign, the right of giving yourself a
+  master, and that master himself.
+
+  "Hypocrisy and treason!
+
+  "People! we unmask the hypocrite. It is for you to punish the traitor!
+
+  "The Committee of Resistance:
+
+  "Jules Favre, De Flotte, Carnot, Madier de Montjau, Mathieu (de la
+  Drôme), Michel de Bourges, Victor Hugo."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Baudin had fallen heroically. It was necessary to let the People know of
+      his death, and to honor his memory. The decree below was voted on the
+      proposition of Michel de Bourges:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  "DECREE.
+
+  "The Representatives of the People remaining at liberty considering
+  that the Representative Baudin has died on the barricade of the
+  Faubourg St. Antoine for the Republic and for the laws, and that he
+  has deserved well of his country, decree:
+
+  "That the honors of the Panthéon are adjudged to Representative Baudin.
+
+  "Given in Permanent Session, 3d December, 1851."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      After honor to the dead and the needs of the conflict it was necessary in
+      my opinion to enunciate immediately and dictatorially some great popular
+      benefit. I proposed the abolition of the <i>octroi</i> duties and of the
+      duty on liquors. This objection was raised, "No caresses to the people!
+      After victory, we will see. In the meantime let them fight! If they do not
+      fight, if they do not rise, if they do not understand that it is for them,
+      for their rights that we the Representatives, that we risk our heads at
+      this moment&mdash;if they leave us alone at the breach, in the presence of
+      the <i>coup d'état</i>&mdash;it is because they are not worthy of
+      Liberty!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bancel remarked that the abolition of the <i>octroi</i> duties and the
+      duty on liquors were not caresses to the People, but succor to the poor, a
+      great economical and reparatory measure, a satisfaction to the public
+      demand&mdash;a satisfaction which the Right had always obstinately
+      refused, and that the Left, master of the situation, ought hasten to
+      accord. They voted, with the reservation that it should not be published
+      until after victory, the two decrees in one; in this form:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  "DECREE.
+
+  "The Representatives remaining at liberty decree:
+
+  "The <i>Octroi</i> Duties are abolished throughout the extent of the
+  territory of the Republic.
+
+  "Given in permanent Session, 3d December, 1851."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Versigny, with a copy of the Proclamations and of the Decree, left in
+      search of Hetzel. Labrousse also left with the same object. They settled
+      to meet at eight o'clock in the evening at the house of the former member
+      of the Provisional Government Marie, Rue Neuve des Petits Champs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the members of the Committee and the Representatives withdrew I was
+      told that some one had asked to speak to me. I went into a sort of little
+      room attached to the large meeting-room, and I found there a man in a
+      blouse, with an intelligent and sympathetic air. This man had a roll of
+      paper in his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Citizen Victor Hugo," said he to me, "you have no printing office. Here
+      are the means which will enable you to dispense with one."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He unfolded on the mantel-piece the roll which he had in his hand. It was
+      a species of blotting-book made of very thin blue paper, and which seemed
+      to be slightly oiled. Between each leaf of blue paper there was a sheet of
+      white paper. He took out of his pocket a sort of blunt bodkin, saying,
+      "The first thing to hand will serve your purpose, a nail or a match," and
+      he traced with his bodkin on the first leaf of the book the word
+      "Republic." Then turning over the leaves, he said, "Look at this."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The word "Republic" was reproduced upon the fifteen or twenty white leaves
+      which the book contained.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He added, "This paper is usually used to trace the designs of manufactured
+      fabrics. I thought that it might be useful at a moment like this. I have
+      at home a hundred books like this on which I can make a hundred copies of
+      what you want&mdash;a Proclamation, for instance&mdash;in the same space
+      of time that it takes to write four or five. Write something, whatever you
+      may think useful at the present moment, and to-morrow morning five hundred
+      copies shall be posted throughout Paris."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I had none of the documents with me which we had just drawn up. Versigny
+      had gone away with the copies. I took a sheet of paper, and, leaning on
+      the corner of the chimney-piece, I wrote the following Proclamation:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  "TO THE ARMY.
+
+  "Soldiers!
+
+  "A man has just broken the Constitution. He tears up the oath which
+  he has sworn to the people; he suppresses the law, stifles Right,
+  stains Paris with blood, chokes France, betrays the Republic!
+
+  "Soldiers, this man involves you in his crime.
+
+  "There are two things holy; the flag which represents military honor
+  and the law which represents the National Right. Soldiers, the
+  greatest of outrages is the flag raised against the Law! Follow no
+  longer the wretched man who misleads you. Of such a crime French
+  soldiers should be the avengers, not the accomplices.
+
+  "This man says he is named Bonaparte. He lies, for Bonaparte is a
+  word which means glory. This man says that he is named Napoléon. He
+  lies, for Napoléon is a word which means genius. As for him, he is
+  obscure and insignificant. Give this wretch up to the law. Soldiers,
+  he is a false Napoléon. A true Napoléon would once more give you a
+  Marengo; he will once more give you a Transnonain.
+
+  "Look towards the true function of the French army; to protect the
+  country, to propagate the Revolution, to free the people, to sustain
+  the nationalities, to emancipate the Continent, to break chains
+  everywhere, to protect Right everywhere, this is your part amongst
+  the armies of Europe. You are worthy of great battle-fields.
+
+  "Soldiers, the French Army is the advanced guard of humanity.
+
+  "Become yourselves again, reflect; acknowledge your faults; rise up!
+  Think of your Generals arrested, taken by the collar by galley
+  sergeants and thrown handcuffed into robbers' cells! The malefactor,
+  who is at the Elysée, thinks that the Army of France is a band of
+  mercenaries; that if they are paid and intoxicated they will obey.
+  He sets you an infamous task, he causes you to strangle, in this
+  nineteenth century, and in Paris itself, Liberty, Progress, and
+  Civilization. He makes you&mdash;you, the children of France&mdash;destroy all
+  that France has so gloriously and laboriously built up during the
+  three centuries of light and in sixty years of Revolution! Soldiers!
+  you are the 'Grand Army!' respect the 'Grand Nation!'
+
+  "We, citizens; we, Representatives of the People and of yourselves;
+  we, your friends, your brothers; we, who are Law and Right; we, who
+  rise up before you, holding out our arms to you, and whom you strike
+  blindly with your swords&mdash;do you know what drives us to despair? It
+  is not to see our blood which flows; it is to see your honor which
+  vanishes.
+
+  "Soldiers! one step more in the outrage, one day more with Louis
+  Bonaparte, and you are lost before universal conscience. The men who
+  command you are outlaws. They are not generals&mdash;they are criminals.
+  The garb of the galley slave awaits them; see it already on their
+  shoulders. Soldiers! there is yet time&mdash;Stop! Come back to the
+  country! Come back to the Republic! If you continue, do you know
+  what History will say of you? It will say, They have trampled under
+  the feet of their horses and crushed beneath the wheels of their
+  cannon all the laws of their country; they, French soldiers, they
+  have dishonored the anniversary of Austerlitz, and by their fault,
+  by their crime, the name of Napoléon sprinkles as much shame to-day
+  upon France as in other times it has showered glory!
+
+  "French soldiers! cease to render assistance to crime!"
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      My colleagues of the Committee having left, I could not consult them&mdash;time
+      pressed&mdash;I signed:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  "For the Representatives of the People remaining at liberty, the
+  Representative member of the Committee of Resistance,
+
+  "VICTOR HUGO."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The man in the blouse took away the Proclamation saying, "You will see it
+      again to-morrow morning." He kept his word. I found it the nest day
+      placarded in the Rue Rambuteau, at the corner of the Rue de l'Homme-Armé
+      and the Chapelle-Saint-Denis. To those who were not in the secret of the
+      process it seemed to be written by hand in blue ink.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I thought of going home. When I reached the Rue de la Tour d'Auvergne,
+      opposite my door, it happened curiously and by some chance to be half
+      open. I pushed it, and entered. I crossed the courtyard, and went upstairs
+      without meeting any one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My wife and my daughter were in the drawing-room round the fire with
+      Madame Paul Meurice. I entered noiselessly; they were conversing in a low
+      tone. They were talking of Pierre Dupont, the popular song-writer, who had
+      come to me to ask for arms. Isidore, who had been a soldier, had some
+      pistols by him, and had lent three to Pierre Dupont for the conflict.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly these ladies turned their heads and saw me close to them. My
+      daughter screamed. "Oh, go away," cried my wife, throwing her arms round
+      my neck, "you are lost if you remain here a moment. You will be arrested
+      here!" Madame Paul Meurice added, "They are looking for you. The police
+      were here a quarter of an hour ago." I could not succeed in reassuring
+      them. They gave me a packet of letters offering me places of refuge for
+      the night, some of them signed with names unknown to me. After some
+      moments, seeing them more and more frightened, I went away. My wife said
+      to me, "What you are doing, you are doing for justice. Go, continue!" I
+      embraced my wife and my daughter; five months have elapsed at the time
+      when I am writing these lines. When I went into exile they remained near
+      my son Victor in prison; I have not seen them since that day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I left as I had entered. In the porter's lodge there were only two or
+      three little children seated round a lamp, laughing and looking at
+      pictures in a book.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a href="#linknote-11" name="linknoteref-11" id="linknoteref-11_"><small>11</small></a>
+      <i>This list, which belongs to History, having served as the base of the
+      proscription list, will be found complete in the sequel to this book to be
+      published hereafter.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0027" id="link2HCH0027"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VII. THE ARCHBISHOP
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      On this gloomy and tragical day an idea struck one of the people.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      He was a workman belonging to the honest but almost imperceptible minority
+      of Catholic Democrats. The double exaltation of his mind, revolutionary on
+      one side, mystical on the other, caused him to be somewhat distrusted by
+      the people, even by his comrades and his friends. Sufficiently devout to
+      be called a Jesuit by the Socialists, sufficiently Republican to be called
+      a Red by the Reactionists, he formed an exception in the workshops of the
+      Faubourg. Now, what is needed in these supreme crises to seize and govern
+      the masses are men of exceptional genius, not men of exceptional opinion.
+      There is no revolutionary originality. In order to be something, in the
+      time of regeneration and in the days of social combat, one must bathe
+      fully in those powerful homogeneous mediums which are called parties.
+      Great currents of men follow great currents of ideas, and the true
+      revolutionary leader is he who knows how best to drive the former in
+      accordance with the latter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now the Gospel is in accordance with the Revolution, but Catholicism is
+      not. This is due to the fact that in the main the Papacy is not in
+      accordance with the Gospel. One can easily understand a Christian
+      Republican, one cannot understand a Catholic Democrat. It is a combination
+      of two opposites. It is a mind in which the negative bars the way to the
+      affirmative. It is a neuter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now in time revolution, whoever is neuter of is impotent. Nevertheless,
+      during the first hours of resistance against the <i>coup d'état</i> the
+      democratic Catholic workman, whose noble effort we are here relating,
+      threw himself so resolutely into the cause of Justice and of Truth, that
+      in a few moments he transformed distrust into confidence, and was hailed
+      by the people. He showed such gallantry at the rising of the barricade of
+      the Rue Aumaire that with an unanimous voice they appointed him their
+      leader. At the moment of the attack he defended it as he had built it,
+      with ardor. That was a sad but glorious battle-field; most of his
+      companions were killed, and he escaped only by a miracle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      However, he succeeded in returning home, saying to himself bitterly, "All
+      is lost."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It seemed evident to him that the great masses of the people would not
+      rise. Thenceforward it appeared impossible to conquer the <i>coup d'état</i>
+      by a revolution; it could be only combated by legality. What had been the
+      risk at the beginning became the hope at the end, for he believed the end
+      to be fatal, and at hand. In his opinion it was necessary, as the people
+      were defaulters, to try now to arouse the middle classes. Let one legion
+      of National Guards go out in arms, and the Elysée was lost. For this a
+      decisive blow must be struck&mdash;the heart of the middle classes must be
+      reached&mdash;the "bourgeois" must be inspired by a grand spectacle which
+      should not be a terrifying spectacle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was then that this thought came to this workman, "Write to the
+      Archbishop of Paris."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The workman took a pen, and from his humble garret he wrote to the
+      Archbishop of Paris an enthusiastic and earnest letter in which he, a man
+      of the people and a believer, said this to his Bishop; we give the
+      substance of his letter:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This is a solemn hour, Civil War sets by the ears the Army and People,
+      blood is being shed. When blood flows the Bishop goes forth. M. Sibour
+      should follow in the path of M. Affre. The example is great, the
+      opportunity is still greater.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Let the Archbishop of Paris, followed by all his clergy, the Pontifical
+      cross before him, his mitre on his head, go forth in procession through
+      the streets. Let him summon to him the National Assembly and the High
+      Court, the Legislators in their sashes, the Judges in their scarlet robes;
+      let him summon to him the citizens, let him summon to him the soldiers,
+      let him go straight to the Elysée. Let him raise his hand in the name of
+      Justice against the man who is violating the laws, and in the name of
+      Jesus against the man who is shedding blood. Simply with his raised hand
+      he will crush the <i>coup d'état</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And he will place his statue by the side of M. Affre, and it will be said
+      that twice two Archbishops of Paris have trampled Civil War beneath their
+      feet."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The Church is holy, but the Country is sacred. There are times when the
+      Church should succor the Country."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The letter being finished, he signed it with his workman's signature.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But now a difficulty arose; how should it be conveyed to its destination?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Take it himself!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But would he, a mere workman in a blouse, be allowed to penetrate to the
+      Archbishop!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then, in order to reach the Archiepiscopal Palace, he would have to
+      cross those very quarters in insurrection, and where, perhaps, the
+      resistance was still active. He would have to pass through streets
+      obstructed by troops, he would be arrested and searched; his hands smelt
+      of powder, he would be shot; and the letter would not reach its
+      destination.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What was to be done?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the moment when he had almost despaired of a solution, the name of
+      Arnauld de l'Ariége came to his mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Arnauld de l'Ariége was a Representative after his own heart. Arnauld de
+      l'Ariége was a noble character. He was a Catholic Democrat like the
+      workman. At the Assembly he raised aloft, but he bore nearly alone, that
+      banner so little followed which aspires to ally the Democracy with the
+      Church. Arnauld de l'Ariége, young, handsome, eloquent, enthusiastic,
+      gentle, and firm, combined the attributes of the Tribune with the faith of
+      the knight. His open nature, without wishing to detach itself from Rome,
+      worshipped Liberty. He had two principles, but he had not two faces. On
+      the whole the democratic spirit preponderated in him. He said to me one
+      day, "I give my hand to Victor Hugo. I do not give it to Montalembert."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The workman knew him. He had often written to him, and had sometimes seen
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Arnauld de l'Ariége lived in a district which had remained almost free.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The workman went there without delay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Like the rest of us, as has been seen, Arnauld de l'Ariége had taken part
+      in the conflict. Like most of the Representatives of the Left, he had not
+      returned home since the morning of the 2d. Nevertheless, on the second
+      day, he thought of his young wife whom he had left without knowing if he
+      should see her again, of his baby of six months old which she was
+      suckling, and which he had not kissed for so many hours, of that beloved
+      hearth, of which at certain moments one feels an absolute need to obtain a
+      fleeting glimpse, he could no longer resist; arrest, Mazas, the cell, the
+      hulks, the firing party, all vanished, the idea of danger was obliterated,
+      he went home.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was precisely at that moment that the workman arrived there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Arnauld de l'Ariége received him, read his letter, and approved of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Arnauld de l'Ariége knew the Archbishop of Paris personally.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      M. Sibour, a Republican priest appointed Archbishop of Paris by General
+      Cavaignac, was the true chief of the Church dreamed of by the liberal
+      Catholicism of Arnauld de l'Ariége. On behalf of the Archbishop, Arnauld
+      de l'Ariége represented in the Assembly that Catholicism which M. de
+      Montalembert perverted. The democratic Representative and the Republic
+      Archbishop had at times frequent conferences, in which acted as
+      intermediatory the Abbé Maret, an intelligent priest, a friend of the
+      people and of progress, Vicar-General of Paris, who has since been Bishop
+      <i>in partibus</i> of Surat. Some days previously Arnauld had seen the
+      Archbishop, and had received his complaints of the encroachment of the
+      Clerical party upon the episcopal authority, and he even proposed shortly
+      to interpellate the Ministry on this subject and to take the question into
+      the Tribune.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Arnauld added to the workman's letter a letter of introduction, signed by
+      himself, and enclosed the two letters in the same envelope.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But here the same question arose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How was the letter to be delivered?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Arnauld, for still weightier reasons than those of the workman, could not
+      take it himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And time pressed!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His wife saw his difficulty and quietly said,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I will take charge of it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame Arnauld de l'Ariége, handsome and quite young, married scarcely two
+      years, was the daughter of the Republican ex-Constituent Guichard, worthy
+      daughter of such a father, and worthy wife of such a husband.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They were fighting in Paris; it was necessary to face the dangers of the
+      streets, to pass among musket-balls, to risk her life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Arnauld de l'Ariége hesitated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What do you want to do?" he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I will take this letter."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You yourself?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I myself."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But there is danger."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She raised her eyes, and answered,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Did I make that objection to you when you left me the day before
+      yesterday?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He kissed her with tears in his eyes, and answered, "Go."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the police of the <i>coup d'état</i> were suspicious, many women were
+      searched while going through the streets; this letter might be found on
+      Madame Arnauld. Where could this letter be hidden?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I will take my baby with me," said Madame Arnauld.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She undid the linen of her little girl, hid the letter there, and
+      refastened the swaddling band.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When this was finished the father kissed his child on the forehead, and
+      the mother exclaimed laughingly,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, the little Red! She is only six months' old, and she is already a
+      conspirator!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame Arnauld reached the Archbishop's Palace with some difficulty. Her
+      carriage was obliged to take a long round. Nevertheless she arrived there.
+      She asked for the Archbishop. A woman with a child in her arms could not
+      be a very terrible visitor, and she was allowed to enter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But she lost herself in courtyards and staircases. She was seeking her way
+      somewhat discouraged, when she met the Abbé Maret. She knew him. She
+      addressed him. She told him the object of her expedition. The Abbé Maret
+      read the workman's letter, and was seized with enthusiasm: "This may save
+      all," said he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He added, "Follow me, madam, I will introduce you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Archbishop of Paris was in the room which adjoins his study. The Abbé
+      Maret ushered Madame Arnauldé into the study, informed the Archbishop, and
+      a moment later the Archbishop entered. Besides the Abbé Maret, the Abbé
+      Deguerry, the Curé of the Madeleine, was with him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame Arnauld handed to M. Sibour the two letters of her husband and the
+      workman. The Archbishop read them, and remained thoughtful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What answer am I to take back to my husband?" asked Madame Arnauld.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Madame," replied the Archbishop, "it is too late. This should have been
+      done before the struggle began. Now, it would be only to risk the shedding
+      of more blood than perhaps has yet been spilled."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Abbé Deguerry was silent. The Abbé Maret tried respectfully to turn
+      the mind of his Bishop towards the grand effort unsoiled by the workman.
+      He spoke eloquently. He laid great stress open this argument, that the
+      appearance of the Archbishop would bring about a manifestation of the
+      National Guard, and that a manifestation of the National Guard would
+      compel the Elysée to draw back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No," said the Archbishop, "you hope for the impossible. The Elysée will
+      not draw back now. You believe that I should stop the bloodshed&mdash;not
+      at all; I should cause it to flow, and that in torrents. The National
+      Guard has no longer any influence. If the legions appeared, the Elysée
+      could crush the legions by the regiments. And then, what is an Archbishop
+      in the presence of the Man of the <i>coup d'état</i>? Where is the oath?
+      Where is the sworn faith? Where is the Respect for Right? A man does not
+      turn back when he has made three steps in such a crime. No! No! Do not
+      hope. This man will do all. He has struck the Law in the hand of the
+      Representatives. He will strike God in mine."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And he dismissed Madame Arnauld with the look of a man overwhelmed with
+      sorrow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Let us do the duty of the Historian. Six weeks afterwards, in the Church
+      of Notre Dame, some one was singing the <i>Te Deum</i> in honor of the
+      treason of December&mdash;thus making God a partner in a crime.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This man was the Archbishop Sibour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0028" id="link2HCH0028"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VIII. MOUNT VALERIEN
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Of the two hundred and thirty Representatives prisoners at the barracks of
+      the Quai d'Orsay fifty-three had been sent to Mount Valérien. They loaded
+      them in four police vans. Some few remained who were packed in an omnibus.
+      MM. Benoist d'Azy, Falloux, Piscatory, Vatimesail, were locked in the
+      wheeled cells, as also Eugène Sue and Esquiros. The worthy M. Gustave de
+      Beaumont, a great upholder of the cellular system, rode in a cell vehicle.
+      It is not an undesirable thing, as we have said, that the legislator
+      should taste of the law.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Commandant of Mount Valérien appeared under the archway of the fort to
+      receive the Representative prisoners.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He at first made some show of registering them in the jailer's book.
+      General Oudinot, under whom he had served, rebuked him severely,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Do you know me?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, General."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well then, let that suffice. Ask no more."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes," said Tamisier. "Ask more and salute. We are more than the Army; we
+      are France."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The commandant understood. From that moment he was hat in hand before the
+      generals, and bowed low before the Representatives.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They led them to the barracks of the fort and shut them up promiscuously
+      in a dormitory, to which they added fresh beds, and which the soldiers had
+      just quitted. They spent their first night there. The beds touched each
+      other. The sheets were dirty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Next morning, owing to a few words which had been heard outside, the rumor
+      spread amongst them that the fifty-three were to be sorted, and that the
+      Republicans were to be placed by themselves. Shortly afterwards the rumor
+      was confirmed. Madame de Luynes gained admission to her husband, and
+      brought some items of news. It was asserted, amongst other things, that
+      the Keeper of the Seals of the <i>coup d'état</i>, the man who signed
+      himself Eugène Rouher, "Minister of Justice," had said, "Let them set the
+      men of the Right at liberty, and send the men of the Left to the dungeon.
+      If the populace stirs they will answer for everything. As a guarantee for
+      the submission of the Faubourgs we shall have the head of the Reds."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We do not believe that M. Rouher uttered these words, in which there is so
+      much audacity. At that moment M. Rouher did not possess any. Appointed
+      Minister on the 2d December, he temporized, he exhibited a vague prudery,
+      he did not venture to install himself in the Place Vendôme. Was all that
+      was being done quite correct? In certain minds the doubt of success
+      changes into scruples of conscience. To violate every law, to perjure
+      oneself, to strangle Right, to assassinate the country, are all these
+      proceedings wholly honest? While the deed is not accomplished they
+      hesitate. When the deed has succeeded they throw themselves upon it. Where
+      there is victory there is no longer treason; nothing serves like success
+      to cleanse and render acceptable that unknown thing which is called crime.
+      During the first moments M. Rocher reserved himself. Later on he has been
+      one of the most violent advisers of Louis Bonaparte. It is all very
+      simple. His fear beforehand explains his subsequent zeal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The truth is, that these threatening words had been spoken not by Rouher,
+      but by Persigny.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      M. de Luynes imparted to his colleagues what was in preparation, and
+      warned them that they would be asked for their names in order that the
+      white sheep might be separated from the scarlet goats. A murmur which
+      seemed to be unanimous arose. These generous manifestations did honor to
+      the Representatives of the Right.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No! no! Let us name no one, let us not allow ourselves to be sorted,"
+      exclaimed M. Gustave de Beaumont.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      M. de Vatimesnil added, "We have come in here all together, we ought to go
+      out all together."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nevertheless a few moments afterwards Antony Thouret was informed that a
+      list of names was being secretly prepared, and that the Royalist
+      Representatives were invited to sign it. They attributed, doubtless
+      wrongly, this unworthy resolution to the honorable M. de Falloux.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Antony Thouret spoke somewhat warmly in the centre of the group, which
+      were muttering together in the dormitory.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Gentlemen," said he, "a list of names is being prepared. This would be an
+      unworthy action. Yesterday at the Mairie of the Tenth Arrondissement you
+      said to us, 'There is no longer Left or Right; we are the Assembly.' You
+      believed in the victory of the People, and you sheltered yourself behind
+      us Republicans. Today you believe in the victory of the <i>coup d'état</i>,
+      and you would again become Royalists, to deliver us up, us Democrats!
+      Truly excellent. Very well! Pray do so."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A universal shout arose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No! No! No more Right or Left! All are the Assembly. The same lot for
+      all!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The list which had been begun was seized and burnt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "By decision of the Chamber," said M. de Vatimesnil, smiling. A Legitimist
+      Representative added,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Of the Chamber? No, let us say of the Chambered."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A few moments afterwards the Commissary of the fort appeared, and in
+      polite phrases, which, however, savored somewhat of authority, invited
+      each of the Representatives of the People to declare his name in order
+      that each might be allotted to his ultimate destination.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A shout of indignation answered him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No one! No one will give his name," said General Oudinot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Gustave de Beaumont added,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We all bear the same name: Representatives of the People."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Commissary saluted them and went away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After two hours he came back. He was accompanied this time by the Chief of
+      the Ushers of the Assembly, a man named Duponceau, a species of arrogant
+      fellow with a red face and white hair, who on grand days strutted at the
+      foot of the Tribune with a silvered collar, a chain over his stomach, and
+      a sword between his legs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Commissary said to Duponceau,&mdash;"Do your duty."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What the Commissary meant, and what Duponceau understood by this word <i>duty</i>,
+      was that the Usher should denounce the Legislators. Like the lackey who
+      betrays his masters.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was done in this manner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This Duponceau dared to look in the faces of the Representatives by turn,
+      and he named them one after the other to a policeman, who took notes of
+      them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Sieur Duponceau was sharply castigated while holding this review.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "M. Duponceau," said M. Vatimesnil to him, "I always thought you an idiot,
+      but I believed you to be an honest man."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The severest rebuke was administered by Antony Thouret. He looked Sieur
+      Duponceau in the face, and said to him, "You deserve to be named Dupin."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Usher in truth was worthy of being the President, and the President
+      was worthy of being the Usher.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The flock having been counted, the classification having been made, there
+      were found to be thirteen goats: ten Representatives of the Left; Eugène
+      Sue, Esquires, Antony Thouret, Pascal Duprat, Chanay, Fayolle, Paulin
+      Durrien, Benoit, Tamisier, Tailard Latérisse, and three members of the
+      Right, who since the preceding day had suddenly become Red in the eyes of
+      the <i>coups d'état</i>; Oudinot, Piscatory, and Thuriot de la Rosière.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They confined these separately, and they set at liberty one by one the
+      forty who remained.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0029" id="link2HCH0029"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IX. THE LIGHTNING BEGINS TO FLASH AMONGST THE PEOPLE
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      The evening wore a threatening aspect.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Groups were formed on the Boulevards. As night advanced they grew larger
+      and became mobs, which speedily mingled together, and only formed one
+      crowd. An enormous crowd, reinforced and agitated by tributary currents
+      from the side-streets, jostling one against another, surging, stormy, and
+      whence ascended an ominous hum. This hubbub resolved itself into one word,
+      into one name which issued simultaneously from every mouth, and which
+      expressed the whole of the situation: "Soulouque!"<a href="#linknoteref-12"
+      name="linknote-12" id="linknote-12"><small>12</small></a> Throughout that
+      long line from the Madeleine to the Bastille, the roadway nearly
+      everywhere, except (was this on purpose?) at the Porte St. Denis and the
+      Porte St. Martin, was occupied by the soldiers&mdash;infantry and cavalry,
+      ranged in battle-order, the artillery batteries being harnessed; on the
+      pavements on each side of this motionless and gloomy mass, bristling with
+      cannon, swords, and bayonets, flowed a torrent of angry people. On all
+      sides public indignation prevailed. Such was the aspect of the Boulevards.
+      At the Bastille there was a dead calm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the Porte St. Martin the crowd, hemmed together and uneasy, spoke in
+      low tones. Groups of workmen talked in whispers. The Society of the 10th
+      December made some efforts there. Men in white blouses, a sort of uniform
+      which the police assumed during those days, said, "Let us leave them
+      alone; let the 'Twenty-five francs' settle it amongst themselves! They
+      deserted us in June, 1848; to-day let them get out of the difficulty
+      alone! It does not concern us!" Other blouses, blue blouses, answered
+      them, "We know what we have to do. This is only the beginning, wait and
+      see."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Others told how the barricades of the Rue Aumaire were being rebuilt, how
+      a large number of persons had already been killed there, how they fired
+      without any summons, how the soldiers were drunk, how at various points in
+      the district there were ambulances already crowded with killed and
+      wounded. All this was said seriously, without loud speaking, without
+      gesture, in a confidential tone. From time to time the crowd were silent
+      and listened, and distant firing was heard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The groups said, "Now they are beginning to tear down the curtain."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We were holding Permanent Session at Marie's house in the Rue Croix des
+      Petits Champs. Promises of co-operation poured in upon us from every side.
+      Several of our colleagues, who had not been able to find us on the
+      previous day, had joined us, amongst others Emmanuel Arago, gallant son of
+      an illustrious father; Farconnet and Roussel (de l'Yonne), and some
+      Parisian celebrities, amongst whom was the young and already well-known
+      defender of the <i>Avénement du Peuple</i>, M. Desmarets.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two eloquent men, Jules Favre and Alexander Rey, seated at a large table
+      near the window of the small room, were drawing up a Proclamation to the
+      National Guard. In the large room Sain, seated in an arm-chair, his feet
+      on the dog-irons, drying his wet boots before a huge fire, said, with that
+      calm and courageous smile which he wore in the Tribune, "Things are
+      looking badly for us, but well for the Republic. Martial law is
+      proclaimed; it will be carried out with ferocity, above all against us. We
+      are laid in wait for, followed, tracked, there is little probability that
+      we shall escape. To-day, to-morrow, perhaps in ten minutes, there will be
+      a 'miniature massacre' of Representatives. We shall be taken here or
+      elsewhere, shot down on the spot or killed with bayonet thrusts. They will
+      parade our corpses, and we must hope that that will at length raise the
+      people and overthrow Bonaparte. We are dead, but Bonaparte is lost."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At eight o'clock, as Emile de Girardin had promised, we received from the
+      printing office of the <i>Presse</i> five hundred copies of the decree of
+      deposition and of outlawry endorsing the judgment of the High Court, and
+      with all our signatures attached. It was a placard twice as large as one's
+      hand, and printed on paper used for proofs. Noël Parfait brought us the
+      five hundred copies, still damp, between his waistcoat and his shirt.
+      Thirty Representatives divided the bills amongst them, and we sent them on
+      the Boulevards to distribute the Decree to the People.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The effect of this Decree falling in the midst of the crowd was
+      marvellous. Some <i>cafés</i> had remained open, people eagerly snatched
+      the bills, they pressed round the lighted shop windows, they crowded under
+      the street lamps. Some mounted on kerbstones or on tables, and read aloud
+      the Decree.&mdash;"That is it! Bravo!" cried the people. "The signatures!"
+      "The signatures!" they shouted. The signatures were read out, and at each
+      popular name the crowd applauded. Charamaule, merry and indignant,
+      wandered through the groups, distributing copies of the Decree; his great
+      stature, his loud and bold words, the packet of handbills which he raised,
+      and waved above his head, caused all hands to be stretched out towards
+      him. "Shout 'Down with Soulouque!'" said he, "and you shall have some."
+      All this in the presence of the soldiers. Even a sergeant of the line,
+      noticing Charamaule, stretched out his hand for one of the bills which
+      Charamaule was distributing. "Sergeant," said Charamaule to him, "cry,
+      'Down with Soulouque!'" The sergeant hesitated for a moment, and answered
+      "No." "Well, then," replied Charamaule, "Shout, 'Long live Soulouque.'"
+      This time the sergeant did not hesitate, he raised his sword, and, amid
+      bursts of laughter and of applause, he resolutely shouted, "Long live
+      Soulouque!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The reading of the Decree added a gloomy warmth to the popular anger. They
+      set to work on all sides to tear down the placards of the <i>coup d'état</i>.
+      At the door of the Café des Variétés a young man cried out to the
+      officers, "You are drunk!" Some workmen on the Boulevard Bonne-Nouvelle
+      shook their fists at the soldiers and said, "Fire, then, you cowards, on
+      unarmed men! If we had guns you would throw the butts of your muskets in
+      the air." Charges of cavalry began to be made in front of the Café
+      Cardinal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As there were no troops on the Boulevard St. Martin and the Boulevard du
+      Temple, the crowd was more compact pact there than elsewhere. All the
+      shops were shut there; the street lamps alone gave any light. Against the
+      gloss of the unlighted windows heads might be dimly seen peering out.
+      Darkness produced silence; this multitude, as we have already said, was
+      hushed. There was only heard a confused whispering. Suddenly a light, a
+      noise, an uproar burst forth from the entrance of the Rue St. Martin.
+      Every eye was turned in that direction; a profound upheaving agitated the
+      crowd; they rushed forward, they pressed against the railings of the high
+      pavements which border the cutting between the theatres of the Porte St.
+      Martin and the Ambigu. A moving mass was seen, and an approaching light.
+      Voices were singing. This formidable chorus was recognized,
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+    "Aux armes, Citoyens; formez vos bataillons!"
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Lighted torches were coming, it was the "Marseillaise," that other torch
+      of Revolution and of warfare which was blazing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The crowd made way for the mob which carried the torches, and which were
+      singing. The mob reached the St. Martin cutting, and entered it. It was
+      then seen what this mournful procession meant. The mob was composed of two
+      distinct groups. The first carried on its shoulders a plank, on which
+      could be seen stretched an old man with a white beard, stark, the mouth
+      open, the eyes fixed, and with a hole in his forehead. The swinging
+      movement of the bearers shook the corpse, and the dead head rose and fell
+      in a threatening and pathetic manner. One of the men who carried him,
+      pale, and wounded in the breast, placed his hand to his wound, leant
+      against the feet of the old man, and at times himself appeared ready to
+      fall. The other group bore a second litter, on which a young man was
+      stretched, his countenance pale and his eyes closed, his shirt stained,
+      open over his breast, displaying his wounds. While bearing the two litters
+      the groups sang. They sang the "Marseillaise," and at each chorus they
+      stopped and raised their torches, crying, "To arms!" Some young men waved
+      drawn swords. The torches shed a lurid light on the pallid foreheads of
+      the corpses and on the livid faces of the crowd. A shudder ran through the
+      people. It appeared as though they again saw the terrible vision of
+      February, 1848.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This gloomy procession came from the Rue Aumaire. About eight o'clock some
+      thirty workmen gathered together from the neighborhood of the markets, the
+      same who on the next day raised the barricade of the Guérin-Boisseau,
+      reached the Rue Aumaire by the Rue de Petit Lion, the Rue
+      Neuve-Bourg-l'Abbé, and the Carré St. Martin. They came to fight, but here
+      the combat was at an end. The infantry had withdrawn after having pulled
+      down the barricades. Two corpses, an old man of seventy and a young man of
+      five-and-twenty, lay at the corner of the street on the ground, with
+      uncovered faces, their bodies in a pool of blood, their heads on the
+      pavement where they had fallen. Both were dressed in overcoats, and seemed
+      to belong to the middle class. The old man had his hat by his side; he was
+      a venerable figure with a white beard, white hair, and a calm expression.
+      A ball had pierced his skull.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The young man's breast was pierced with buck-shot. One was the father, the
+      other the son. The son, seeing his father fall, had said, "I also will
+      die." Both were lying side by side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Opposite the gateway of the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers there was a
+      house in course of building. They fetched two planks from it, they laid
+      the corpses on the planks, the crowd raised them upon their shoulders,
+      they brought torches, and they began their march. In the Rue St. Denis a
+      man in a white blouse barred the way. "Where are you going?" said he to
+      them. "You will bring about disasters! You are helping the 'Twenty-five
+      francs!'" "Down with the police! Down with the white blouse!" shouted the
+      crowd. The man slunk away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The mob swelled on its road; the crowd opened out and repeated the
+      "Marseillaise" in chorus, but with the exception of a few swords no one
+      was armed. On the boulevard the emotion was intense. Women clasped their
+      hands in pity. Workmen were heard to exclaim, "And to think that we have
+      no arms!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The procession, after having for some time followed the Boulevards,
+      re-entered the streets, followed by a deeply-affected and angry multitude.
+      In this manner it reached the Rue de Gravilliers. Then a squad of twenty
+      <i>sergents de ville</i> suddenly emerging from a narrow street rushed
+      with drawn swords upon the men who were carrying the litters, and
+      overturned the corpses into the mud. A regiment of Chasseurs came up at
+      the double, and put an end to the conflict with bayonet thrusts. A hundred
+      and two citizen prisoners were conducted to the Prefecture. The two
+      corpses received several sword-cuts in the confusion, and were killed a
+      second time. The brigadier Revial, who commanded the squad of the <i>sergents
+      de ville</i>, received the Cross of Honor for this deed of arms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At Marie's we were on the point of being surrounded. We decided to leave
+      the Rue Croix des Petits Champs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the Elysée they commenced to tremble. The ex-Commandant Fleury, one of
+      the aides-de-camp of the Presidency, was summoned into the little room
+      where M. Bonaparte had remained throughout the day. M. Bonaparte conferred
+      a few moments alone with M. Fleury, then the aide-de-camp came out of the
+      room, mounted his horse, and galloped off in the direction of Mazas.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After this the men of the <i>coup d'état</i> met together in M.
+      Bonaparte's room, and held council. Matters were visibly going badly; it
+      was probable that the battle would end by assuming formidable proportions.
+      Up to that time they had desired this, now they did not feel sure that
+      they did not fear it. They pushed forward towards it, but they mistrusted
+      it. There were alarming symptoms in the steadfastness of the resistance,
+      and others not less serious in the cowardice of adherents. Not one of the
+      new Ministers appointed during the morning had taken possession of his
+      Ministry&mdash;a significant timidity on the part of people ordinarily so
+      prompt to throw themselves upon such things. M. Roulier, in particular,
+      had disappeared, no one knew where&mdash;a sign of tempest. Putting Louis
+      Bonaparte on one side, the <i>coup d'état</i> continued to rest solely
+      upon three names, Morny, St. Arnaud, and Maupas. St. Arnaud answered for
+      Magnan. Morny laughed and said in a whisper, "But does Magnan answer for
+      St. Arnaud?" These men adopted energetic measures, they sent for new
+      regiments; an order to the garrisons to march upon Paris was despatched in
+      the one direction as far as Cherbourg, and on the other as far as
+      Maubeuge. These criminals, in the main deeply uneasy, sought to deceive
+      each other. They assumed a cheerful countenance; all spoke of victory;
+      each in the background arranged for flight; in secret, and saying nothing,
+      in order not to give the alarm to his compromised colleagues, so as, in
+      case of failure, to leave the people some men to devour. For this little
+      school of Machiavellian apes the hopes of a successful escape lie in the
+      abandonment of their friends. During their flight they throw their
+      accomplices behind them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a href="#linknote-12" name="linknoteref-12" id="linknoteref-12_"><small>12</small></a>
+      <i>A popular nickname for Louis Bonaparte. Faustin Soulouque was the negro
+      Emperor of Hayti, who, when President of the Republic, had carried out a
+      somewhat similar <i>coup d'état</i> in 1848, being subsequently elected
+      Emperor. He treated the Republicans with great cruelty, putting most of
+      them to death.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0030" id="link2HCH0030"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER X. WHAT FLEURY WENT TO DO AT MAZAS
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      During the same night towards four o'clock the approaches of the Northern
+      Railway Station were silently invested by two regiments; one of Chasseurs
+      de Vincennes, the other of <i>Gendarmerie Mobile</i>. Numerous squads of
+      <i>sergents de ville</i> installed themselves in the terminus. The
+      station-master was ordered to prepare a special train and to have an
+      engine ready. A certain number of stokers and engineers for night service
+      were retained. No explanation however was vouchsafed to any one, and
+      absolute secrecy was maintained. A little before six o'clock a movement
+      was apparent in the troops. Some <i>sergents de ville</i> came running up,
+      and a few minutes afterwards a squadron of Lancers emerged at a sharp trot
+      from the Rue du Nord. In the centre of the squadron and between the two
+      lines of horse-soldiers could be seen two police-vans drawn by
+      post-horses, behind each vehicle came a little open barouche, in which
+      there sat one man. At the head of the Lancers galloped the aide-de-camp
+      Fleury.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The procession entered the courtyard, then the railway station, and the
+      gates and doors were reclosed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The two men in the barouches made themselves known to the Special
+      Commissary of the station, to whom the aide-de-camp Fleury spoke
+      privately. This mysterious convoy excited the curiosity of the railway
+      officials; they questioned the policemen, but these knew nothing. All that
+      they could tell was that these police-vans contained eight places, that in
+      each van there were four prisoners, each occupying a cell, and that the
+      four other cells were filled by four <i>sergents de ville</i> placed
+      between the prisoners so as to prevent any communication between the
+      cells.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After various consultations between the aide-de-camp of the Elysée and the
+      men of the Prefect Maupas, the two police-vans were placed on railway
+      trucks, each having behind it the open barouche like a wheeled sentry-box,
+      where a police agent acted as sentinel. The engine was ready, the trucks
+      were attached to the tender, and the train started. It was still pitch
+      dark.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For a long time the train sped on in the most profound silence. Meanwhile
+      it was freezing, in the second of the two police-vans, the <i>sergents de
+      ville</i>, cramped and chilled, opened their cells, and in order to warm
+      and stretch themselves walked up and down the narrow gangway which runs
+      from end to end of the police-vans. Day had broken, the four <i>sergents
+      de ville</i> inhaled the outside air and gazed at the passing country
+      through a species of port-hole which borders each side of the ceiling of
+      the passage. Suddenly a loud voice issued from one of the cells which had
+      remained closed, and cried out, "Hey! there! it is very cold, cannot I
+      relight my cigar here?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another voice immediately issued from a second cell, and said, "What! it
+      is you? Good-morning, Lamoricière!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Good-morning, Cavaignac!" replied the first voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      General Cavaignac and General Lamoricière had just recognized each other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A third voice was raised from a third cell. "Ah! you are there, gentlemen.
+      Good-morning and a pleasant journey."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He who spoke then was General Changarnier.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Generals?" cried out a fourth voice. "I am one of you!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The three generals recognized M. Baze. A burst of laughter came from the
+      four cells simultaneously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This police-van in truth contained, and was carrying away from Paris, the
+      Questor Baze, and the Generals Lamoricière, Cavaignac, and Changarnier. In
+      the other vehicle, which was placed foremost on the trucks, there were
+      Colonel Charras, Generals Bedeau and Le Flô, and Count Roger (du Nord).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At midnight these eight Representative prisoners were sleeping in their
+      cells at Mazas, when they heard a sudden knocking at their doors, and a
+      voice cried out to them, "Dress, they are coming to fetch you." "Is it to
+      shoot us?" cried Charras from the other side of the door. They did not
+      answer him. It is worth remarking that this idea came simultaneously to
+      all. And in truth, if we can believe what has since transpired through the
+      quarrels of accomplices, it appears that in the event of a sudden attack
+      being made by us upon Mazas to deliver them, a fusillade had been resolved
+      upon, and that St. Arnaud had in his pocket the written order, signed
+      "Louis Bonaparte."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The prisoners got up. Already on the preceding night a similar notice had
+      been given to them. They had passed the night on their feet, and at six
+      o'clock in the morning the jailer said to them, "You can go to bed." The
+      hours passed by; they ended by thinking it would be the same as the
+      preceding night, and many of them, hearing five o'clock strike from the
+      clock tower inside the prison, were going to get back into bed, when the
+      doors of their cells were opened. All the eight were taken downstairs one
+      by one into the clerk's office in the Rotunda, and were then ushered into
+      the police-van without having met or seen each other during the passage. A
+      man dressed in black, with an impertinent bearing, seated at a table with
+      pen in hand, stopped them on their way, and asked their names. "I am no
+      more disposed to tell you my name than I am curious to learn yours,"
+      answered General Lamoricière, and he passed outside.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The aide-de-camp Fleury, concealing his uniform under his hooded cloak,
+      stationed himself in the clerk's office. He was charged, to use his own
+      words, to "embark" them, and to go and report their "embarkation" at the
+      Elysée. The aide-de-camp Fleury had passed nearly the whole of his
+      military career in Africa in General Lamoricière's division; and it was
+      General Lamoricière who in 1848, then being Minister of War, had promoted
+      him to the rank of major. While passing through the clerk's office,
+      General Lamoricière looked fixedly at him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When they entered the police-vans the generals were smoking cigars. They
+      took them from them. General Lamoricière had kept his. A voice from
+      outside cried three separate times, "Stop his smoking!" A <i>sergent de
+      ville</i> who was standing by the door of the cell hesitated for some
+      time, but however ended by saying to the general, "Throw away your cigar."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thence later on ensued the exclamation which caused General Cavaignac to
+      recognize General Lamoricière. The vehicles having been loaded they set
+      off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They did not know either with whom they were or where they were going.
+      Each observed for himself in his box the turnings of the streets, and
+      tried to speculate. Some believed that they were being taken to the
+      Northern Railway Station; others thought to the Havre Railway Station.
+      They heard the trot of the escort on the paving-stones.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the railway the discomfort of the cells greatly increased. General
+      Lamoricière, encumbered with a parcel and a cloak, was still more jammed
+      in than the others. He could not move, the cold seized him, and he ended
+      by the exclamation which put all four of them in communication with each
+      other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On hearing the names of the prisoners their keepers, who up to that time
+      had been rough, became respectful. "I say there," said General
+      Changarnier, "open our cells, and let us walk up and down the passage like
+      yourselves." "General," said a <i>sergent de ville</i>, "we are forbidden
+      to do so. The Commissary of Police is behind the carriage in a barouche,
+      whence he sees everything that is taking place here." Nevertheless, a few
+      moments afterwards, the keepers, under pretext of cold, pulled up the
+      ground-glass window which closed the vehicle on the side of the
+      Commissary, and having thus "blocked the police," as one of them remarked,
+      they opened the cells of the prisoners.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was with great delight that the four Representatives met again and
+      shook hands. Each of these three generals at this demonstrative moment
+      maintained the character of his temperament. Lamoricière, impetuous and
+      witty, throwing himself with all his military energy upon "the Bonaparte;"
+      Cavaignac, calm and cold; Changarnier, silent and looking out through the
+      port-hole at the landscape. The <i>sergents de ville</i> ventured to put
+      in a word here and there. One of them related to the prisoners that the
+      ex-Prefect Carlier had spent the night of the First and Second at the
+      Prefecture of Police. "As for me," said he, "I left the Prefecture at
+      midnight, but I saw him up to that hour, and I can affirm that at midnight
+      he was there still."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They reached Creil, and then Noyon. At Noyon they gave them some
+      breakfast, without letting them get out, a hurried morsel and a glass of
+      wine. The Commissaries of Police did not open their lips to them. Then the
+      carriages were reclosed, and they felt they were being taken off the
+      trucks and being replaced on the wheels. Post horses arrived, and the
+      vehicles set out, but slowly; they were now escorted by a company of
+      infantry <i>Gendarmerie Mobile</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When they left Noyon they had been ten hours in the police-van. Meanwhile
+      the infantry halted. They asked permission to get out for a moment "We
+      consent," said one of the Commissaries of the Police, "but only for a
+      minute, and on condition that you will give your word of honor not to
+      escape." "We will give our word of honor," replied the prisoners.
+      "Gentlemen," continued the Commissary, "give it to me only for one minute,
+      the time to drink a glass of water." "No," said General Lamoricière, "but
+      the time to do the contrary," and he added, "To Louis Bonaparte's health."
+      They allowed them to get out, one by one, and they were, able to inhale
+      for a moment the fresh air in the open country by the side of the road.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then the convoy resumed its march.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the day waned they saw through their port-hole a mass of high walls,
+      somewhat overtopped by a great round tower. A moment afterwards the
+      carriages entered beneath a low archway, and then stopped in the centre of
+      a long courtyard, steeply embanked, surrounded by high walls, and
+      commanded by two buildings, of which one had the appearance of a barrack,
+      and the other, with bars at all the windows, had the appearance of a
+      prison. The doors of the carriages were opened. An officer who wore a
+      captain's epaulets was standing by the steps. General Changarnier came
+      down first. "Where are we?" said he. The officer answered, "You are at
+      Ham."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This officer was the Commandant of the Fort. He had been appointed to this
+      post by General Cavaignac.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The journey from Noyon to Ham had lasted three hours and a half. They had
+      spent thirteen hours in the police van, of which ten were on the railway.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They led them separately into the prison, each to the room that was
+      allotted to him. However, General Lamoricière having been taken by mistake
+      into Cavaignac's room, the two generals could again exchange a shake of
+      the hand. General Lamoricière wished to write to his wife; the only letter
+      which the Commissaries of Police consented to take charge of was a note
+      containing this line: "I am well."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The principal building of the prison of Ham is composed of a story above
+      the ground floor. The ground floor is traversed by a dark and low archway,
+      which leads from the principal courtyard into a back yard, and contains
+      three rooms separated by a passage; the first floor contains five rooms.
+      One of the three rooms on the ground floor is only a little ante-room,
+      almost uninhabitable; there they lodged M. Baze. In the remaining lower
+      chambers they installed General Lamoricière and General Changarnier. The
+      five other prisoners were distributed in the five rooms of the first
+      floor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The room allotted to General Lamoricière had been occupied in the time of
+      the captivity of the Ministers of Charles X. by the ex-Minister of Marine,
+      M. d'Haussez. It was a low, damp room, long uninhabited, and which had
+      served as a chapel, adjoining the dreary archway which led from one
+      courtyard to the other, floored with great planks slimy and mouldy, to
+      which the foot adhered, papered with a gray paper which had turned green,
+      and which hung in rags, exuding saltpetre from the floor to the ceiling,
+      lighted by two barred windows looking on to the courtyard, which had
+      always to be left open on account of the smoky chimney. At the bottom of
+      the room was the bed, and between the windows a table and two
+      straw-bottomed chairs. The damp ran down the walls. When General
+      Lamoricière left this room he carried away rheumatism with him; M. de
+      Haussez went out crippled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the eight prisoners had entered their rooms, the doors were shut upon
+      them; they heard the bolts shot from outside, and they were told: "You are
+      in close confinement."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      General Cavaignac occupied on the first floor the former room of M. Louis
+      Bonaparte, the best in the prison. The first thing which struck the eye of
+      the General was an inscription traced on the well, and stating the day
+      when Louis Bonaparte had entered this fortress, and the day when he had
+      left it, as is well known, disguised as a mason, and with a plank on his
+      shoulder. Moreover, the choice of this building was an attention on the
+      part of M. Louis Bonaparte, who having in 1848 taken the place of General
+      Cavaignac in power; wished that in 1851 General Cavaignac should take his
+      place in prison.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Turn and turn about!" Morny had said, smiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The prisoners were guarded by the 48th of the Line, who formed the
+      garrison at Ham. The old Bastilles are quite impartial. They obey those
+      who make <i>coups d'état</i> until the day when they clutch them. What do
+      these words matter to them, Equity, Truth, Conscience, which moreover in
+      certain circles do not move men any more than stones? They are the cold
+      and gloomy servants of the just and of the unjust. They take whatever is
+      given them. All is good to them. Are they guilty? Good! Are they innocent?
+      Excellent! This man is the organizer of an ambush. To prison! This man is
+      the victim of an ambush! Enter him in the prison register! In the same
+      room. To the dungeon with all the vanquished!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These hideous Bastilles resemble that old human justice which possessed
+      precisely as much conscience as they have, which condemned Socrates and
+      Jesus, and which also takes and leaves, seizes and releases, absolves and
+      condemns, liberates and incarcerates, opens and shuts, at the will of
+      whatever hand manipulates the bolt from outside.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0031" id="link2HCH0031"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XI. THE END OF THE SECOND DAY
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 <i>coup
+      d'état</i> 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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An old friend, a man of heart and of talent, M. Henry d'E&mdash;&mdash;,
+      had offered me a refuge in rooms which he occupied in the Rue Richelieu;
+      these rooms adjoining the Théâtre Français, were on the first floor of a
+      house which, like M. Grévy's residence, had an exit into the Rue Fontaine
+      Molière.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I went there. M. Henry d'E&mdash;&mdash; being from home, his porter was
+      awaiting me, and handed me the key.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 <i>coup d'état</i>. I wrote this page, which I
+      reproduce here, because it is a life-like portrayal&mdash;a sort of direct
+      photograph:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Louis Bonaparte has invented something which he calls a 'Consultative
+      Committee,' and which he commissions to draw up the postscript of his
+      crimes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Léon Foucher refuses to be in it; Montalember hesitates; Baroche accepts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Falloux despises Dupin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The first shots were fired at the Record Office. In the Markets in the
+      Rue Rambuteau, in the Rue Beaubourg I heard firing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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 <i>coup d'état</i>. 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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 <i>Gendarmerie Mobile</i> 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is said that fifty members of the majority have signed a protest at M.
+      Odilon Barrot's house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Here are the military talons by which Paris has been grasped:&mdash;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 Hôtel 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 Hôtel 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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This page written, I went to bed, and fell asleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0034" id="link2H_4_0034"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      THE THIRD DAY&mdash;THE MASSACRE.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0032" id="link2HCH0032"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER I. THOSE WHO SLEEP AND HE WHO DOES NOT SLEEP
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two colonels were waiting in the little ante-room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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:&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such were these colonels.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Saint-Arnaud spoke to them for some time in a low tone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0033" id="link2HCH0033"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER II. THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE COMMITTEE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  "FRENCH REPUBLIC.
+
+  "<i>Liberty, Equality, Fraternity</i>.
+
+  "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."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      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
+      Hôtel de Ville should have succeeded. Unhappily this surprise failed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 Théâtre Français, 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;a back outlet upon the Rue Fontaine-Molière. We decided to
+      remain. Only we thought we ought to take precautionary measures.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Every species of devotion burst forth from the ranks of the Left around
+      us. A noteworthy member of the Assembly&mdash;a man of rare mind and of
+      rare courage&mdash;Durand-Savoyat&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Landrin and Durand-Savoyat having left, Michel de Bourges began to speak.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Michel de Bourges was right. Behind the victory of Louis Bonaparte could
+      be seen something hateful, but something which was familiar&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Surprised, we called in Durand-Savoyat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Did you not understand us?" asked Michel de Bourges.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, certainly," answered Durand-Savoyat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This house is perhaps marked," resumed Carnot; "we are in danger of being
+      taken."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And killed upon the spot," added Jules Favre, smiling with his calm
+      smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And without imagining that he had just uttered the words of a hero,
+      Durand-Savoyat went back to the antechamber.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  "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 <i>coup d'état</i>.
+
+  "The outrage of Louis Napoleon, in overturning all the Public Powers,
+  has only left one authority standing,&mdash;the supreme authority,&mdash;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:&mdash;
+
+  "ARTICLE I.&mdash;The People are convoked on the 21st December, 1851, for
+  the election of a Sovereign Assembly.
+
+  "ARTICLE II.&mdash;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."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      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?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have since seen Charassin in exile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame Charassin had just left me when Théodore Bac arrived. He brought us
+      the protest of the Council of State.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here it is:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  "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."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Let us relate the adventure of the Council of State.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The quay was thronged with soldiers. A regiment was bivouacking there with
+      their arms piled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Upon this several Councillors of State declared that, indignant as they
+      were, they could not place their signatures beside the Republican
+      signatures.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A means of obeying the porter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Many refused, one alleging his great age, another the <i>res angusta domi</i>,
+      a third "the fear of doing the work of the Reds." "Say 'fear,' in short,"
+      replied Charton.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the morning of the 4th, M. de Cormenin erased his signature, giving
+      this unprecedented but authentic excuse: "The word <i>ex</i>-Councillor of
+      State does not look well in a book; I am afraid of injuring my publisher."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;a Minister.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0034" id="link2HCH0034"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER III. INSIDE THE ELYSEE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One of these details was the following:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An inexorable decree had been compiled, and was about to be placarded.
+      This decree enjoined upon all submission to the <i>coup d'état</i>.
+      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 "<i>shot</i>!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Other matters had been decided, but these were not recorded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Various pieces of information came in in addition to these.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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,&mdash;the spectres of the crime.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The courtyard was filled with lancers, who held the horses of the generals
+      who were deliberating.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &mdash;&mdash;, 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 &mdash;&mdash; to whom M. de Chateaubriand, after a night of
+      love, composed this quatrain, which may now be published&mdash;all the
+      personages being dead.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+    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?<a
+      href="#linknoteref-13" name="linknote-13" id="linknote-13">13</a>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The smile of the daughter was as sweet as that of the mother, and more
+      fatal. The other was Madame K&mdash;&mdash;, 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the stables of the Elysée in the Rue Montaigne there were other
+      carriages horsed, and horses saddled and bridled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Crime grown calm was a disquieting symptom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "In truth," Morny, who was in the secret, had said, "all this apparatus
+      will have work to do."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another detail. When the <i>fiacre</i> bringing M. Baze was entering the
+      courtyard of Mazas, it had struck against the gate, and the lamp of the <i>fiacre</i>
+      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, <i>where there is a breakage</i>, it is the Government which
+      pays."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And Bonaparte had smiled, and muttered under his moustache, "That is only
+      fair."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This kick and fisticuff amused Louis Bonaparte.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And Maupas is as frightened as ever," said Morny. This made Bonaparte
+      laugh still further.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a href="#linknote-13" name="linknoteref-13" id="linknoteref-13_"><small>13</small></a>
+      <i>The above is a free rendering of the original, which is as follows</i>:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+    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?
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0035" id="link2HCH0035"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IV. BONAPARTE'S FAMILIAR SPIRITS
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      M. Mérimée was vile by nature, he must not be blamed for it.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      With regard to M. de Morny it is otherwise, he was more worthy; there was
+      something of the brigand in him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      M. de Morny was courageous. Brigandage has its sentiments of honor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      M. Mérimée has wrongly given himself out as one of the confederates of the
+      <i>coup d'état</i>. He had, however, nothing to boast of in this.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The truth is that M. Mérimée was in no way a confidant. Louis Bonaparte
+      made no useless confidences.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The familiars of the Elysée were of two kinds, the trustworthy
+      confederates and the courtiers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first of the trustworthy confederates was Morny; the first&mdash;or
+      the last&mdash;of the courtiers was Mérimée.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This is what made the fortune of M. Mérimée.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This Court was a heterogeneous collection; a dinner-wagon of basenesses, a
+      menagerie of reptiles, a herbal of poisons.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Besides the trustworthy confederates who were for use, and the courtiers
+      who were for ornament, there were the auxiliaries.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Certain circumstances called for reinforcements; sometimes these were
+      women, <i>the Flying Squadron</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sometimes men: Saint-Arnaud, Espinasse, Saint-George, Maupas.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sometimes neither men nor women: the Marquis de C.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The whole troop was noteworthy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Let us say a few words of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was Vieillard the preceptor, an atheist with a tinge of Catholicism,
+      a good billiard player.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Vieillard was an anecdotist. He recounted smilingly the following:&mdash;
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A suitable number of salvoes of cannon saluted this birth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such was the story which, in the summer of 1840, in the house called La
+      Terrasse, before witnesses, among whom was Ferdinand B&mdash;&mdash;,
+      Marquis de la L&mdash;&mdash;, a companion during boyhood of the author of
+      this book, was told by M. Vieillard, an ironical Bonapartist, an arrant
+      sceptic.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was Fialin,<a href="#linknoteref-14" name="linknote-14"
+      id="linknote-14"><small>14</small></a> the corporal who became a Duke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was Fleury, who was destined to the glory of travelling by the side
+      of the Czar on his buttocks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was Larabit, a friend of Lacrosse, as much a domestic and not less a
+      senator.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.'"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There were some Auvergants there. Two. They hated each other. One had
+      nicknamed the other "the melancholy tinker."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was Sainte-Beuve, a distinguished but inferior man, having a
+      pardonable fondness for ugliness. A great critic like Cousin is a great
+      philosopher.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was Abbatucci; a conscience which let everything pass by. To-day a
+      street.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was the Abbé M&mdash;&mdash;, later on Bishop of Nancy, who
+      emphasized with a smile the oaths of Louis Bonaparte.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There were the frequenters of a famous box at the Opera, Montg&mdash;&mdash;
+      and Sept&mdash;&mdash;, placing at the service of an unscrupulous prince
+      the deep side of frivolous men.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was Romieu&mdash;the outline of a drunkard behind a Red spectre.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was Malitourne&mdash;not a bad friend, coarse and sincere.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was Cuch&mdash;&mdash;, whose name caused hesitation amongst the
+      ushers at the saloon doors.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was Suin&mdash;a man able to furnish excellent counsel for bail
+      actions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was Dr. Veron&mdash;who had on his cheek what the other men of the
+      Elysée had in their hearts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was Mocquart&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was Lavalette, completing Morny and Walewski.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was Bacciochi.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And yet others.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Elysée, wretched as it was, holds a place in the age. The Elysée, has
+      engendered catastrophes and ridicule.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One cannot pass it over in silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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;&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;effrontery included.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a href="#linknote-14" name="linknoteref-14" id="linknoteref-14_"><small>14</small></a>
+      <i>Better known afterwards as Persigny.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0036" id="link2HCH0036"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER V. A WAVERING ALLY
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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,&mdash;Morny,
+      the man of thought; Saint-Arnaud, the man of action.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 <i>sixteen hundred and thirty four victims</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was less mistaken, but still he was mistaken, in his appreciation of X.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the 2d of December, X., an ally thought necessary by Morny, became a
+      source of anxiety to Louis Bonaparte.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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, "<i>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</i>." 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 <i>coup d'état</i>, 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>I am waiting</i>," 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, "<i>We must wait and see</i>."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This <i>I am waiting</i>, and <i>We must see</i>, preoccupied Louis
+      Bonaparte. Morny said, "<i>Let us make use of the flying squadron</i>."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0037" id="link2HCH0037"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VI. DENIS DUSSOUBS
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In fine, Gaston Dussoubs inspired fear. He was witty, courageous, and
+      gentle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 François 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One day Michel de Bourges brought to us Gaston Dussoubs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Gaston Dussoubs lived in the Faubourg St. Germain, near the Assembly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Gaston Dussoubs knew of the <i>coup d'état</i>, 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!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes," said his brother. "It will be there!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "How?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Lend it to me."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Take it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Denis took Gaston's sash, and went away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We shall see Denis Dussoubs later on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0038" id="link2HCH0038"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VII. ITEMS AND INTERVIEWS
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Lamoricière on the same morning found means to convey to me by Madame de
+      Courbonne<a href="#linknoteref-15" name="linknote-15" id="linknote-15"><small>15</small></a>
+      the following information.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "&mdash;&mdash; Fortress of Ham.&mdash;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."<a href="#linknoteref-16" name="linknote-16"
+      id="linknote-16"><small>16</small></a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I thought when I received this communication that the Commandant Baudot,
+      "the jailer," had connived at its rapid transmission.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A sign of the instability of the central power.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lamoricière, by the same means, put me in possession of some details
+      concerning his arrest and that of his fellow-generals.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These details complete those which I have already given.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.<a href="#linknoteref-17"
+      name="linknote-17" id="linknote-17"><small>17</small></a> The General was
+      awakened, seized, and carried away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These arrests were not pleasant tasks for the Commissaries of Police. They
+      were made to drink down their shame in large draughts. Cavaignac, Leflô,
+      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?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Commissary exclaimed, "Oh, General, what are you thinking of?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A few days afterwards these pitiful wretches all received the Cross of the
+      Legion of Honor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 <i>Presse</i>. Serrière published the
+      <i>Presse</i> and the <i>Avénement du Peuple</i>, the latter a new name
+      for the <i>Evénement</i>, 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 <i>Avénement du Peuple</i>, and had placed sentinels over
+      the presses. The workmen had resisted, and one of them said to the
+      soldiers, "<i>We shall print it in spite of you</i>." 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>I should like a Colonel
+      of your stamp</i>." 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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, "<i>We fill the
+      places of the Representatives, we have twenty-five francs a day</i>." All
+      the printing-houses in Paris were occupied in the same manner by the
+      soldiery. The <i>coup d'état</i> reigned everywhere. The Crime even
+      ill-treated the Press which supported it. At the office of the <i>Moniteur
+      Parisien</i>, the police agents threatened to fire on any one who should
+      open a door. M. Delamare, director of the <i>Patrie</i>, had forty
+      Municipal Guards on his hands, and trembled lest they should break his
+      presses. He said to one of them, "<i>Why, I am on your side</i>." The
+      gendarme replied, "<i>What is that to me?</i>"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As I left this honest and courageous man in the street I saw M. Mérimée,
+      his exact opposite, coming towards me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh!" said M. Mérimée, "I was looking for you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I answered him,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I hope you will not find me."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He held out his hand to me, and I turned my back on him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have not seen him since. I believe he is dead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In speaking one day in 1847 with Mérimée about Morny, we had the following
+      conversation:&mdash;Mérimée said, "M. de Morny has a great future before
+      him." And he asked me, "Do you know him?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I answered,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was this difference between Mérimée and myself: I despised Morny,
+      and he esteemed him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Morny reciprocated his feeling. It was natural.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I waited until Mérimée had passed the corner of the street. As soon as he
+      disappeared I went into No. 15.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There, they had received news of Canrobert. On the 2d he went to see
+      Madame Leflô, 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 Leflô were invited, and had made an
+      appointment there with General Canrobert. But the ball did not form a part
+      of Madame Leflô'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 Leflô 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 Leflô, "that <i>if</i> tells me your
+      intentions."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 <i>Amable</i>,
+      Randon <i>César</i>, and Canrobert <i>Certain</i>."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a href="#linknote-15" name="linknoteref-15" id="linknoteref-15_"><small>15</small></a>
+      <i> No. 16, Rue d'Anjou, Saint Honoré.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a href="#linknote-16" name="linknoteref-16" id="linknoteref-16_"><small>16</small></a>
+      <i>The author still has in his possession the note written by Lamoricière.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a href="#linknote-17" name="linknoteref-17" id="linknoteref-17_"><small>17</small></a>
+      <i>Later on, the wound having got worse, he was obliged to have his leg
+      taken off.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0039" id="link2HCH0039"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VIII. THE SITUATION
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The moment drew near when the <i>coup d'état</i> 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 <i>coup d'état</i>, 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A certain strategical plan became manifest. The ten central bridges mere
+      militarily guarded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The wave is rising! the wave is rising!" exclaimed Edgar Quinet, who had
+      come to shake my hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jules Favre exclaimed joyfully,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "To-morrow we shall date our decrees from the Pantheon."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the preceding day he wrote:&mdash;"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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, this man so intelligent and so courageous recovered confidence, and
+      he wrote,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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 <i>coup d'état</i> is about to fail."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The symptoms, as may be seen, were growing more reassuring.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Representative Labrousse, seated at a table of the café, had witnessed
+      this conspirators' parley.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Each of the two Commissaries was followed by that species of police agent
+      which is called "the Commissary's dog."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the same time strange warnings reached the Committee; the following
+      letter<a href="#linknoteref-18" name="linknote-18" id="linknote-18"><small>18</small></a>
+      was brought to our knowledge.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  "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."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      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?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 <i>valet de chambre</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 Hôtel 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 <i>coup d'état</i>, owing to the combat in the centre of
+      Paris growing more serious, should be forced to withdraw the troops from
+      the Hôtel 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 Hôtel 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
+      Hôtel de Ville, the 44th retraced its steps, and the attempt failed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bastide arrived, with Chauffour and Laissac.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And we started.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a href="#linknote-18" name="linknoteref-18" id="linknoteref-18_"><small>18</small></a>
+      <i>The original of this note is in the hands of the author of this book.
+      It was handed to us by M. Avenel on the part of M. Bocage.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0040" id="link2HCH0040"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IX. THE PORTE SAINT MARTIN
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      Important deeds had been already achieved during the morning.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      "It is taking root," Bastide had said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The difficulty is not to spread the flames but to light the fire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For the Elysée, as for us, the critical moment was drawing nigh. From the
+      preceding evening they were nursing their resources. The <i>coup d'état</i>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When a wind blows from above, these burning cinders are dispersed, and
+      fill the city with sparks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 <i>coup d'état</i>; 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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the meanwhile the street became covered with barricades.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0041" id="link2HCH0041"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER X. MY VISIT TO THE BARRICADE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      My coachman deposited me at the corner of Saint Eustache, and said to me,
+      "Here you are in the hornets' nest."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He added, "I will wait for you in the Rue de la Vrillière, near the Place
+      des Victoires. Take your time."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I began walking from barricade to barricade.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the first I met De Flotte, who offered to serve me as a guide. There is
+      not a more determined man than De Flotte. I accepted his offer; he took me
+      everywhere where my presence could be of use.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the way he gave me an account of the steps taken by him to print our
+      proclamations; Boulé's printing-office having failed him, he had applied
+      to a lithographic press, at No. 30, Rue Bergère, and at the peril of their
+      lives two brave men had printed 500 copies of our decrees. These two
+      true-hearted workmen were named, the one Rubens, the other Achille
+      Poincellot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While walking I made jottings in pencil (with Baudin's pencil, which I had
+      with me); I registered facts at random; I reproduce this page here. These
+      living facts are useful for History; the <i>coup d'état</i> is there, as
+      though freshly bleeding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Morning of the 4th. It looks as if the combat was suspended. Will it
+      burst forth again? Barricades visited by me: one at the corner of Saint
+      Eustache. One at the Oyster Market. One in the Rue Mauconseil. One in the
+      Rue Tiquetonne. One in the Rue Mandar (Rocher de Cancale). One barring the
+      Rue du Cadran and the Rue Montorgueil. Four closing the Petit-Carreau. The
+      beginning of one between the Rue des Deux Portes and the Rue Saint
+      Sauveur, barring the Rue Saint Denis. One, the largest, barring the Rue
+      Saint Denis, at the top of the Rue Guérin-Boisseau. One barring the Rue
+      Grenetat. One farther on in the Rue Grenetat, barring the Rue Bourg-Labbé
+      (in the centre an overturned flour wagon; a good barricade). In the Rue
+      Saint Denis one barring the Rue de Petit-Lion-Saint-Sauveur. One barring
+      the Rue du Grand Hurleur, with its four corners barricaded. This barricade
+      has already been attacked this morning. A combatant, Massonnet, a
+      comb-maker of 154, Rue Saint Denis, received a ball in his overcoat;
+      Dupapet, called 'the man with the long beard,' was the last to stay on the
+      summit of the barricade. He was heard to cry out to the officers
+      commanding the attack, 'You are traitors!' He is believed to have been
+      shot. The troops retired&mdash;strange to say without demolishing the
+      barricade. A barricade is being constructed in the Rue du Renard. Some
+      National Guards in uniform watch its construction, but do not work on it.
+      One of them said to me, 'We are not against you, you are on the side of
+      Right.' They add that there are twelve or fifteen barricades in the Rue
+      Rambuteau. This morning at daybreak the cannon had fired 'steadily,' as
+      one of them remarks, in the Rue Bourbon-Villeneuve. I visit a powder
+      manufactory improvised by Leguevel at a chemist's opposite the Rue
+      Guérin-Boisseau.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "They are constructing the barricades amicably, without angering any one.
+      They do what they can not to annoy the neighborhood. The combatants of the
+      Bourg-Labbé barricades are ankle-deep in mud on account of the rain. It is
+      a perfect sewer. They hesitate to ask for a truss of straw. They lie down
+      in the water or on the pavement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I saw there a young man who was ill, and who had just got up from his bed
+      with the fever still on him. He said to me, 'I am going to my death' (he
+      did so).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "In the Rue Bourbon-Villeneuve they had not even asked a mattress of the
+      'shopkeepers,' although, the barricade being bombarded, they needed them
+      to deaden the effect of the balls.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The soldiers make bad barricades, because they make them too well. A
+      barricade should be tottering; when well built it is worth nothing; the
+      paving-stones should want equilibrium, 'so that they may roll down on the
+      troopers,' said a street-boy to me, 'and break their paws.' Sprains form a
+      part of barricade warfare.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Jeanty Sarre is the chief of a complete group of barricades. He presented
+      his first lieutenant to me, Charpentier, a man of thirty-six, lettered and
+      scientific. Charpentier busies himself with experiments with the object of
+      substituting gas for coal and wood in the firing of china, and he asks
+      permission to read a tragedy to me 'one of these days.' I said to him, 'We
+      shall make one.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Jeanty Sarre is grumbling at Charpentier; the ammunition is failing.
+      Jeanty Sarre, having at his house in the Rue Saint Honoré a pound of
+      fowling-powder and twenty army cartridges, sent Charpentier to get them.
+      Charpentier went there, and brought back the fowling-powder and the
+      cartridges, but distributed them to the combatants on the barricades whom
+      he met on the way. 'They were as though famished,' said he. Charpentier
+      had never in his life touched a fire-arm. Jeanty Sarre showed him how to
+      load a gun.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "They take their meals at a wine-seller's at the corner, and they warm
+      themselves there. It is very cold. The wine-seller says, 'Those who are
+      hungry, go and eat.' A combatant asked him, 'Who pays?' 'Death,' was the
+      answer. And in truth some hours afterwards he had received seventeen
+      bayonet thrusts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "They have not broken the gas-pipes&mdash;always for the sake of not doing
+      unnecessary damage. They confine themselves to requisitioning the gasmen's
+      keys, and the lamplighters' winches in order to open the pipes. In this
+      manner they control the lighting or extinguishing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This group of barricades is strong, and will play an important part. I
+      had hoped at one moment that they would attack it while I was there. The
+      bugle had approached, and then had gone away again. Jeanty Sarre tells me
+      'it will be for this evening.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "His intention is to extinguish the gas in the Rue du Petit-Carreau and
+      all the adjoining streets, and to leave only one jet lighted in the Rue du
+      Cadran. He has placed sentinels as far as the corner of the Rue Saint
+      Denis; at that point there is an open side, without barricades, but little
+      accessible to the troops, on account of the narrowness of the streets,
+      which they can only enter one by one. Thence little danger exists, an
+      advantage of narrow streets; the troops are worth nothing unless massed
+      together. The soldier does not like isolated action; in war the feeling of
+      elbow to elbow constitutes half the bravery. Jeanty Sarre has a
+      reactionary uncle with whom he is not on good terms, and who lives close
+      by at No. 1, Rue du Petit-Carreau.&mdash;'What a fright we shall give him
+      presently!' said Jeanty Sarre to me, laughing. This morning Jeanty Sarre
+      has inspected the Montorgueil barricade. There was only one man on it, who
+      was drunk, and who put the barrel of his gun against his breast, saying,
+      'No thoroughfare.' Jeanty Sarre disarmed him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I go to the Rue Pagevin. There at the corner of the Place des Victoires
+      there is a well-constructed barricade. In the adjoining barricade in the
+      Rue Jean Jacques Rousseau, the troops this morning made no prisoners. The
+      soldiers had killed every one. There are corpses as far as the Place des
+      Victoires. The Pagevin barricade held its own. There are fifty men there,
+      well armed. I enter. 'Is all going on well?' 'Yes.' 'Courage.' I press all
+      these brave hands; they make a report to me. They had seen a Municipal
+      Guard smash in the head of a dying man with the butt end of his musket. A
+      pretty young girl, wishing to go home, took refuge in the barricade.
+      There, terrified, she remained for an hour. When all danger was over, the
+      chef of the barricade caused her to be reconducted home by the eldest of
+      his men.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "As I was about to leave the barricade Pagevin, they brought me a
+      prisoner, a police spy, they said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He expected to be shot. I had him set at liberty."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bancel was in this barricade of the Rue Pagevin. We shook hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He asked me,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Shall we conquer?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes," I answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We then could hardly entertain a doubt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      De Flotte and Bancel wished to accompany me, fearing that I should be
+      arrested by the regiment guarding the Bank.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The weather was misty and cold, almost dark. This obscurity concealed and
+      helped us. The fog was on our side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As we reached the corner of the Rue de la Vrillière, a group on horseback
+      passed by.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It consisted of a few others, preceded by a man who seemed a soldier, but
+      who was not in uniform. He wore a cloak with a hood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      De Flotte nudged me with his elbow, and whispered,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Do you know Fialin?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I answered,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Have you seen him?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Do you wish to see him?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Look at him."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I looked at him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This man in truth was passing before us. It was he who preceded the group
+      of officers. He came out of the Bank. Had he been there to effect a new
+      forced loan? The people who were at the doors looked at him with
+      curiosity, and without anger. His entire bearing was insolent. He turned
+      from time to time to say a word to one of his followers. This little
+      cavalcade "pawed the ground" in the mist and in the mud. Fialin had the
+      arrogant air of a man who caracoles before a crime. He gazed at the
+      passers-by with a haughty look. His horse was very handsome, and, poor
+      beast, seemed very proud. Fialin was smiling. He had in his hand the whip
+      that his face deserved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He passed by. I never saw the man except on this occasion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      De Flotte and Bancel did not leave me until they had seen me get into my
+      vehicle. My true-hearted coachman was waiting for me in the Rue de la
+      Vrillière. He brought me back to No 15, Rue Richelieu.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0042" id="link2HCH0042"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XI. THE BARRICADE OF THE RUE MESLAY
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The first barricade of the Rue Saint Martin was erected at the junction of
+      the Rue Meslay. A large cart was overturned, placed across the street, and
+      the roadway was unpaved; some flag-stones of the footway were also torn
+      up. This barricade, the advanced work of defence of the whole revolted
+      street, could only form a temporary obstacle. No portion of the piled-up
+      stones was higher than a man. In a good third of the barricade the stones
+      did not reach above the knee. "It will at all events be good enough to get
+      killed in," said a little street Arab who was rolling numerous flag-stones
+      to the barricade. A hundred combatants took up their position behind it.
+      Towards nine o'clock the movements of the troops gave warning of the
+      attack. The head of the column of the Marulaz Brigade occupied the corner
+      of the street on the side of the boulevard. A piece of artillery, raking
+      the whole of the street, was placed in position before the Porte Saint
+      Martin. For some time both sides gazed on each other in that moody silence
+      which precedes an encounter; the troops regarding the barricade bristling
+      with guns, the barricade regarding the gaping cannon. After a while the
+      order for a general attack was given. The firing commenced. The first shot
+      passed above the barricade, and struck a woman who was passing some twenty
+      paces in the rear, full in the breast. She fell, ripped open. The fire
+      became brisk without doing much injury to the barricade. The cannon was
+      too near; the bullets flew too high.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The combatants, who had not yet lost a man, received each bullet with a
+      cry of "Long live the Republic!" but without firing. They possessed few
+      cartridges, and they husbanded them. Suddenly the 49th regiment advanced
+      in close column order.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The barricade fired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The smoke filled the street; when it cleared away, there could be seen a
+      dozen men on the ground, and the soldiers falling back in disorder by the
+      side of the houses. The leader of the barricade shouted, "They are falling
+      back. Cease firing! Let us not waste a ball."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The street remained for some time deserted. The cannon recommenced fining.
+      A shot came in every two minutes, but always badly aimed. A man with a
+      fowling-piece came up to the leader of the barricade, and said to him,
+      "Let us dismount that cannon. Let us kill the gunners."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Why!" said the chief, smiling, "they are doing us no harm, let us do none
+      to them."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nevertheless the sound of the bugle could be distinctly heard on the other
+      side of the block of houses which concealed the troops echelloned on the
+      Square of Saint Martin, and it was manifest that a second attack was being
+      prepared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This attack would naturally be furious, desperate, and stubborn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was also evident that, if this barricade were carried, the entire
+      street would be scoured. The other barricades were still weaker than the
+      first, and more feebly defended. The "middle class" had given their guns,
+      and had re-entered their houses. They lent their street, that was all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was therefore necessary to hold the advanced barricade as long as
+      possible. But what was to be done, and how was the resistance to be
+      maintained? They had scarcely two shots per man left.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An unexpected source of supply arrived.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A young man, I can name him, for he is dead&mdash;Pierre Tissié,<a
+      href="#linknoteref-19" name="linknote-19" id="linknote-19"><small>19</small></a>
+      who was a workman, and who also was a poet, had worked during a portion of
+      the morning at the barricades, and at the moment when the firing began he
+      went away, stating as his reason that they would not give him a gun. In
+      the barricade they had said, "There is one who is afraid."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Pierre Tissié was not afraid, as we shall see later on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He left the barricade.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Pierre Tissié had only his knife with him, a Catalan knife; he opened it
+      at all hazards, he held it in his hand, and went on straight before him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he came out of the Rue Saint Sauveur, he saw at the corner of a little
+      lonely street, in which all the windows were closed, a soldier of the line
+      standing sentry, posted there doubtlessly by the main guard at a little
+      distance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This soldier was at the halt with his gun to his shoulder ready to fire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He heard the step of Pierre Tissié, and cried out,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Who goes there?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Death!" answered Pierre Tissié.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The soldier fired, and missed Pierre Tissié, who sprang on him, and struck
+      him down with a blow of his knife.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The soldier fell, and blood spurted out of his mouth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I did not know I should speak so truly," muttered Pierre Tissié.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And he added, "Now for the ambulance!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He took the soldier on his back, picked up the gun which had fallen to the
+      ground, and came back to the barricade. "I bring you a wounded man," said
+      he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A dead man," they exclaimed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In truth the soldier had just expired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Infamous Bonaparte!" said Tissié. "Poor red breeches! All the same, I
+      have got a gun."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They emptied the soldier's pouch and knapsack. They divided the
+      cartridges. There were 150 of them. There were also two gold pieces of ten
+      francs, two days' pay since the 2d of December. These were thrown on the
+      ground, no one would take them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They distributed the cartridges with shouts of "Long live the Republic!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile the attacking party had placed a mortar in position by the side
+      of the cannon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The distribution of the cartridges was hardly ended when the infantry
+      appeared, and charged upon the barricade with the bayonet. This second
+      assault, as had been foreseen, was violent and desperate. It was repulsed.
+      Twice the soldiers returned to the charge, and twice they fell back,
+      leaving the street strewn with dead. In the interval between the assaults,
+      a shell had pierced and dismantled the barricade, and the cannon began to
+      fire grape-shot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The situation was hopeless; the cartridges were exhausted. Some began to
+      throw down their guns and go away. The only means of escape was by the Rue
+      Saint Sauveur, and to reach the corner of the Rue Saint Sauveur it was
+      necessary to get over the lower part of the barricade, which left nearly
+      the whole of the fugitives unprotected. There was a perfect rain of
+      musketry and grape-shot. Three or four were killed there, one, like
+      Baudin, by a ball in his eye. The leader of the barricade suddenly noticed
+      that he was alone with Pierre Tissié, and a boy of fourteen years old, the
+      same who had rolled so many stones for the barricade. A third attack was
+      pending, and the soldiers began to advance by the side of the houses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Let us go," said the leader of the barricade.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I shall remain," said Pierre Tissié.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And I also," said the boy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And the boy added,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I have neither father nor mother. As well this as anything else."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The leader fired his last shot, and retired like the others over the lower
+      part of the barricade. A volley knocked off his hat. He stooped down and
+      picked it up again. The soldiers were not more than twenty-five paces
+      distant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He shouted to the two who remained,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Come along!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No," said Pierre Tissié.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No," said the boy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A few moments afterwards the soldiers scaled the barricade already half in
+      ruins.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Pierre Tissié and the boy were killed with bayonet thrusts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Some twenty muskets were abandoned in this barricade.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a href="#linknote-19" name="linknoteref-19" id="linknoteref-19_"><small>19</small></a>
+      <i>It must not be forgotten that this has been written in exile, and that
+      to name a hero was to condemn him to exile.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0043" id="link2HCH0043"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XII. THE BARRICADE OF THE MAIRIE OF THE FIFTH ARRONDISSEMENT
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      National Guards in uniform filled the courtyard of the Mairie of the Fifth
+      Arrondissement. Others came in every moment. An ex-drummer of the Garde
+      Mobile had taken a drum from a lower room at the side of the guard-room,
+      and had beaten the call to arms in the surrounding streets. Towards nine
+      o'clock a group of fourteen or fifteen young men, most of whom were in
+      white blouses, entered the Mairie, shouting, "Long live the Republic!"
+      They were armed with guns. The National Guard received them with shouts of
+      "Down with Louis Bonaparte!" They fraternized in the courtyard. Suddenly
+      there was a movement. It was caused by the arrival of the Representatives
+      Doutre and Pelletier.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What is to be done?" shouted the crowd.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Barricades," said Pelletier.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They unharnessed the horses, which the carter led away, and they turned
+      the cart round without upsetting it across the wide roadway of the
+      faubourg. The barricade was completed in a moment. A truck came up. They
+      took it and stood it against the wheels of the cart, just as a screen is
+      placed before a fireplace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The remainder was made up of casks and paving-stones. Thanks to the
+      flour-cart the barricade was lofty, and reached to the first story of the
+      houses. It intersected the faubourg at the corner of the little Rue Saint
+      Jean. A narrow entrance had been contrived at the barricade at the corner
+      of the street.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "One barricade is not sufficient," said Doutre, "we must place the Mairie
+      between two barriers, so as to be able to defend both sides at the same
+      time."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They constructed a second barricade, facing the summit of the faubourg.
+      This one was low and weakly built, being composed only of planks and of
+      paving-stones. There was about a hundred paces distance between the two
+      barricades.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There were three hundred men in this space. Only one hundred had guns. The
+      majority had only one cartridge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The firing began about ten o'clock. Two companies of the line appeared and
+      fired several volleys. The attack was only a feint. The barricade replied,
+      and made the mistake of foolishly exhausting its ammunition. The troops
+      retired. Then the attack began in earnest. Some Chasseurs de Vincennes
+      emerged from the corner of the boulevard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Following out the African mode of warfare, they glided along the side of
+      the walls, and then, with a run, they threw themselves upon the barricade.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No more ammunition in the barricade. No quarter to be expected.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Those who had no more powder or balls threw down their guns. Some wished
+      to reoccupy their position in the Mairie, but it was impossible for them
+      to maintain any defence there, the Mairie being open and commanded from
+      every side; they scaled the walls and scattered themselves about in the
+      neighboring houses; others escaped by the narrow passage of the boulevard
+      which led into the Rue Saint Jean; most of the combatants reached the
+      opposite side of the boulevard, while those who had a cartridge left fired
+      a last volley upon the troops from the height of the paving-stones. Then
+      they awaited their death. All were killed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One of those who succeeded in slipping into the Rue Saint Jean, where
+      moreover they ran the gauntlet of a volley from their assailants, was M.H.
+      Coste, Editor of the <i>Evénement</i> and of the <i>Avénement du Peuple</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      M. Coste had been a captain in the Garde Mobile. At a bend in the street,
+      which placed him out of reach of the balls, M. Conte noticed in front of
+      him the drummer of the Garde Mobile, who, like him, had escaped by the Rue
+      Saint Jean, and who was profiting by the loneliness of the street to get
+      rid of his drum.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Keep your drum," cried he to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "For what purpose?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "To beat the call to arms."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Where?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "At Batignolles."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I will keep it," said the drummer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These two men came out from the jaws of death, and at once consented to
+      re-enter them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But how should they cross all Paris with this drum? The first patrol which
+      met them would shoot them. A porter of an adjoining house, who noticed
+      their predicament, gave them a packing-cloth. They enveloped the drum in
+      it, and reached Batignolles by the lonely streets which skirt the walls.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0044" id="link2HCH0044"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VIII. THE BARRICADE OF THE RUE THEVENOT
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Georges Biscarrat was the man who had given the signal for the looting in
+      the Rue de l'Echelle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I had known Georges Biscarrat ever since June, 1848. He had taken part in
+      that disastrous insurrection. I had had an opportunity of being useful to
+      him. He had been captured, and was kneeling before the firing-party; I
+      interfered, and I saved his life, together with that of some others, M.,
+      D., D., B., and that brave-hearted architect Rolland, who when an exile,
+      later on, so ably restored the Brussels Palace of Justice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This took place on the 24th June, 1848, in the underground floor of No.
+      93, Boulevard Beaumarchais, a house then in course of construction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Georges Biscarrat became attached to me. It appeared that he was the
+      nephew of one of the oldest and best friends of my childhood, Félix
+      Biscarrat, who died in 1828. Georges Biscarrat came to see me from time to
+      time, and on occasions he asked my advice or gave me information.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wishing to preserve him from evil influences, I had given him, and he had
+      accepted, this guiding maxim, "No insurrection except for Duty and for
+      Right."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What was this hooting in the Rue de l'Echelle? Let us relate the incident.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the 2d of December, Bonaparte had made an attempt to go out. He had
+      ventured to go and look at Paris. Paris does not like being looked at by
+      certain eyes; it considers it an insult, and it resents an insult more
+      than a wound. It submits to assassination, but not to the leering gaze of
+      the assassin. It took offence at Louis Bonaparte.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At nine o'clock in the morning, at the moment when the Courbevoie garrison
+      was descending upon Paris, the placards of the <i>coup d'état</i> being
+      still fresh upon the walls, Louis Bonaparte had left the Elysée, had
+      crossed the Place de la Concorde, the Garden of the Tuileries, and the
+      railed courtyard of the Carrousel, and had been seen to go out, by the
+      gate of the Rue de l'Echelle. A crowd assembled at once. Louis Bonaparte
+      was in a general's uniform; his uncle, the ex-King Jérôme, accompanied
+      him, together with Flahaut, who kept in the near. Jérôme wore the full
+      uniform of a Marshal of France, with a hat with a white feather; Louis
+      Bonaparte's horse was a head before Jérôme's horse. Louis Bonaparte was
+      gloomy, Jérôme attentive, Flahaut beaming. Flahaut had his hat on one
+      side. There was a strong escort of Lancers. Edgar Ney followed. Bonaparte
+      intended to go as far as the Hôtel de Ville. Georges Biscarrat was there.
+      The street was unpaved, the road was being macadamized; he mounted on a
+      heap of stones, and shouted, "Down with the Dictator! Down with the
+      Praetorians!" The soldiers looked at him with bewilderment, and the crowd
+      with astonishment. Georges Biscarrat (he told me so himself) felt that
+      this cry was too erudite, and that it would not be understood, so he
+      shouted, "Down with Bonaparte! Down with the Lancers!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The effect of this shout was electrical. "Down with Bonaparte! Down with
+      the Lancers!" cried the people, and the whole street became stormy and
+      turbulent. "Down with Bonaparte!" The outcry resembled the beginning of an
+      execution; Bonaparte made a sudden movement to the right, turned back, and
+      re-entered the courtyard of the Louvre.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Georges Biscarrat felt it necessary to complete his shout by a barricade.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He said to the bookseller, Benoist Mouilhe, who had just opened his shop,
+      "Shouting is good, action is better." He returned to his house in the Rue
+      du Vert Bois, put on a blouse and a workman's cap, and went down into the
+      dark streets. Before the end of the day he had made arrangements with four
+      associations&mdash;the gas-fitters, the last-makers, the shawl-makers, and
+      the hatters.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In this manner he spent the day of the 2d of December.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The day of the 3d was occupied in goings and comings "almost useless." So
+      Biscarrat told Versigny, and he added, "However I have succeeded in this
+      much, that the placards of the <i>coup d'état</i> have been everywhere
+      torn down, so much so that in order to render the tearing down more
+      difficult the police have ultimately posted them in the public
+      conveniences&mdash;their proper place."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On Thursday, the 4th, early in the morning, Georges Biscarrat went to
+      Ledouble's restaurant, where four Representatives of the People usually
+      took their meals, Brives, Bertlhelon, Antoine Bard, and Viguier, nicknamed
+      "Father Viguier." All four were there. Viguier related what we had done on
+      the preceding evening, and shared my opinion that the closing catastrophe
+      should be hurried on, that the Crime should be precipitated into the abyss
+      which befitted it. Biscarrat came in. The Representatives did not know
+      hire, and stared at him. "Who are you?" asked one of them. Before he could
+      answer, Dr. Petit entered, unfolded a paper, and said,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Does any one know Victor Hugo's handwriting?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I do," said Biscarrat. He looked at the paper. It was my proclamation to
+      the army. "This must be printed," said Petit. "I will undertake it," said
+      Biscarrat. Antoine Bard asked him, "Do you know Victor Hugo?" "He saved my
+      life," answered Biscarrat. The Representatives shook hands with him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Guilgot arrived. Then Versigny. Versigny knew Biscarrat. He had seen him
+      at my house. Versigny said, "Take care what you do. There is a man outside
+      the door." "It is a shawl-maker," said Biscarrat. "He has come with me. He
+      is following me." "But," resumed Versigny, "he is wearing a blouse,
+      beneath which he has a handkerchief. He seems to be hiding this, and he
+      has something in the handkerchief."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sugar-plums," said Biscarrat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They were cartridges.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Versigny and Biscarrat went to the office of the <i>Siècle</i>; at the <i>Siècle</i>
+      thirty workmen, at the risk of being shot, offered to print my
+      Proclamation. Biscarrat left it with them, and said to Versigny, "Now I
+      want my barricade."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The shawl-maker walked behind them. Versigny and Biscarrat turned their
+      steps towards the top of the Saint Denis quarter. When they drew near to
+      she Porte Saint Denis they heard the hum of many voices. Biscarrat laughed
+      and said to Versigny, "Saint Denis is growing angry, matters are
+      improving." Biscarrat recruited forty combatants on the way, amongst whom
+      was Moulin, head of the association of leather-dressers. Chapuis,
+      sergeant-major of the National Guard, brought them four muskets and ten
+      swords. "Do you know where there are any more?" asked Biscarrat. "Yes, at
+      the Saint Sauveur Baths." They went there, and found forty muskets. They
+      gave them swords and cartridge-pouches. Gentlemen well dressed, brought
+      tin boxes containing powder and balls. Women, brave and light-hearted,
+      manufactured cartridges. At the first door adjoining the Rue du
+      Hasard-Saint-Sauveur they requisitioned iron bars and hammers from a large
+      courtyard belonging to a locksmith. Having the arms, they had the men.
+      They speedily numbered a hundred. They began to tear up the pavements. It
+      was half-past ten. "Quick! quick!" cried Georges Biscarrat, "the barricade
+      of my dreams!" It was in the Rue Thévenot. The barrier was constructed
+      high and formidable. To abridge. At eleven o'clock Georges Biscarrat had
+      completed his barricade. At noon he was killed there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0045" id="link2HCH0045"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIV. OSSIAN AND SCIPIO
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      Arrests grew more numerous.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Towards noon a Commissary of Police, named Boudrot, appeared at the divan
+      of the Rue Lepelletier. He was accompanied by the police agent Delahodde.
+      Delahodde was that traitorous socialist writer, who, upon being unmasked,
+      had passed from the Secret Police to the Public Police Service. I knew
+      him, and I record this incident. In 1832 he was a master in the school at
+      which were my two sons, then boys, and he had addressed poetry to me. At
+      the same time he was acting the spy upon me. The Lepelletier divan was the
+      place of meeting of a large number of Republican journalists. Delahodde
+      knew them all. A detachment of the Republican Guard occupied the entrances
+      to the café. Then ensued an inspection of all the ordinary customers,
+      Delahodde walking first, with the Commissary behind him. Two Municipal
+      Guards followed them. From time to time Delahodde looked round and said,
+      "Lay hold of this man." In this manner some score of writers were
+      arrested, among whom were Hennett de Kesler.<a href="#linknoteref-20"
+      name="linknote-20" id="linknote-20"><small>20</small></a> On the preceding
+      evening Kesler had been on the Saint Antoine barricade. Kesler said to
+      Delahodde, "You are a miserable wretch." "And you are an ungrateful
+      fellow," replied Delahodde; "<i>I am saving your life</i>." Curious words;
+      for it is difficult to believe that Delahodde was in the secret of what
+      was to happen on the fatal day of the Fourth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the head-quarters of the Committee encouraging information was
+      forwarded to us from every side. Testelin, the Representative of Lille, is
+      not only a learned man, but a brave man. On the morning of the 3d he had
+      reached, shortly after me, the Saint Antoine barricade, where Baudin had
+      just been killed. All was at an end in that direction. Testelin was
+      accompanied by Charles Gambon, another dauntless man.<a
+      href="#linknoteref-21" name="linknote-21" id="linknote-21"><small>21</small></a>
+      The two Representatives wandered through the agitated and dark streets,
+      little followed, in no way understood, seeking a ferment of insurgents,
+      and only finding a swarming of the curious. Testelin, nevertheless, having
+      come to the Committee, informed us of the following:&mdash;At the corner
+      of a street of the Faubourg Saint Antoine Gambon and himself had noticed a
+      crowd. They had gone up to it. This crowd was reading a bill placarded on
+      a wall. It was the Appeal to Arms signed "Victor Hugo." Testelin asked
+      Gambon, "Have you a pencil?" "Yes," answered Gambon. Testelin took the
+      pencil, went up to the placard, and wrote his name beneath mine, then he
+      gave the pencil to Gambon, who in turn wrote his name beneath that of
+      Testelin. Upon this the crowd shouted, "Bravo! these are true-hearted
+      men!" "Shout 'Long live the Republic!'" cried Testelin. All shouted "Long
+      live the Republic!" "And from above, from the open windows," added Gambon,
+      "women clapped their hands."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The little hands of women applauding are a good sign," said Michel de
+      Bourges.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As has been seen, and we cannot lay too much stress upon the fact, what
+      the Committee of Resistance wished was to prevent the shedding of blood as
+      much as possible. To construct barricades, to let them be destroyed, and
+      to reconstruct them at other points, to avoid the army, and to wear it
+      out, to wage in Paris the war of the desert, always retreating, never
+      yielding, to take time for an ally, to add days to days; on the one hand
+      to give the people time to understand and to rise, on the other, to
+      conquer the <i>coup d'état</i> by the weariness of the army; such was the
+      plan discussed and adopted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The order was accordingly given that the barricades should be but slightly
+      defended.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We repeated in every possible form to the combatants,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Shed as little blood as possible! Spare the blood of the soldiers and
+      husband your own."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nevertheless, the struggle once begun, it became impossible in many
+      instances, during certain excited hours of fighting, to moderate their
+      ardor. Several barricades were obstinately defended, particularly those in
+      the Rue Rambuteau, in the Rue Montorgueil, and in the Rue Neuve Saint
+      Eustache.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These barricades were commanded by daring leaders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here, for the sake of history, we will record a few of these brave men
+      fighting outlines who appeared and disappeared in the smoke of the combat.
+      Radoux, an architect, Deluc, Mallarmet, Félix Bony, Luneau, an ex-Captain
+      of the Republican Guard, Camille Berru, editor of the <i>Avénement</i>,
+      gay, warmhearted, and dauntless, and that young Eugène Millelot, who was
+      destined to be condemned at Cayenne to receive 200 lashes, and to expire
+      at the twenty-third stroke, before the very eyes of his father and
+      brother, proscribed and convicts like himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The barricade of the Rue Aumaire was amongst those which were not carried
+      without resistance. Although raised in haste, it was fairly constructed.
+      Fifteen or sixteen resolute men defended it; two were killed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The barricade was carried with the bayonet by a battalion of the 16th of
+      the line. This battalion, hurled on the barricade at the double, was
+      received by a brisk fusillade; several soldiers were wounded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first who fell in the soldiers' ranks was an officer. He was a young
+      man of twenty-five, lieutenant of the first company, named Ossian Dumas;
+      two balls broke both of his legs as though by a single blow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At that time there were in the army two brothers of the name of Dumas,
+      Ossian and Scipio. Scipio was the elder. They were near relatives of the
+      Representative, Madier de Montjau.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These two brothers belonged to a poor but honored family. The elder had
+      been educated at the Polytechnic School, the other at the School of Saint
+      Cyr.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Scipio was four years older than his brother. According to that splendid
+      and mysterious law of ascent, which the French Revolution has created, and
+      which, so to speak, has placed a ladder in the centre of a society
+      hitherto caste-bound and inaccessible, Scipio Dumas' family had imposed
+      upon themselves the most severe privations in order to develop his
+      intellect and secure his future. His relations, with the touching heroism
+      of the poor of the present era, denied themselves bread to afford him
+      knowledge. In this manner he attained to the Polytechnic School, where he
+      quickly became one of the best pupils.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Having concluded his studies, he was appointed an officer in the
+      artillery, and sent to Metz. It then became his turn to help the boy who
+      had to mount after him. He held out his hand to his younger brother. He
+      economized the modest pay of an artillery lieutenant, and, thanks to him,
+      Ossian became an officer like Scipio. While Scipio, detained by duties
+      belonging to his position, remained at Metz, Ossian was incorporated in an
+      infantry regiment, and went to Africa. There he saw his first service.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Scipio and Ossian were Republicans. In October, 1851, the 16th of the
+      line, in which Ossian was serving, was summoned to Paris. It was one of
+      the regiments chosen by the ill-omened hand of Louis Bonaparte, and on
+      which the <i>coup d'état</i> counted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The 2d of December arrived.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lieutenant Ossian Dumas obeyed, like nearly all his comrades, the order to
+      take up arms; but every one round him could notice his gloomy attitude.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The day of the 3d was spent in marches and counter-marches. On the 4th the
+      combat began. The 16th, which formed part of the Herbillon Brigade, was
+      told off to capture the barricades of the Rues Beaubourg, Trausnonain, and
+      Aumaire. This battle-field was formidable; a perfect square of barricades
+      had been raised there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was by the Rue Aumaire, and with the regiment of which Ossian formed
+      part, that the military leaders resolved to begin action.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the moment when the regiment, with arms loaded, was about to march upon
+      the Rue Aumaire, Ossian Dumas went up to his captain, a brave and veteran
+      officer, with whom he was a favorite, and declared that he would not march
+      a step farther, that the deed of the 2d of December was a crime, that
+      Louis Bonaparte was a traitor, that it was for them, soldiers, to maintain
+      the oath which Bonaparte violated; and that, as for himself, he would not
+      lend his sword to the butchery of the Republic.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A halt was made. The signal of attack was awaited; the two officers, the
+      old captain and the young lieutenant, conversed in a low tone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And what do you want to do?" asked the captain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Break my sword."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You will be taken to Vincennes."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That is all the same to me."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Most certainly dismissed."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Possibly."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Perhaps shot."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I expect it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But there is no longer any time; you should have resigned yesterday."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "There is always time to avoid committing a crime."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The captain, as may be seen, was simply one of those professional heroes,
+      grown old in the leather stock, who know of no country but the flag, and
+      no other law but military discipline. Iron arms and wooden heads. They are
+      neither citizens nor men. They only recognize honor in the form of a
+      general's epaulets. It is of no use talking to them of political duties,
+      of obedience to the laws, of the Constitution. What do they know about all
+      this? What is a Constitution; what are the most holy laws, against three
+      words which a corporal may murmur into the ear of a sentinel? Take a pair
+      of scales, put in one side the Gospels, in the other the official
+      instructions; now weigh them. The corporal turns the balance; the Deity
+      kicks the beam.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      God forms a portion of the order of the day of Saint Bartholomew. "Kill
+      all. He will recognized his own."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This is what the priests accept, and at times glorify.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Saint Bartholomew has been blessed by the Pope and decorated with the
+      Catholic medal.<a href="#linknoteref-22" name="linknote-22"
+      id="linknote-22"><small>22</small></a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile Ossian Dumas appeared determined. The captain made a last
+      effort.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You will ruin yourself," said he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I shall save my honor."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is precisely your honor that you are sacrificing."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Because I am going away?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "To go away is to desert."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This seemed to impress Ossian Dumas. The captain continued,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "They are about to fight. In a few minutes the barricade will be attacked.
+      Your comrades will fall, dead or wounded. You are a young officer&mdash;you
+      have not yet been much under fire."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "At all events," warmly interrupted Ossian Dumas, "I shall not have fought
+      against the Republic; they will not say I am a traitor."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, but they will say that you are a coward."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ossian made no reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A moment afterwards the command was given to attack.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The regiment started at the double. The barricade fired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ossian Dumas was the first who fell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had not been able to bear that word "coward," and he had remained in
+      his place in the first rank.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They took him to the ambulance, and from thence to the hospital.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Let us at once state the conclusion of this touching incident.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Both of his legs were broken. The doctors thought that it would be
+      necessary to amputate them both.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      General Saint-Arnaud sent him the Cross of Honor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As is known, Louis Bonaparte hastened to discharge his debt to his
+      praetorian accomplices. After having massacred, the sword voted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The combat was still smoking when the army was brought to the ballot-box.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The garrison of Paris voted "Yes." It absolved itself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With the rest of the army it was otherwise. Military honor was indignant,
+      and roused the civic virtue. Notwithstanding the pressure which was
+      exercised, although the regiments deposited their votes in the shakos of
+      their colonels, the army voted "No" in many districts of France and
+      Algeria.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Polytechnic School voted "No" in a body. Nearly everywhere the
+      artillery, of which the Polytechnic School is the cradle, voted to the
+      same effect as the school.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Scipio Dumas, it may be remembered, was at Metz.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By some curious chance it happened that the feeling of the artillery,
+      which everywhere else had pronounced against the <i>coup d'état</i>,
+      hesitated at Metz, and seemed to lean towards Bonaparte.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Scipio Dumas, in presence of this indecision set an example. He voted in a
+      loud voice, and with an open voting paper, "No."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he sent in his resignation. At the same time that the Minister at
+      Paris received the resignation of Scipio Dumas, Scipio Dumas at Metz,
+      received his dismissal, signed by the Minister.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After Scipio Dumas' vote, the same thought had come at the same time to
+      both the Government and to the officer, to the Government that the officer
+      was a dangerous man, and that they could no longer employ him, to the
+      officer that the Government was an infamous one, and that he ought no
+      longer to serve it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The resignation and the dismissal crossed on the way. By this word
+      "dismissal" must be understood the withdrawal of employment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      According to our existing military laws it is in this manner that they now
+      "break" an officer. Withdrawal of employment, that is to say, no more
+      service, no more pay; poverty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Simultaneously with his dismissal, Scipio Dumas learnt the news of the
+      attack on the barricade of the Rue Aumaire, and that his brother had both
+      his legs broken. In the fever of events he had been a week without news of
+      Ossian. Scipio had confined himself to writing to his brother to inform
+      him of his vote and of his dismissal, and to induce him to do likewise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His brother wounded! His brother at the Val-de. Grâce! He left immediately
+      for Paris.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He hastened to the hospital. They took him to Ossian's bedside. The poor
+      young fellow had had both his legs amputated on the preceding day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the moment when Scipio, stunned, appeared at his bedside, Ossian held
+      in his hand the cross which General Saint-Arnaud had just sent him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The wounded man turned towards the aide-de-camp who had brought it, and
+      said to him,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I will not have this cross. On my breast it would be stained with the
+      blood of the Republic."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And perceiving his brother, who had just entered, he held out the cross to
+      him, exclaiming,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You take it. You have voted "No," and you have broken your sword! It is
+      you who have deserved it!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a href="#linknote-20" name="linknoteref-20" id="linknoteref-20_"><small>20</small></a>
+      <i>Died in exile in Guernsey. See the "Pendant l'Exil," under the heading
+      Actes et Paroles</i>, vol. ii.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a href="#linknote-21" name="linknoteref-21" id="linknoteref-21_"><small>21</small></a>
+      <i>Died in exile at Termonde.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a href="#linknote-22" name="linknoteref-22" id="linknoteref-22_"><small>22</small></a>
+      <i>Pro Hugonotorum strage. Medal struck at Rome in 1572.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0046" id="link2HCH0046"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XV. THE QUESTION PRESENTS ITSELF
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      It was one o'clock in the afternoon.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Bonaparte had again become gloomy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The gleams of sunshine on such countenances as these last very short time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had gone back to his private room, had seated himself before the fire,
+      with his feet on the hobs, motionless, and no one any longer approached
+      him except Roquet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What was he thinking of?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The twistings of the viper cannot be foreseen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What this man achieved on this infamous day I have told at length in
+      another book. See "Napoleon the Little."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From time to time Roquet entered and informed him of what was going on.
+      Bonaparte listened in silence, deep in thought, marble in which a torrent
+      of lava boiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He received at the Elysée the same news that we received in the Rue
+      Richelieu; bad for him, good for us. In one of the regiments which had
+      just voted, there were 170 "Noes:" This regiment has since been dissolved,
+      and scattered abroad in the African army.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They had counted on the 14th of the line which had fired on the people in
+      February. The Colonel of the 14th of the line had refused to recommence;
+      he had just broken his sword.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Our appeal had ended by being heard. Decidedly, as we have seen, Paris was
+      rising. The fall of Bonaparte seemed to be foreshadowed. Two
+      Representatives, Fabvier and Crestin, met in the Rue Royale, and Crestin,
+      pointing to the Palace of the Assembly, said to Fabvier, "We shall be
+      there to-morrow."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One noteworthy incident. Mazes became eccentric, the prison unbent itself;
+      the interior experienced an undefinable reverberation from the outside.
+      The warders, who the preceding evening had been insolent to the
+      Representatives when going for their exercise in the courtyard, now
+      saluted them to the ground. That very morning of Thursday, the 4th, the
+      governor of the prison had paid a visit to the prisoners, and had said to
+      them, "It is not my fault." He brought them books and writing-paper, a
+      thing which up to that time he had refused. The Representative Valentin
+      was in solitary confinement; on the morning of the 4th his warder suddenly
+      became amiable, and offered to obtain for him news from outside, through
+      his wife, who, he said, had been a servant in General Leflô's household.
+      These were significant signs. When the jailer smiles it means that the
+      jail is half opening.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We may add, what is not a contradiction, that at the same time the
+      garrison at Mazas was being increased. 1200 more men were marched in, in
+      detachments of 100 men each, spacing out their arrivals in "little doses"
+      as an eye-witness remarked to us. Later on 400 men. 100 litres of brandy
+      were distributed to them. One litre for every sixteen men. The prisoners
+      could hear the movement of artillery round the prison.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The agitation spread to the most peaceable quarters. But the centre of
+      Paris was above all threatening. The centre of Paris is a labyrinth of
+      streets which appears to be made for the labyrinth of riots. The Ligue,
+      the Fronde, the Revolution&mdash;we must unceasingly recall these useful
+      facts&mdash;the 14th of July, the 10th of August, 1792, 1830, 1848, have
+      come out from thence. These brave old streets were awakened. At eleven
+      o'clock in the morning from Notre Dame to the Porte Saint Martin there
+      were seventy-seven barricades. Three of them, one in the Rue Maubuée,
+      another in the Rue Bertin-Poirée, another in the Rue Guérin-Boisseau,
+      attained the height of the second stories; the barricade of the Porte
+      Saint Denis was almost as bristling and as formidable as the barrier of
+      the Faubourg Saint Antoine in June, 1848. The handful of the
+      Representatives of the People had swooped down like a shower of sparks on
+      these famous and inflammable crossroads. The beginning of the fire. The
+      fire had caught. The old central market quarter, that city which is
+      contained in the city, shouted, "Down with Bonaparte!" They hooted the
+      police, they hissed the troops. Some regiments seemed stupefied. They
+      cried, "Throw up your butt ends in the air!" From the windows above, women
+      encouraged the construction of the barricades. There was powder there,
+      there were muskets. Now, we were no longer alone. We saw rising up in the
+      gloom behind us the enormous head of the people. Hope at the present time
+      was on our side. The oscillation of uncertainty had at length become
+      steady, and we were, I repeat, almost perfectly confident.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There had been a moment when, owing to the good news pouring in upon us,
+      this confidence had become so great that we who had staked our lives on
+      this great contest, seized with an irresistible joy in the presence of a
+      success becoming hourly more certain, had risen from our seats, and had
+      embraced each other. Michel de Bourges was particularly angered against
+      Bonaparte, for he had believed his word, and had even gone so far as to
+      say, "He is my man." Of the four of us, he was the most indignant. A
+      gloomy flash of victory shone in him. He struck the table with his fist,
+      and exclaimed, "Oh! the miserable wretch! To-morrow&mdash;" and he struck
+      the table a second time, "to-morrow his head shall fall in the Place de
+      Grève before the Hôtel de Ville."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I looked at him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No," said I, "this man's head shall not fall."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What do you mean?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I do not wish it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Why?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Because," said I, "if after such a crime we allow Louis Bonaparte to live
+      we shall abolish the penalty of death."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This generous Michel de Bourges remained thoughtful for a moment, then he
+      pressed my hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Crime is an opportunity, and always gives us a choice, and it is better to
+      extract from it progress than punishment. Michel de Bourges realized this.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Moreover this incident shows to what a pitch our hopes had been raised.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Appearances were on our side, actual facts not so. Saint-Arnaud had his
+      orders. We shall see them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Strange incidents took place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Towards noon a general, deep in thought, was on horseback in the Place de
+      la Madeleine, at the head of his wavering troops. He hesitated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A carriage stopped, a woman stepped out and conversed in a low tone with
+      the general. The crowd could see her. The Representative Raymond, who
+      lived at No 4, Place de la Madeleine, saw her from his window. This woman
+      was Madame K. The general stooping down on his horse, listened, and
+      finally made the dejected gesture of a vanquished man. Madame K. got back
+      into her carriage. This man, they said, loved that woman. She could,
+      according to the side of her beauty which fascinated her victim, inspire
+      either heroism or crime. This strange beauty was compounded of the
+      whiteness of an angel, combined with the look of a spectre.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the look which conquered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This man no longer hesitated. He entered gloomily into the enterprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From twelve to two o'clock there was in this enormous city given over to
+      the unknown an indescribable and fierce expectation. All was calm and
+      awe-striking. The regiments and the limbered batteries quitted the
+      faubourg and stationed themselves noiselessly around the boulevards. Not a
+      cry in the ranks of the soldiery. An eye-witness said, "The soldiers march
+      with quite a jaunty air." On the Quai de la Ferronnerie, heaped up with
+      regiments ever since the morning of the 2d of December, there now only
+      remained a post of Municipal Guards. Everything ebbed back to the centre,
+      the people as well as the army; the silence of the army had ultimately
+      spread to the people. They watched each other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Each soldier had three days' provisions and six packets of cartridges.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It has since transpired that at this moment 10,000 francs were daily spent
+      in brandy for each brigade.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Towards one o'clock, Magnan went to the Hôtel de Ville, had the reserve
+      limbered under his own eyes, and did not leave until all the batteries
+      were ready to march.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Certain suspicious preparations grew more numerous. Towards noon the State
+      workmen and the hospital corps had established a species of huge ambulance
+      at No. 2, Faubourg Montmartre. A great heap of litters was piled up there.
+      "What is all this for?" asked the crowd.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dr. Deville, who had attended Espinasse when he had been wounded, noticed
+      him on the boulevard, and asked him, "Up to what point are you going?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Espinasse's answer is historical.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He replied, "To the end."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At two o'clock five brigades, those of Cotte, Bourgon, Canrobert, Dulac,
+      and Reybell, five batteries of artillery, 16,400 men,<a
+      href="#linknoteref-23" name="linknote-23" id="linknote-23"><small>23</small></a>
+      infantry and cavalry, lancers, cuirassiers, grenadiers, gunners, were
+      echelloned without any ostensible reason between the Rue de la Paix and
+      the Faubourg Poissonnière. Pieces of cannon were pointed at the entrance
+      of every street; there were eleven in position on the Boulevard
+      Poissonnière alone. The foot soldiers had their guns to their shoulders,
+      the officers their swords drawn. What did all this mean? It was a curious
+      sight, well worth the trouble of seeing, and on both sides of the
+      pavements, on all the thresholds of the shops, from all the stories of the
+      houses, an astonished, ironical, and confiding crowd looked on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Little by little, nevertheless, this confidence diminished, and irony gave
+      place to astonishment; astonishment changed to stupor. Those who have
+      passed through that extraordinary minute will not forget it. It was
+      evident that there was something underlying all this. But what? Profound
+      obscurity. Can one imagine Paris in a cellar? People felt as though they
+      were beneath a low ceiling. They seemed to be walled up in the unexpected
+      and the unknown. They seemed to perceive some mysterious will in the
+      background. But after all they were strong; they were the Republic, they
+      were Paris; what was there to fear! Nothing. And they cried, "Down with
+      Bonaparte!" The troops continued to keep silence, but the swords remained
+      outside their scabbards, and the lighted matches of the cannon smoldered
+      at the corners of the streets. The cloud grew blacker every minute,
+      heavier and more silent. This thickening of the darkness was tragical. One
+      felt the coming crash of a catastrophe, and the presence of a villain;
+      snake-like treason writhed during this night, and none can foresee where
+      the downward slide of a terrible design will stop when events are on a
+      steep incline.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What was coming out of this thick darkness?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a href="#linknote-23" name="linknoteref-23" id="linknoteref-23_"><small>23</small></a>
+      <i>16,410 men, the figures taken from the Ministry of War.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0047" id="link2HCH0047"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVI. THE MASSACRE
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      Suddenly a window was opened.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Upon Hell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dante, had he leaned over the summit of the shadow, would have been able
+      to see the eighth circle of his poem; the funereal Boulevard Montmartre.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Paris, a prey to Bonaparte; a monstrous spectacle. The gloomy armed men
+      massed together on this boulevard felt an appalling spirit enter into
+      them; they ceased to be themselves, and became demons.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was no longer a single French soldier, but a host of indefinable
+      phantoms, carrying out a horrible task, as though in the glimmering light
+      of a vision.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was no longer a flag, there was no longer law, there was no longer
+      humanity, there was no longer a country, there was no longer France; they
+      began to assassinate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Schinderhannes division, the brigades of Mandrin, Cartouche,
+      Poulailler, Trestaillon, and Tropmann appeared in the gloom, shooting down
+      and massacring.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No; we do not attribute to the French army what took place during this
+      mournful eclipse of honor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There have been massacres in history, abominable ones assuredly, but they
+      have possessed some show of reason; Saint Bartholomew and the Dragonnades
+      are explained by religion, the Sicilian Vespers and the butcheries of
+      September are explained by patriotism; they crush the enemy or annihilate
+      the foreigner; these are crimes for a good cause; but the carnage of the
+      Boulevard Montmartre is a crime without an ostensible reason.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The reason exists, however. It is hideous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Let us give it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two things stand erect in a State, the Law and the People.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A man murders the Law. He feels the punishment approaching, there only
+      remains one thing for him to do, to murder the People. He murders the
+      People.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Second of December was the Risk, the Fourth was the Certainty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Against the indignation which arose they opposed the Terror.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Fury, Justice, halted petrified before the Fury, Extermination.
+      Against Erinnyes they set up Medusa.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To put Nemesis to flight, what a terrifying triumph!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To Louis Napoleon pertains this glory, which is the summit of his shame.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Let us narrate it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Let us narrate what History had never seen before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The assassination of a people by a man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly, at a given signal, a musket shot being fired, no matter where,
+      no matter by whom, the shower of bullets poured upon the crowd. A shower
+      of bullets is also a crowd; it is death scattered broadcast. It does not
+      know whither it goes, nor what it does; it kills and passes on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But at the same time it has a species of soul; it is premeditated, it
+      executes a will. This was an unprecedented moment. It seemed as though a
+      handful of lightnings was falling upon the people. Nothing simpler. It
+      formed a clear solution to the difficulty; the rain of lead overwhelmed
+      the multitude. What are you doing there? Die! It is a crime to be passing
+      by. Why are you in the street? Why do you cross the path of the
+      Government? The Government is a cut-throat. They have announced a thing,
+      they must certainly carry it out; what is begun must assuredly be
+      achieved; as Society is being saved, the People must assuredly be
+      exterminated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Are there not social necessities? Is it not essential that Béville should
+      have 87,000 francs a year and Fleury 95,000 francs? Is it not essential
+      that the High Chaplain, Menjaud, Bishop of Nancy, should have 342 francs a
+      day, and that Bassano and Cambacérès should each have 383 francs a day,
+      and Vaillant 468 francs, and Saint-Arnaud 822 francs? Is it not necessary
+      that Louis Bonaparte should have 76,712 francs a day? Could one be Emperor
+      for less?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the twinkling of an eye there was a butchery on the boulevard a quarter
+      of a league long. Eleven pieces of cannon wrecked the Sallandrouze carpet
+      warehouse. The shot tore completely through twenty-eight houses. The baths
+      of Jouvence were riddled. There was a massacre at Tortoni's. A whole
+      quarter of Paris was filled with an immense flying mass, and with a
+      terrible cry. Everywhere sudden death. A man is expecting nothing. He
+      falls. From whence does this come? From above, say the Bishops' <i>Te Deum</i>;
+      from below, says Truth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From a lower place than the galleys, from a lower place than Hell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is the conception of a Caligula, carried out by a Papavoine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Xavier Durrieu comes upon the boulevard. He states,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I have taken sixty steps, I have seen sixty corpses."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And he draws back. To be in the street is a Crime, to be at home is a
+      Crime. The butchers enter the houses and slaughter. In slaughter-house
+      slang the soldiers cry, "Let us pole-axe the lot of them."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adde, a bookseller, of 17, Boulevard Poissonnière, is standing before his
+      door; they kill him. At the same moment, for the field of murder is vast,
+      at a considerable distance from there, at 5, Rue de Lancry, M. Thirion de
+      Montauban, owner of the house, is at his door; they kill him. In the Rue
+      Tiquetonne a child of seven years, named Boursier, is passing by; they
+      kill him. Mdlle. Soulac, 196, Rue du Temple, opens her window; they kill
+      her. At No. 97, in the same street, two women, Mesdames Vidal and
+      Raboisson, sempstresses, are in their room; they kill them. Belval, a
+      cabinet-maker, 10, Rue de la Lune, is at home; they kill him. Debaëcque, a
+      merchant, 45, Rue du Sentier, is in his own house; Couvercelle, florist,
+      257, Rue Saint Denis, is in his own house; Labitte, a jeweller, 55,
+      Boulevard Saint Martin, is in his own house; Monpelas, perfumer, 181, Rue
+      Saint Martin, is in his own house; they kill Monpelas, Labitte,
+      Couvercelle, and Debaëcque. They sabre at her own home, 240, Rue Saint
+      Martin, a poor embroideress, Mdlle. Seguin, who not having sufficient
+      money to pay for a doctor, died at the Beaujon hospital, on the 1st of
+      January, 1852, on the same day that the Sibour <i>Te Deum</i> was chanted
+      at Notre Dame. Another, a waistcoat-maker, Françoise Noël, was shot down
+      at 20, Rue du Faubourg Montmartre, and died in the Charité. Another,
+      Madame Ledaust, a working housekeeper, living at 76, Passage du Caire, was
+      shot down before the Archbishop's palace, and died at the Morgue.
+      Passers-by, Mdlle. Gressier, living at 209, Faubourg Saint Martin; Madame
+      Guilard, living at 77, Boulevard Saint Denis; Madame Gamier, living at 6,
+      Boulevard Bonne Nouvelle, who had fallen, the first named beneath the
+      volleys on the Boulevard Montmartre, the two others on the Boulevard Saint
+      Denis, and who were still alive, attempted to rise, and became targets for
+      the soldiers, bursting with laughter, and this time fell back again dead.
+      Deeds of gallantry ware performed. Colonel Rochefort, who was probably
+      created General for this, charged in the Rue do la Paix at the head of his
+      Lancers a flock of nurses, who were put to flight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such was this indescribable enterprise. All the men who took part in it
+      were instigated by hidden influences; all had something which urged them
+      forward; Herbillon had Zaatcha behind him; Saint-Arnaud had Kabylia;
+      Renault had the affair of the Saint-André and Saint Hippolyte villages;
+      Espinasse, Rome and the storming of the 30th of June; Magnan, his debts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Must we continue? We hesitate. Dr. Piquet, a man of seventy, was killed in
+      his drawing-room by a ball in his stomach; the painter Jollivart, by a
+      ball in the forehead, before his easel, his brains bespattered his
+      painting. The English captain, William Jesse, narrowly escaped a ball
+      which pierced the ceiling above his head; in the library adjoining the
+      Magasins du Prophète, a father, mother, and two daughters were sabred.
+      Lefilleul, another bookseller, was shot in his shop on the Boulevard
+      Poissonnière; in the Rue Lepelletier, Boyer, a chemist, seated at his
+      counter, was "spitted" by the Lancers. A captain, killing all before him,
+      took by storm the house of the Grand Balcon. A servant was killed in the
+      shop of Brandus. Reybell through the volleys said to Sax, "And I also am
+      discoursing sweet music." The Café Leblond was given over to pillage.
+      Billecoq's establishment was bombarded to such a degree that it had to be
+      pulled down the next day. Before Jouvain's house lay a heap of corpses,
+      amongst them an old man with his umbrella, and a young man with his
+      eye-glass. The Hôtel de Castille, the Maison Dorée, the Petite Jeannette,
+      the Café de Paris, the Café Anglais became for three hours the targets of
+      the cannonade. Raquenault's house crumbled beneath the shells; the bullets
+      demolished the Montmartre Bazaar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      None escaped. The guns and pistols were fired at close quarters.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      New Year's-day was not far off, some shops were full of New Year's gifts.
+      In the passage du Saumon, a child of thirteen, flying before the
+      platoon-firing, hid himself in one of these shops, beneath a heap of toys.
+      He was captured and killed. Those who killed him laughingly widened his
+      wounds with their swords. A woman told me, "The cries of the poor little
+      fellow could be heard all through the passage." Four men were shot before
+      the same shop. The officer said to them, "This will teach you to loaf
+      about." A fifth named Mailleret, who was left for dead, was carried the
+      next day with eleven wounds to the Charité. There he died.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They fired into the cellars by the air-holes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A workman, a currier, named Moulins, who had taken refuge in one of these
+      shot-riddled cellars, saw through the cellar air-hole a passer-by, who had
+      been wounded in the thigh by a bullet, sit down on the pavement with the
+      death rattle in his throat, and lean against a shop. Some soldiers who
+      heard this rattle ran up and finished off the wounded man with bayonet
+      thrusts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One brigade killed the passer-by from the Madeleine to the Opera, another
+      from the Opera to the Gymmase; another from the Boulevard Bonne Nouvelle
+      to the Porte Saint Denis; the 75th of the line having carried the
+      barricade of the Porte Saint Denis, it was no longer a fight, it was a
+      slaughter. The massacre radiated&mdash;a word horribly true&mdash;from the
+      boulevard into all the streets. It was a devil-fish stretching out its
+      feelers. Flight? Why? Concealment? To what purpose? Death ran after you
+      quicker than you could fly. In the Rue Pagevin a soldier said to a
+      passer-by, "What are you doing here?" "I am going home." The soldier kills
+      the passer-by. In the Rue des Marais they kill four young men in their own
+      courtyard. Colonel Espinasse exclaimed, "After the bayonet, cannon!"
+      Colonel Rochefort exclaimed, "Thrust, bleed, slash!" and he added, "It is
+      an economy of powder and noise." Before Barbedienne's establishment an
+      officer was showing his gun, an arm of considerable precision, admiringly
+      to his comrades, and he said, "With this gun I can score magnificent shots
+      between the eyes." having said this, he aimed at random at some one, and
+      succeeded. The carnage was frenzied. While the butchering under the orders
+      of Carrelet filled the boulevard, the Bourgon brigade devastated the
+      Temple, the Marulaz brigade devastated the Rue Rambuteau; the Renault
+      division distinguished itself on the "other side of the water." Renault
+      was that general, who, at Mascara, had given his pistols to Charras. In
+      1848 he had said to Charras, "Europe must be revolutionized." And Charras
+      had said, "Not quite so fast!" Louis Bonaparte had made him a General of
+      Division in July, 1851. The Rue aux Ours was especially devastated. Morny
+      that evening said to Louis Bonaparte, "The 15th Light Infantry have scored
+      a success. They have cleaned out the Rue aux Ours."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the corner of the Rue du Sentier an officer of Spahis, with his sword
+      raised, cried out, "This is not the sort of thing! You do not understand
+      at all. Fire on the women." A woman was flying, she was with child, she
+      falls, they deliver her by the means of the butt-ends of their muskets.
+      Another, perfectly distracted, was turning the corner of a street. She was
+      carrying a child. Two soldiers aimed at her. One said, "At the woman!" And
+      he brought down the woman. The child rolled on the pavement. The other
+      soldier said, "At the child!" And he killed the child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A man of high scientific repute, Dr. Germain Sée, declares that in one
+      house alone, the establishment of the Jouvence Baths, there were at six
+      o'clock, beneath a shed in the courtyard, about eighty wounded, nearly all
+      of whom (seventy, at least) were old men, women, and children. Dr. Sée was
+      the first to attend to them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the Rue Mandar, there was, stated an eye-witness, "a rosary of
+      corpses," reaching as far as the Rue Neuve Saint Eustache. Before the
+      house of Odier twenty-six corpses. Thirty before the hotel Montmorency.
+      Fifty-two before the Variétés, of whom eleven were women. In the Rue
+      Grange-Batelière there were three naked corpses. No. 19, Faubourg
+      Montmartre, was full of dead and wounded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A woman, flying and maddened, with dishevelled hair and her arms raised
+      aloft, ran along the Rue Poissonnière, crying, "They kill! they kill! they
+      kill! they kill! they kill!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The soldiers wagered. "Bet you I bring down that fellow there." In this
+      manner Count Poninsky was killed whilst going into his own house, 52, Rue
+      de la Paix.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was anxious to know what I ought to do. Certain treasons, in order to be
+      proved, need to be investigated. I went to the field of murder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In such mental agony as this, from very excess of feeling one no longer
+      thinks, or if one thinks, it is distractedly. One only longs for some end
+      or other. The death of others instills in you so much horror that your own
+      death becomes an object of desire; that is to say, if by dying, you would
+      be in some degree useful! One calls to mind deaths which have put an end
+      to angers and to revolts. One only retains this ambition, to be a useful
+      corpse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I walked along terribly thoughtful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I went towards the boulevards; I saw there a furnace; I heard there a
+      thunderstorm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I saw Jules Simon coming up to me, who during these disastrous days
+      bravely risked a precious life. He stopped me. "Where are you going?" he
+      asked me. "You will be killed. What do you want?" "That very thing," said
+      I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We shook hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I continued to go on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I reached the boulevard; the scene was indescribable. I witnessed this
+      crime, this butchery, this tragedy. I saw that reign of blind death, I saw
+      the distracted victims fall around me in crowds. It is for this that I
+      have signed myself in this book AN EYE-WITNESS.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Destiny entertains a purpose. It watches mysteriously over the future
+      historian. It allows him to mingle with exterminations and carnages, but
+      it does not permit him to die, because it wishes him to relate them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the midst of this inexpressible Pandemonium, Xavier Durrieu met me as I
+      was crossing the bullet-swept boulevard. He said to me, "Ah, here you are.
+      I have just met Madame D. She is looking for you." Madame D.<a
+      href="#linknoteref-24" name="linknote-24" id="linknote-24"><small>24</small></a>
+      and Madame de la R.,<a href="#linknoteref-25" name="linknote-25"
+      id="linknote-25"><small>25</small></a> two noble and brave women, had
+      promised Madame Victor Hugo, who was ill in bed, to ascertain where I was,
+      and to give her some news of me. Madame D. had heroically ventured into
+      this carnage. The following incident happened to her. She stopped before a
+      heap of bodies, and had had the courage to manifest her indignation; at
+      the cry of horror to which she gave vent, a cavalry soldier had run up
+      behind her with a pistol in his hand, and had it not been for a quickly
+      opened door through which she threw herself, and which saved her, she
+      would have been killed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is well known that the total slaughter in this butchery is unrecorded.
+      Bonaparte has kept these figures hidden in darkness. Such is the habit of
+      those who commit massacres. They are scarcely likely to allow history to
+      certify the number of the victims. These statistics are an obscure
+      multitude which quickly lose themselves in the gloom. One of the two
+      colonels of whom we have had a glimpse in pages 223-225 of this work, has
+      stated that his regiment alone had killed "at least 2,500 persons." This
+      would be more than one person per soldier. We believe that this zealous
+      colonel exaggerates. Crime sometimes boasts of its blackness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lireux, a writer, arrested in order to be shot, and who escaped by a
+      miracle, declares that he saw "more than 800 corpses."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Towards four o'clock the post-chaises which were in the courtyard of the
+      Elysée were unhorsed and put up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This extermination, which an English witness, Captain William Jesse, calls
+      "a wanton fusillade," lasted from two till five o'clock. During these
+      three terrible hours, Louis Bonaparte carried out what he had been
+      premeditating, and completed his work. Up to that time the poor little
+      "middle-class" conscience was almost indulgent. Well, what of it? It was a
+      game at Prince, a species of state swindling, a conjuring feat on a large
+      scale; the sceptics and the knowing men said, "It is a good joke played
+      upon those idiots." Suddenly Louis Bonaparte grew uneasy and revealed all
+      his policy. "Tell Saint-Arnaud to execute my orders." Saint-Arnaud obeyed,
+      the <i>coup d'état</i> acted according to its own code of laws, and from
+      that appalling moment an immense torrent of blood began to flow across
+      this crime.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They left the corpses lying on the pavements, wild-looking, livid,
+      stupefied, with their pockets turned inside out. The military murderer is
+      thus condemned to mount the villainous scale of guilt. In the morning an
+      assassin, in the evening a thief.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When night came enthusiasm and joy reigned at the Elysée. These men
+      triumphed. Conneau has ingeniously related the scene. The familiar spirits
+      were delirious with joy. Fialin addressed Bonaparte in
+      hail-fellow-well-met style. "You had better break yourself of that,"
+      whispered Vieillard. In truth this carnage made Bonaparte Emperor. He was
+      now "His Majesty." They drank, they smoked like the soldiers on the
+      boulevards; for having slaughtered throughout the day, they drank
+      throughout the night; wine flowed upon the blood. At the Elysée they were
+      amazed at the result. They were enraptured; they loudly expressed their
+      admiration. "What a capital idea the Prince had had! How well the thing
+      had been managed! This was much better than flying the country, by Dieppe,
+      like D'Haussez; or by Membrolle, like Guernon-Ranville; or being captured,
+      disguised as a footboy, and blacking the boots of Madame de Saint Fargeau,
+      like poor Polignac!" "Guizot was no cleverer than Polignac," exclaimed
+      Persigny. Fleury turned to Morny: "Your theorists would not have succeeded
+      in a <i>coup d'état</i>." "That is true, they were not particularly
+      vigorous," answered Morny. He added, "And yet they were clever men,&mdash;Louis
+      Philippe, Guizot, Thiers&mdash;" Louis Bonaparte, taking his cigarette
+      from his lips, interrupted, "If such are clever men, I would rather be an
+      ass&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A hyena in an ass's skin," says History.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a href="#linknote-24" name="linknoteref-24" id="linknoteref-24_"><small>24</small></a>
+      <i>No. 20, Cité Rodier.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a href="#linknote-25" name="linknoteref-25" id="linknoteref-25_"><small>25</small></a>
+      <i>Rue Caumartin. See pages 142, 145-148.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0048" id="link2HCH0048"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVII. THE APPOINTMENT MADE WITH THE WORKMEN'S SOCIETIES
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      What had become of our Committee during these tragic events, and what was
+      it doing? It is necessary to relate what took place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Let us go back a few hours.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the moment when this strange butchery began, the seat of the Committee
+      was still in the Rue Richelieu. I had gone back to it after the
+      exploration which I had thought it proper to make at several of the
+      quarters in insurrection, and I gave an account of what I had seen to my
+      colleagues. Madier de Montjau, who also arrived from the barricades, added
+      to my report details of what he had seen. For some time we heard terrible
+      explosions, which appeared to be close by, and which mingled themselves
+      with our conversation. Suddenly Versigny came in. He told us that horrible
+      events were taking place on the Boulevards; that the meaning of the
+      conflict could not yet be ascertained, but that they were cannonading, and
+      firing volleys of musket-balls, and that the corpses bestrewed the
+      pavement; that, according to all appearances, it was a massacre,&mdash;a
+      sort of Saint Bartholomew improvised by the coup d'état; that they were
+      ransacking the houses at a few steps from us, and that they were killing
+      every one. The murderers were going from door to door, and were drawing
+      near. He urged us to leave Grévy's house without delay. It was manifest
+      that the Insurrectionary Committee would be a "find" for the bayonets. We
+      decided to leave, whereupon M. Dupont White, a man distinguished for his
+      noble character and his talent, offered us a refuge at his house, 11, Rue
+      Monthabor. We went out by the back-door of Grévy's house, which led into
+      1, Rue Fontaine Molière, but leisurely, and two by two, Madier de Montjau
+      with Versigny, Michel de Bourges with Carnot, myself arm-in-arm with Jules
+      Favre. Jules Favre, dauntless and smiling as ever, wrapped a comforter
+      over his mouth, and said, "I do not much mind being shot, but I do mind
+      catching cold."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jules Favre and I reached the rear of Saint Roch, by the Rue des Moulins.
+      The Rue Veuve Saint Roch was thronged with a mass of affrighted
+      passers-by, who came from the Boulevards flying rather than walking. The
+      men were talking in a loud voice, the women screaming. We could hear the
+      cannon and the ear-piercing rattle of the musketry. All the shops were
+      being shut. M. de Falloux, arm-in-arm with M. Albert de Rességuier, was
+      striding down the Rue de Saint Roch and hurrying to the Rue Saint Honoré.
+      The Rue Saint Honoré presented a scene of clamorous agitation. People were
+      coming and going, stopping, questioning one another, running. The
+      shopkeepers, at the threshold of their half-opened doors, asked the
+      passers-by what was taking place, and were only answered by this cry, "Oh,
+      my God!" People came out of their houses bareheaded and mingled with the
+      crowd. A fine rain was falling. Not a carriage in the street. At the
+      corner of the Rue Saint Roch and Rue Saint Honoré we heard voices behind
+      us saying, "Victor Hugo is killed."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not yet," said Jules Favre, continuing to smile, and pressing my arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They had said the same thing on the preceding day to Esquiros and to
+      Madier de Montjau. And this rumor, so agreeable to the Reactionaries, had
+      even reached my two sons, prisoners in the Concièrgerie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The stream of people driven back from the Boulevards and from the Rue
+      Richelieu flowed towards the Rue de la Paix. We recognized there some of
+      the Representatives of the Right who had been arrested on the 2d, and who
+      were already released. M. Buffet, an ex-minister of M. Bonaparte,
+      accompanied by numerous other members of the Assembly, was going towards
+      the Palais Royal. As he passed close by us he pronounced the name of Louis
+      Bonaparte in a tone of execration.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      M. Buffet is a man of some importance; he is one of the three political
+      advisers of the Right; the two others are M. Fould and M. Molé.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the Rue Monthabor, two steps from the Rue Saint Honoré, there was
+      silence and peace. Not one passer-by, not a door open, not a head out of
+      window.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the apartment into which we were conducted, on the third story, the
+      calm was not less perfect. The windows looked upon an inner courtyard.
+      Five or six red arm-chairs were drawn up before the fire; on the table
+      could be seen a few books which seemed to me works on political economy
+      and executive law. The Representatives, who almost immediately joined us
+      and who arrived in disorder, threw down at random their umbrellas and
+      their coats streaming with water in the corner of this peaceful room. No
+      one knew exactly what was happening; every one brought forward his
+      conjectures.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Committee was hardly seated in an adjoining little room when our
+      ex-colleague, Leblond, was announced. He brought with him King the
+      delegate of the working-men's societies. The delegate told us that the
+      committee of the societies were sitting in permanent session, and had sent
+      him to us. According to the instructions of the Insurrectionary Committee,
+      they had done what they could to lengthen the struggle by evading too
+      decisive encounters. The greater part of the associations had not yet
+      given battle; nevertheless the plot was thickening. The combat had been
+      severe during the morning. The Association of the Rights of Man was in the
+      streets; the ex-constituent Beslay had assembled, in the Passage du Caire,
+      six or seven hundred workmen from the Marais, and had posted them in the
+      streets surrounding the Bank. New barricades would probably be constructed
+      during the evening, the forward movement of the resistance was being
+      precipitated, the hand-to-hand struggle which the Committee had wished to
+      delay seemed imminent, all was rushing forward with a sort of irresistible
+      impulse. Should we follow it, or should we stop? Should we run the risk of
+      bringing matters to an end with one blow, which should be the last, and
+      which would manifestly leave one adversary on the ground&mdash;either the
+      Empire or the Republic? The workmen's societies asked for our
+      instructions; they still held in reserve their three or four thousand
+      combatants; and they could, according to the order which the Committee
+      should give them, either continue to restrain them or send them under fire
+      without delay. They believed themselves curtain of their adherents; they
+      would do whatever we should decide upon, while not hiding from us that the
+      workmen wished for an immediate conflict, and that it would be somewhat
+      hazardous to leave them time to become calm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The majority of the members of the Committee were still in favor of a
+      certain slackening of action which should tend to prolong the struggle;
+      and it was difficult to say that they were in the wrong. It was certain
+      that if they could protract the situation in which the <i>coup d'état</i>
+      had thrown Paris until the next week, Louis Bonaparte was lost. Paris does
+      not allow herself to be trampled upon by an army for a whole week.
+      Nevertheless, I was for my own part impressed with the following:&mdash;The
+      workmen's societies offered us three or four thousand combatants, a
+      powerful assistance;&mdash;the workman does not understand strategy, he
+      lives on enthusiasm, abatements of ardor discourage him; his zeal is not
+      extinguished, but it cools:&mdash;three thousand to-day would be five
+      hundred to-morrow. And then some serious incident had just taken place on
+      the Boulevards. We were still ignorant of what it actually was: we could
+      not foresee what consequences it might bring about; but seemed to me
+      impossible that the still unknown, but yet violent event, which had just
+      taken place would not modify the situation, and consequently change our
+      plan of battle. I began to speak to this effect. I stated that we ought to
+      accept the offer of the associations, and to throw them at once into the
+      struggle; I added that revolutionary warfare often necessitates sudden
+      changes of tactics, that a general in the open country and before the
+      enemy operates as he wishes; it is all clear around him; he knows the
+      effective strength of his soldiers, the number of his regiments; so many
+      men, so many horses, so many cannons, he knows his strength, and the
+      strength of his enemy, he chooses his hour and his ground, he has a map
+      under his eyes, he sees what he is doing. He is sure of his reserves, he
+      possesses them, he keeps them back, he utilizes them when he wishes, he
+      always has them by him. "But for ourselves," cried I, "we are in an
+      undefined and inconceivable position. We are stepping at a venture upon
+      unknown risks. Who is against us? We hardly know. Who is with us? We are
+      ignorant. How many soldiers? How many guns? How many cartridges? Nothing!
+      but the darkness. Perhaps the entire people, perhaps no one. Keep a
+      reserve! But who would answer for this reserve? It is an army to-day, it
+      will be a handful of dust to-morrow. We only can plainly distinguish our
+      duty, as regards all the rest it is black darkness. We are guessing at
+      everything. We are ignorant of everything. We are fighting a blind battle!
+      Let us strike all the blows that can be struck, let us advance straight
+      before us at random, let us rush upon the danger! And let us have faith,
+      for as we are Justice and the Law, God must be with us in this obscurity.
+      Let us accept this glorious and gloomy enterprise of Right disarmed yet
+      still fighting."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The ex-constituent Leblond and the delegate King being consulted by the
+      Committee, seconded my advice. The Committee decided that the societies
+      should be requested in our name to come down into the streets immediately,
+      and to call out their forces. "But we are keeping nothing for to-morrow,"
+      objected a member of the Committee, "what ally shall we have to-morrow?"
+      "Victory," said Jules Favre. Carnot and Michel de Bourges remarked that it
+      would be advisable for those members of the association who belonged to
+      the National Guard to wear their uniforms. This was accordingly settled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The delegate King rose,&mdash;"Citizen Representatives," said he, "these
+      orders will be immediately transmitted, our friends are ready, in a few
+      hours they will assemble. To-night barricades and the combat!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I asked him, "Would it be useful to you if a Representative, a member of
+      the Committee, were with you to-night with his sash girded?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Doubtless," he answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, then," resumed I, "here I am! Take me."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We will all go," exclaimed Jules Favre.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The delegate observed that it would suffice for one of us to be there at
+      the moment when the societies should make their appearance, and that he
+      could then notify the other members of the Committee to come and join him.
+      It was settled that as soon as the places of meeting and the
+      rallying-points should be agreed upon, he would send some one to let me
+      know, and to take me wherever the societies might be. "Before an hour's
+      time you shall hear from me," said he on leaving us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the delegates were going away Mathieu de la Drôme arrived. On coming in
+      he halted on the threshold of the door, he was pale, he cried out to us,
+      "You are no longer in Paris, you are no longer under the Republic; you are
+      in Naples and under King Bomba."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had come from the boulevards.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Later on I again saw Mathieu de la Drôme. I said to him, "Worse than
+      Bomba,&mdash;Satan."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0049" id="link2HCH0049"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVIII. THE VERIFICATION OF MORAL LAWS
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The carnage of the Boulevard Montmartre constitutes the originality of the
+      <i>coup d'état</i>. Without this butchery the 2d of December would only be
+      an 18th Brumaire. Owing to the massacre Louis Bonaparte escapes the charge
+      of plagiarism.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Up to that time he had only been an imitator. The little hat at Boulogne,
+      the gray overcoat, the tame eagle appeared grotesque. What did this parody
+      mean? people asked. He made them laugh; suddenly he made them tremble.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He who becomes detestable ceases to be ridiculous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Louis Bonaparte was more than detestable, he was execrable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He envied the hugeness of great crimes; he wished to equal the worst. This
+      striving after the horrible has given him a special place to himself in
+      the menagerie of tyrants. Petty rascality trying to emulate deep villainy,
+      a little Nero swelling himself to a huge Lacénaire; such is this
+      phenomenon. Art for art, assassination for assassination.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Louis Bonaparte has created a special genus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was in this manner that Louis Bonaparte made his entry into the
+      Unexpected. This revealed him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Certain brains are abysses. Manifestly for a long time past Bonaparte had
+      harbored the design of assassinating in order to reign. Premeditation
+      haunts criminals, and it is in this manner that treason begins. The crime
+      is a long time present in them, but shapeless and shadowy, they are
+      scarcely conscious of it; souls only blacken gradually. Such abominable
+      deeds are not invented in a moment; they do not attain perfection at once
+      and at a single bound; they increase and ripen, shapeless and indecisive,
+      and the centre of the ideas in which they exist keeps them living, ready
+      for the appointed day, and vaguely terrible. This design, the massacre for
+      a throne, we feel sure, existed for a long time in Louis Bonaparte's mind.
+      It was classed among the possible events of this soul. It darted hither
+      and thither like a <i>larva</i> in an aquarium, mingled with shadows, with
+      doubts, with desires, with expedients, with dreams of one knows not what
+      Caesarian socialism, like a Hydra dimly visible in a transparency of
+      chaos. Hardly was he aware that he was fostering this hideous idea. When
+      he needed it, he found it, armed and ready to serve him. His unfathomable
+      brain had darkly nourished it. Abysses are the nurseries of monsters.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Up to this formidable day of the 4th December, Louis Bonaparte did not
+      perhaps quite know himself. Those who studied this curious Imperial animal
+      did not believe him capable of such pure and simple ferocity. They saw in
+      him an indescribable mongrel, applying the talents of a swindler to the
+      dreams of an Empire, who, even when crowned, would be a thief, who would
+      say of a parricide, What roguery! Incapable of gaining a footing on any
+      height, even of infamy, always remaining half-way uphill, a little above
+      petty rascals, a little below great malefactors. They believed him clever
+      at effecting all that is done in gambling-hells and in robbers' caves, but
+      with this transposition, that he would cheat in the caves, and that he
+      would assassinate in the gambling-hells.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The massacre of the Boulevards suddenly unveiled this spirit. They saw it
+      such as it really was: the ridiculous nicknames "Big-beak," "Badinguet,"
+      vanished; they saw the bandit, they saw the true <i>contraffatto</i>
+      hidden under the false Bonaparte.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a shudder! It was this then which this man held in reserve!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Apologies have been attempted, they could but fail. It is easy to praise
+      Bonaparte, for people have praised Dupin; but it is an exceedingly
+      complicated operation to cleanse him. What is to be done with the 4th of
+      December? How will that difficulty be surmounted? It is far more
+      troublesome to justify than to glorify; the sponge works with greater
+      difficulty than the censer; the panegyrists of the <i>coup d'état</i> have
+      lost their labor. Madame Sand herself, although a woman of lofty
+      intellect, has failed miserably in her attempt to rehabilitate Bonaparte,
+      for the simple reason that whatever one may do, the death-roll reappears
+      through this whitewashing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No! no! no extenuation whatever is possible. Unfortunate Bonaparte. The
+      blood is drawn. It must be drunk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The deed of the 4th of December is the most colossal dagger-thrust that a
+      brigand let loose upon civilization has ever effected, we will not say
+      upon a people, but upon the entire human race. The stroke was most
+      monstrous, and struck Paris to the ground. Paris on the ground is
+      Conscience, is Reason, is all human liberty on the ground; it is the
+      progress of centuries lying on the pavement; it is the torch of Justice,
+      of Truth, and of Life reversed and extinguished. This is what Louis
+      Bonaparte effected the day when he effected this.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The success of the wretch was complete. The 2d of December was lost; the
+      4th of December saved the 2d of December. It was something like Erostratus
+      saving Judas. Paris understood that all had not yet been told as regards
+      deeds of horror, and that beneath the oppressor there was the
+      garbage-picker. It was the case of a swindler stealing César's mantle.
+      This man was little, it is true, but terrifying. Paris consented to this
+      terror, renounced the right to have the last word, went to bed and
+      simulated death. Suffocation had its share in the matter. This crime
+      resembled, too, no previous achievements. Even after centuries have
+      passed, and though he should be an Aeschylus or a Tacitus, any one raising
+      the cover would smell the stench. Paris resigned herself, Paris abdicated,
+      Paris surrendered; the novelty of the treason proved its chief strength;
+      Paris almost ceased to be Paris; on the next day the chattering of this
+      terrified Titan's teeth could be heard in the shadows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Let us lay a stress upon this, for we must verify the laws of morality.
+      Louis Bonaparte remained, even after the 4th of December, Napoleon the
+      Little. This enormity still left him a dwarf. The size of the crime does
+      not change the stature of the criminal, and the pettiness of the assassin
+      withstands the immensity of the assassination.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Be that as it may, the Pigmy had the better of the Colossus. This avowal,
+      humiliating as it is, cannot be evaded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such are the blushes to which History, that greatly dishonored one, is
+      condemned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0053" id="link2H_4_0053"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      THE FOURTH DAY&mdash;THE VICTORY.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0050" id="link2HCH0050"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER I. WHAT HAPPENED DURING THE NIGHT&mdash;THE RUE TIQUETONNE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Just as Mathieu de la Drôme had said, "You are under King Bomba," Charles
+      Gambon entered. He sank down upon a chair and muttered, "It is horrible."
+      Bancel followed him. "We have come from it," said Bancel. Gambon had been
+      able to shelter himself in the recess of a doorway. In front of
+      Barbedienne's alone he had counted thirty-seven corpses. What was the
+      meaning of it all? To what purpose was this monstrous promiscuous murder?
+      No one could understand it. The Massacre was a riddle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We were in the Sphinx's Grotto.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Labrousse came in. It was urgently necessary that we should leave Dupont
+      White's house. It was on the point of being surrounded. For some moments
+      the Rue Monthabor, ordinarily so deserted, was becoming thronged with
+      suspicious figures. Men seemed to be attentively watching number Eleven.
+      Some of these men, who appeared to be acting in concert, belonged to the
+      ex-"Club of Clubs," which, owing to the manoeuvres of the Reactionists,
+      exhaled a vague odor of the police. It was necessary that we should
+      disperse. Labrousse said to us, "I have just seen Longe-pied roving
+      about."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We separated. We went away one by one, and each in his own direction. We
+      did not know where we should meet again, or whether we should meet again.
+      What was going to happen and what was about to become of us all? No one
+      knew. We were filled with a terrible dread.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I turned up towards the Boulevards, anxious to see what was taking place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What was taking place I have just related.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bancel and Versigny had rejoined me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As I left the Boulevards, mingled with the whirl of the terrified crowd,
+      not knowing where I was going, returning towards the centre of Paris, a
+      voice suddenly whispered in my ear, "There is something over there which
+      you ought to see." I recognized the voice. It was the voice of E.P.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      E.P. is a dramatic author, a man of talent, for whom under Louis Philippe
+      I had procured exemption from military service. I had not seen him for
+      four or five years. I met him again in this tumult. He spoke to me as
+      though we had seen each other yesterday. Such are these times of
+      bewilderment. There is no time to greet each other "according to the rules
+      of society." One speaks as though all were in full flight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ah! it is you!" I exclaimed. "What do you want with me?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He answered me, "I live in a house over there."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And he added,-
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Come."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He drew me into a dark street. We could hear explosions. At the bottom of
+      the street could be seen the ruins of a barricade. Versigny and Bancel, as
+      I have just said, were with me. E.P. turned to them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "These gentlemen can come," said he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I asked him,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What street is this?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The Rue Tiquetonne."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We followed him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have elsewhere told this tragical event.<a href="#linknoteref-26"
+      name="linknote-26" id="linknote-26"><small>26</small></a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      E.P. stopped before a tall and gloomy house. He pushed open a street-door
+      which was not shut, then another door and we entered into a parlor
+      perfectly quiet and lighted by a lamp.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This room appeared to adjoin a shop. At the end could be distinguished two
+      beds side by side, one large and one small. Above the little bed hung a
+      woman's portrait, and above the portrait a branch of holy box-tree.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The lamp was placed over the fireplace, where a little fire was burning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Near the lamp upon a chair there was an old woman leaning forward,
+      stooping down, folded in two as though broken, over something which was in
+      the shadow, and which she held in her arms. I drew near. That which she
+      held in her arms was a dead child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The poor woman was silently sobbing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      E.P., who belonged to the house, touched her on the shoulder, and said,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Let us see it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old woman raised her head, and I saw on her knees a little boy, pale,
+      half-undressed, pretty, with two red holes in his forehead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old woman stared at me, but she evidently did not see me, she
+      muttered, speaking to herself,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And to think that he called me 'Granny' this morning!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      E.P. took the child's hand, the hand fell back again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Seven years old," he said to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A basin was on the ground. They had washed the child's face; two tiny
+      streams of blood trickled from the two holes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the end of the room, near a half-opened clothes-press, in which could
+      be seen some linen, stood a woman of some forty years, grave, poor, clean,
+      fairly good-looking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A neighbor," E.P. said to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He explained to me that a doctor lived in the house, that the doctor had
+      come down and had said, "There is nothing to be done." The child had been
+      hit by two balls in the head while crossing the street to "get out of the
+      way." They had brought him back to his grandmother, who "had no one left
+      but him."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The portrait of the dead mother hung above the little bed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The child had his eyes half open, and that inexpressible gaze of the dead,
+      where the perception of the real is replaced by the vision of the
+      infinite. The grandmother spoke through her sobs by snatches: "God! is it
+      possible? Who would have thought it?&mdash;What brigands!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She cried out,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Is this then the Government?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes," I said to her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We finished undressing the child. He had a top in his pocket. His head
+      rolled from one shoulder to the other; I held him and I kissed him on the
+      brow; Versigny and Bancel took off his stockings. The grandmother suddenly
+      started up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Do not hurt him!" she cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She took the two little white and frozen feet in her old hands, trying to
+      warm them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the poor little body was naked, they began to lay it out. They took a
+      sheet from the clothes-press.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then the grandmother burst into bitter lamentation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She cried out,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "They shall give him back to me!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She drew herself up and gazed at us, and began to pour forth incoherent
+      utterances, in which were mingled Bonaparte, and God, and her little one,
+      and the school to which he went, and her daughter whom she had lost, and
+      even reproaches to us. She was livid, haggard, as though seeing a vision
+      before her, and was more of a phantom than the dead child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then she again buried her face in her hands, placed her folded arms on her
+      child, and once more began to sob.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The woman who was there came up to me, and without saying a word, wiped my
+      mouth with a handkerchief. I had blood upon my lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What could be done? Alas! We went out overwhelmed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was quite dark. Bancel and Versigny left me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a href="#linknote-26" name="linknoteref-26" id="linknoteref-26_"><small>26</small></a>
+      <i>"Les Châtiments."</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0051" id="link2HCH0051"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER II. WHAT HAPPENED DURING THE NIGHT&mdash;THE MARKET QUARTER
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      I came back to my lodging, 19, Rue Richelieu.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      The massacre seemed to be at an end; the fusillades were heard no longer.
+      As I was about to knock at the door I hesitated for a moment; a man was
+      there who seemed to be waiting. I went straight up to this man, and I said
+      to him,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You seem to be waiting for somebody?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He answered,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "For whom?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "For you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And he added, lowering his voice, "I have come to speak to you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I looked at this man. A street-lamp shone on him. He did not avoid the
+      light.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was a young man with a fair beard, wearing a blue blouse, and who had
+      the gentle bearing of a thinker and the robust hands of a workman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Who are you?" I asked him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He answered,&mdash;"I belong to the Society of the Last-makers. I know you
+      very well, Citizen Victor Hugo."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "From whom do you come?" I resumed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He answered still in a whisper,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "From Citizen King."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Very good," said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He then told me his name. As he has survived the events of the night of
+      the 4th, and as he since escaped the denunciations, it can be understood
+      that we will not mention his name here, and that we shall confine
+      ourselves to terming him throughout the course of this story by his trade,
+      calling him the "last-maker."<a href="#linknoteref-27" name="linknote-27"
+      id="linknote-27"><small>27</small></a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What do you want to say to me?" I asked him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He explained that matters were not hopeless, that he and his friends meant
+      to continue the resistance, that the meeting-places of the Societies had
+      not yet been settled, but that they would be during the evening, that my
+      presence was desired, and that if I would be under the Colbert Arcade at
+      nine o'clock, either himself or another of their men would be there, and
+      would serve me as guide. We decided that in order to make himself known,
+      the messenger, when accosting me, should give the password, "What is
+      Joseph doing?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I do not know whether he thought he noticed any doubt or mistrust on my
+      part. He suddenly interrupted himself, and said,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "After all, you are not bound to believe me. One does not think of
+      everything: I ought to have asked them to give me a word in writing. At a
+      time like this one distrusts everybody."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "On the contrary," I said to him, "one trusts everybody. I will be in the
+      Colbert Arcade at nine o'clock."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And I left him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I re-entered my asylum. I was tired, I was hungry, I had recourse to
+      Charamaule's chocolate and to a small piece of bread which I had still
+      left. I sank down into an arm-chair, I ate and I slept. Some slumbers are
+      gloomy. I had one of those slumbers, full of spectres; I again saw the
+      dead child and the two red holes in his forehead, these formed two mouths:
+      one said "Morny," and the other "Saint-Arnaud." History is not made,
+      however, to recount dreams. I will abridge. Suddenly I awoke. I started:
+      "If only it is not past nine o'clock!" I had forgotten to wind up my
+      watch. It had stopped. I went out hastily. The street was lonely, the
+      shops were shut. In the Place Louvos I heard the hour striking (probably
+      from Saint Roch); I listened. I counted nine strokes. In a few moments I
+      was under the Colbert Arcade. I peered into the darkness. No one was under
+      the Arcade.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I felt that it was impossible to remain there, and have the appearance of
+      waiting about; near the Colbert Arcade there is a police-station, and the
+      patrols were passing every moment. I plunged into the street. I found no
+      one there. I went as far as the Rue Vivienne. At the corner of the Rue
+      Vivienne a man was stopping before a placard and was trying to deface it
+      or to tear it down. I drew near this man, who probably took me for a
+      police agent, and who fled at the top of his speed. I retraced my steps.
+      Near the Colbert Arcade, and just as I reached the point in the street
+      where they post the theatrical bills, a workman passed me, and said
+      quickly, "What is Joseph doing?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I recognized the last-maker.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Come," he said to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We set out without speaking and without appearing to know each other, he
+      walking some steps before me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We first went to two addresses, which I cannot mention here without
+      pointing out victims for the proscription. In these two houses we got no
+      news; no one had come there on the part of the societies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Let us go to the third place," said the last-maker, and he explained to
+      me that they had settled among them three successive meeting-places, in
+      case of need, so as to be always sure of finding each other if, perchance,
+      the police discovered the first or even the second meeting-place, a
+      precaution which for our part we adopted as much as possible with regard
+      to our meetings of the Left end of the Committee.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We had reached the market quarter. Fighting had been going on there
+      throughout the day. There were no longer any gas-lamps in the streets. We
+      stopped from time to time, and listened so as not to run headlong into the
+      arms of a patrol. We got over a paling of planks almost completely
+      destroyed, and of which barricades had probably been made, and we crossed
+      the extensive area of half-demolished houses which at that epoch
+      encumbered the lower portions of the Rue Montmartre and Rue Montorgueil.
+      On the peaks of the high dismantled gables could be seen a flickering red
+      glow, doubtless the reflection of the bivouac-fires of the soldiers
+      encamped in the markets and in the neighborhood of Saint Eustache. This
+      reflection lighted our way. The last-maker, however, narrowly escaped
+      falling into a deep hole, which was no less than the cellar of a
+      demolished house. On coming out of this region, covered with ruins,
+      amongst which here and there a few trees might be perceived, the remains
+      of gardens which had now disappeared, we entered into narrow, winding, and
+      completely dark streets, where it was impossible to recognize one's
+      whereabouts. Nevertheless the last-maker walked on as much at his ease as
+      in broad daylight, and like a man who is going straight to his
+      destination. Once he turned round to me, and said to me,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The whole of this quarter is barricaded; and if, as I hope, our friends
+      come down, I will answer that they will hold it for a long time."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly he stopped. "Here is one," said he. In truth, seven or eight
+      paces before us was a barricade entirely constructed of paving-stones, not
+      exceeding a man's height, and which in the darkness appeared like a ruined
+      wall. A narrow passage had been formed at one end. We passed through it.
+      There was no one behind the barricade.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "There has already been fighting here a short time ago," said the
+      last-maker in a low voice; and he added, after a pause, "We are getting
+      near."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The unpaving had left holes, of which we had to be careful. We strode, and
+      sometimes jumped, from paving-stone to paving-stone. Notwithstanding the
+      intense darkness, there yet hovered about an indefinable glimmer; on our
+      way we noticed before us on the ground, close to the foot-pavement,
+      something which looked like a stretched-out form. "The devil!" muttered my
+      guide, "we were just going to walk upon it." He took a little wax match
+      from his pocket and struck it on his sleeve; the flame flashed out. The
+      light fell upon a pallid face, which looked at us with fixed eyes. It was
+      a corpse lying there; it was an old man. The last-maker rapidly waved the
+      match from his head to his feet. The dead man was almost in the attitude
+      of a crucified man; his two arms were stretched out; his white hair, red
+      at the ends, was soaking in the mud; a pool of blood was beneath him; a
+      large blackish patch on his waistcoat marked the place where the ball had
+      pierced his breast; one of his braces was undone; he had thick laced boots
+      on his feet. The last-maker lifted up one of his arms, and said, "His
+      collar-bone is broken." The movement shook the head, and the open mouth
+      turned towards us as though about to speak to us. I gazed at this vision;
+      I almost listened. Suddenly it disappeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This face re-entered the gloom; the match had just gone out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We went away in silence. After walking about twenty paces, the last-maker,
+      as though talking to himself, said in a whisper, "Don't know him."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We still pushed forward. From the cellars to the roofs, from the
+      ground-floors to the garrets, there was not a light in the house. We
+      appeared to be groping in an immense tomb.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A man's voice, firm and sonorous, suddenly issued out of the darkness, and
+      shouted to us, "Who goes there?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ah, there they are!" said the last-maker, and he uttered a peculiar
+      whistle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Come on," resumed the voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was another barricade. This one, a little higher than the first, and
+      separated from it by a distance of about a hundred paces, was, as far as
+      could be seen, constructed of barrels filled with paving-stones. On the
+      top could be seen the wheels of a truck entangled between the barrels;
+      planks and beams were intermingled. A passage had been contrived still
+      narrower than the gangway of the other barricade.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Citizens," said the last-maker, as he went into the barricade, "how many
+      of you are there here?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The voice which had shouted, "Who goes there?" answered,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "There are two of us."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Is that all?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That is all."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They were in truth two,&mdash;two men who alone during that night, in that
+      solitary street, behind that heap of paving-stones, awaited the onslaught
+      of a regiment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Both wore blouses; they were two workmen; with a few cartridges in their
+      pockets, and a musket upon each of their shoulders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "So then," resumed the last-maker, in an impatient tone, "our friends have
+      not yet come!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, then," I said to him, "let us wait for them."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The last-maker spoke for a short time in a low tone, and probably told my
+      name to one of the two defenders of the barricade, who came up to me and
+      saluted me. "Citizen Representative," said he, "it will be very warm here
+      shortly."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "In the meantime," answered I laughingly, "it is cold."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was very cold, in truth. The street which was completely unpaved behind
+      the barricade, was nothing better than a sewer, ankle deep in water.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I say that it will be warm," resumed the workman, "and that you would do
+      well to go farther off."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The last-maker put his hand on his shoulder: "Comrade, it is necessary
+      that we should remain here. The meeting-place is close by, in the
+      ambulance."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "All the same," resumed the other workman, who was very short, and who
+      stood up on a paving-stone; "the Citizen Representative would do well to
+      go farther off."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I can very well be where you are," said I to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The street was quite dark, nothing could be seen of the sky. Inside the
+      barricade on the left, on the side where the passage was, could be seen a
+      high paling of badly joined planks, through which shone in places a feeble
+      light. Above the paling rose out, lost in the darkness, a house of six or
+      seven storys; the ground floor, which was being repaired, and which was
+      under-pinned, being closed in by these planks. A ray of light issuing from
+      between the planks fell on the opposite wall, and lighted up an old torn
+      placard, on which could be read, "Asnières. Water tournaments. Grand
+      ball."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Have you another gun?" asked the last-maker of the taller of the two
+      workmen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If we had three guns we should be three men," answered the workman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The little one added, "Do you think that the good will is wanting? There
+      are plenty of musicians, but there are no clarionets."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By the side of the wooden paling could be seen a little, narrow and low
+      door, which looked more like the door of a stall than the door of a shop.
+      The shop to which this door belonged was hermetically sealed. The door
+      seemed to be equally closed. The last-maker went up to it and pushed it
+      gently. It was open.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Let us go in," he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I went in first, he followed me, and shut the door behind me. We were in a
+      room on the ground floor. At the end, on the left, a half-opened door
+      emitted the reflection of a light. The room was only lighted by this
+      reflection. A counter and a species of stove, painted in black and white,
+      could be dimly distinguished.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A short, half-suffocated, intermittent gurgling could be heard, which
+      seemed to come from an adjoining room on the same side as the light. The
+      last-maker walked quickly to the half-opened door. I crossed the room
+      after him, and we found ourselves in a sort of vast shed, lighted by one
+      candle. We were on the other side of the plank paling. There was only the
+      plank paling between ourselves and the barricade.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This species of shed was the ground floor in course of demolition. Iron
+      columns, painted red, and fixed into stone sockets at short distances
+      apart, supported the joists of the ceiling; facing the street, a huge
+      framework standing erect, and denoting the centre of the surrounding
+      paling, supported the great cross-beam of the first story, that is to say,
+      supported the whole house. In a corner were lying some masons' tools, a
+      heap of rubbish, and a large double ladder. A few straw-bottomed chairs
+      were scattered here and there. The damp ground served for the flooring. By
+      the side of a table, on which stood a candle in the midst of medicine
+      bottles, an old woman and a young girl of about eight years old&mdash;the
+      woman seated, the child squatting before a great basketful of old linen&mdash;were
+      making lint. The end of the room, which was lost in the darkness, was
+      carpeted with a litter of straw, on which three mattresses had been
+      thrown. The gurgling noise came from there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is the ambulance," said the last-maker.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old woman turned her head, and seeing us, shuddered convulsively, and
+      then, reassured probably by the blouse of the last-maker, she got up and
+      came towards us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The last-maker whispered a few words in her ear. She answered, "I have
+      seen nobody."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then she added, "But what makes me uneasy is that my husband has not yet
+      come back. They have done nothing but fire muskets the whole evening."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two men were lying on two of the mattresses at the end of the room. A
+      third mattress was unoccupied and was waiting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The wounded man nearest to me had received a musket ball in his stomach.
+      He it was who was gurgling. The old woman came towards the mattress with a
+      candle, and whispered to us, showing us her fist, "If you could only see
+      the hole that that has made! We have stuffed lint as large as this into
+      his stomach."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She resumed, "He is not above twenty-five years old. He will be dead
+      to-morrow morning."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The other was still younger. He was hardly eighteen. "He has a handsome
+      black overcoat," said the woman. "He is most likely a student." The young
+      man had the whole of the lower part of his face swathed in blood-stained
+      linen. She explained to us that he had received a ball in the mouth, which
+      had broken his jaw. He was in a high fever, and gazed at us with lustrous
+      eyes. From time to time he stretched his right arm towards a basin full of
+      water in which a sponge was soaking; he took the sponge, carried it to his
+      face, and himself moistened his bandages.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It seemed to me that his gaze fastened upon me in a singular manner. I
+      went up to him, I stooped down, and I gave him my hand, which he took in
+      his own. "Do you know me?" I asked him. He answered "Yes," by a pressure
+      of the hand which went to my heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The last-maker said to me, "Wait a minute for me here, I shall be back
+      directly; I want to see in this neighborhood, if there is any means of
+      getting a gun."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He added,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Would you like one for yourself?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No," answered I. "I shall remain here without a gun. I only take a half
+      share in the civil war; I am willing to die, I am not willing to kill."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I asked him if he thought his friends were going to come. He declared that
+      he could not understand it, that the men from the societies ought to have
+      arrived already, that instead of two men in the barricade there should be
+      twenty, that instead of two barricades in the street there should have
+      been ten, and that something must have happened; he added,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "However, I will go and see; promise to wait for me here."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I promise you," I answered, "I will wait all night if necessary."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He left me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old woman had reseated herself near the little girl, who did not seem
+      to understand much of what was passing round her, and who from time to
+      time raised great calm eyes towards me. Both were poorly clad, and it
+      seemed to me that the child had stockingless feet. "My man has not yet
+      come back," said the old woman, "my poor man has not yet come back. I hope
+      nothing has happened to him!" With many heart-rending "My God's," and all
+      the while quickly picking her lint, she wept. I could not help thinking
+      with anguish of the old man we had seen stretched on the pavement at a few
+      paces distant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A newspaper was lying on the table. I took it up, and I unfolded it. It
+      was the <i>P&mdash;&mdash;</i>, the rest of the title had been torn off. A
+      blood-stained hand was plainly imprinted on it. A wounded man on entering
+      had probably placed his hand on the table on the spot where the newspaper
+      lay. My eyes fell upon these lines:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "M. Victor Hugo has just published an appeal to pillage and
+      assassination."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In these terms the journal of the Elysée described the proclamation which
+      I had dictated to Baudin, and which may be read in page 103 of this
+      History.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As I threw back the paper on the table one of the two defenders of the
+      barricade entered. It was the short man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A glass of water," said he. By the side of the medicine bottles there was
+      a decanter and a glass. He drank, greedily. He held in his hand a morsel
+      of bread and a sausage, which he was biting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly we heard several successive explosions, following one after
+      another, and which seemed but a short distance off. In the silence of this
+      dark night it resembled the sound of a load of wood being shot on to the
+      pavement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The calm and serious voice of the other combatant shouted from outside,
+      "It is beginning."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Have I time to finish my bread?" asked the little one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes," said the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The little one then turned to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Citizen Representative," said he to me, "those are volleys. They are
+      attacking the barricades over there. Really you must go away."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I answered him, "But you yourselves are going to stay here."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "As for us, we are armed," resumed he; "as for you, you are not. You will
+      only get yourself killed without benefiting any one. If you had a gun, I
+      should say nothing. But you have not. You must go away."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I cannot," I answered him. "I am waiting for some one."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He wished to continue and to urge me. I pressed his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Let me do as I like," said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He understood that my duty was to remain, and no longer persisted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a pause. He again began to bite his bread. The gurgling of the
+      dying man alone was audible. At that moment a sort of deep and hollow
+      booming reached us. The old woman started from her chair, muttering, "It
+      is the cannon!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No," said the little man, "it is the slamming of a street-door." Then he
+      resumed, "There now! I have finished my bread," and he dusted one hand
+      against the other, and went out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the meantime the explosions continued, and seemed to come nearer. A
+      noise sounded in the shop. It was the last-maker who was coming back. He
+      appeared on the threshold of the ambulance. He was pale.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Here I am," said he, "I have come to fetch you. We must go home. Let us
+      be off at once."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I arose from the chair where I had seated myself. "What does this mean?
+      Will they not come?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No," he answered, "no one will come. All is at an end."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he hastily explained that he had gone through the whole of the
+      quarter in order to find a gun, that it was labor lost, that he had spoken
+      to "two or three," that we must abandon all hope of the societies, <i>that
+      they would not come down</i>, that what had been done during the day had
+      appalled every one, that the best men were terrified, that the boulevards
+      were "full of corpses," that the soldiers had committed "horrors," that
+      the barricade was about to be attacked, that on his arrival he had heard
+      the noise of footsteps in the direction of the crossway, that it was the
+      soldiers who were advancing, that we could do nothing further there, that
+      we must be off, that this house was "stupidly chosen," that there was no
+      outlet in the rear, that perhaps we should already find it difficult to
+      get out of the street, and that we had only just time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He told this all panting, briefly, jerkily, and interrupted at every
+      moment with this ejaculation, "And to think that they have no arms, and to
+      think that I have no gun!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he finished we heard from the barricade a shout of "Attention!" and
+      almost immediately a shot was fired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A violent discharge replied to this shot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Several balls struck the paling of the ambulance, but they were too
+      obliquely aimed, and none pierced it. We heard the glass of several broken
+      windows falling noisily into the street.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "There is no longer time," said the last-maker calmly; "the barricade is
+      attacked."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He took a chair and sat down. The two workmen were evidently excellent
+      marksmen. Two volleys assailed the barricade, one after the other. The
+      barricade answered with animation. Then the fire ceased. There was a
+      pause.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Now they are coming at us with the bayonet! They are coming at the
+      double!" said a voice in the barricade.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The other voice said, "Let us be off." A last musket-shot was fired. Then
+      a violent blow which we interpreted as a warning shook our wooden wall. It
+      was in reality one of the workmen who had thrown down his gun when going
+      away; the gun in falling had struck the paling of the ambulance. We heard
+      the rapid steps of the two combatants, as they ran off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Almost at the same moment a tumult of voices, and of butt ends of muskets
+      striking the paving-stones, filled the barricade.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is taken," said the last-maker, and he blew out the candle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To the silence which enveloped this street a moment before succeeded a
+      sort of ill-omened tumult. The soldiers knocked at the doors of the houses
+      with the butt-ends of their muskets. It was by a miracle that the
+      shop-door escaped them. If they had merely pushed against it, they would
+      have seen that it was not shut, and would have entered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A voice, probably the voice of an officer, cried out, "Light up the
+      windows!" The soldiers swore. We heard them say, "Where are those
+      blackguard Reds? Let us search the houses." The ambulance was plunged in
+      darkness. Not a word was spoken, not a breath could be heard; even the
+      dying man, as though he divined the danger, had ceased to gurgle. I felt
+      the little girl pressing herself against my legs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A soldier struck the barrels, and said laughingly,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Here is something to make a fire with to-night."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another resumed,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Which way have they gone? They were at least thirty. Let us search the
+      houses."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We heard one raising objections to this,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Nonsense! What do you want to do on a night like this? Enter the houses
+      of the 'middle classes' indeed! There is some waste ground over yonder.
+      They have taken refuge there."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "All the same," repeated the others, "let us search the houses."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this moment a musket-shot was fired from the end of the street.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This shot saved us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In fact, it was probably one of the two workmen who had fired in order to
+      draw off their attention from us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That comes from over there," cried the soldiers, "They are over there!"
+      and all starting off at once in the direction from which the shot had been
+      fired, they left the barricade and ran down the street at the top of their
+      speed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The last-maker and myself got up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "They are no longer there," whispered he. "Quick! let us be off."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But this poor woman," said I. "Are we going to leave her here?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh," she said, "do not be afraid, I have nothing to fear; as for me, I am
+      an ambulance. I am taking care of the wounded. I shall even relight my
+      candle when you are gone. What troubles me is that my poor husband has not
+      yet come back!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We crossed the shop on tiptoe. The last-maker gently opened the door and
+      glanced out into the street. Some inhabitants had obeyed the order to
+      light up their windows, and four or five lighted candles here and there
+      flickered in the wind upon the sills of the windows. The street was no
+      longer completely dark.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "There is no one about now," said the last-maker; "but let us make haste,
+      for they will probably come back."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We went out: the old woman closed the door behind us, and we found
+      ourselves in the street. We got over the barricade and hurried away as
+      quickly as possible. We passed by the dead old man. He was still there,
+      lying on the pavement indistinctly revealed by the flickering glimmer from
+      the windows; he looked as though he was sleeping. As we reached the second
+      barricade we heard behind us the soldiers, who were returning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We succeeded in regaining the streets in course of demolition. There we
+      were in safety. The sound of musketry still reached us. The last-maker
+      said, "They are fighting in the direction of the Rue de Cléry." Leaving
+      the streets in course of demolition, we went round the markets, not
+      without risk of falling into the hands of the patrols, by a number of
+      zigzags, and from one little street to another little street. We reached
+      the Rue Saint Honoré.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the corner of the Rue de l'Arbre Sec the last-maker and I separated,
+      "For in truth," said he to me, "two run more danger than one." And I
+      regained No. 19, Rue Richelieu.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While crossing the rue des Bourdonnais we had noticed the bivouac of the
+      Place Saint Eustache. The troops who had been dispatched for the attack
+      had not yet come back. Only a few companies were guarding it. We could
+      hear shouts of laughter. The soldiers were warming themselves at large
+      fires lighted here and there. In the fire which was nearest to us we could
+      distinguish in the middle of the brazier the wheels of the vehicles which
+      had served for the barricades. Of some there only remained a great hoop of
+      red-hot iron.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a href="#linknote-27" name="linknoteref-27" id="linknoteref-27_"><small>27</small></a>
+      <i>We may now, after twenty-six years, give the name of this loyal and
+      courageous man. His name was Galoy (and not Galloix, as certain historians
+      of the <i>coup d'état</i> have printed it while recounting, after their
+      fashion, the incidents which we are about to read).</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0052" id="link2HCH0052"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER III. WHAT HAPPENED DURING THE NIGHT.&mdash;THE PETIT CARREAU
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      On the same night, almost at the same moment, at a few paces distant, a
+      villainous deed was being perpetrated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After the taking of the barricade, where Pierre Tissié was killed, seventy
+      or eighty combatants had retired in good order by the Rue Saint Sauveur.
+      They had reached the Rue Montorgueil, and had rejoined each other at the
+      junction of the Rue du Petit Carreau and the Rue du Cadran. At this point
+      the street rises. At the corner of the Rue du Petit Carreau and the Rue de
+      Cléry there was a deserted barricade, fairly high and well built. There
+      had been fighting there during the morning. The soldiers had taken it, but
+      had not demolished it. Why? As we have said, there were several riddles of
+      this nature during this day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The armed band which came from the Rue Saint Denis had halted there and
+      had waited. These men were astonished at not being pursued. Had the
+      soldiers feared to follow them into the little narrow streets, where each
+      corner of the houses might conceal an ambuscade? Had a counter order been
+      given? They hazarded various conjectures. Moreover they heard close by,
+      evidently on the boulevard, a terrific noise of musketry, and a cannonade
+      which resembled continuous thunder. Having no more ammunition, they were
+      reduced to listen. If they had known what was taking place there, they
+      would have understood why they were not pursued. The butchery of the
+      boulevard was beginning. The generals employed in the massacre had
+      suspended fighting for awhile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The fugitives of the boulevard streamed in their direction, but when they
+      perceived the barricade they turned back. Some, however, joined them
+      indignant, and crying out for vengeance. One who lived in the neighborhood
+      ran home and brought back a little tin barrel full of cartridges.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These were sufficient for an hour's fighting. They began to construct a
+      barricade at the corner of the Rue du Cadran. In this manner the Rue du
+      Petit Carreau, closed by two barricades, one towards the Rue de Cléry, the
+      other at the corner of the Rue du Cadran, commanded the whole of the Rue
+      Montorgueil. The space between these two barricades formed a perfect
+      citadel. The second barricade was stronger than the first.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These men nearly all wore coats. Some of them rolled the paving-stones
+      with gloves on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Few workmen were amongst them, but those who were there were intelligent
+      and energetic. These workmen were what might be termed the "pick of the
+      crowd."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jeanty Sarre had rejoined them; he at once became their leader.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Charpentier accompanied him, too brave to abandon the enterprise, but too
+      much a dreamer to become a commander.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two barricades, enclosing in the same manner some forty yards of the Rue
+      Montorgueil, had just been constructed at the top of the Rue Mauconseil.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Three other barricades, extremely feebly constructed, again intersected
+      the Rue Montorgueil in the space which separates the Rue Mauconseil from
+      Saint Eustache.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Evening was closing in. The fusillade was ceasing upon the boulevard. A
+      surprise was possible. They established a sentry-post at the corner of the
+      Rue du Cadran, and sent a main-guard in the direction of the Rue
+      Montmartre. Their scouts came in to report some items of information. A
+      regiment seemed to be preparing to bivouac in the Place des Victoires.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Their position, to all appearance strong, was not so in reality. There
+      were too few in number to defend at the same time the two barricades on
+      the Rue de Cléry and the Rue Montorgueil, and the soldiers arriving in the
+      rear hidden by the second barricade would have been upon them without
+      being even noticed. This determined them to establish a post in the Rue de
+      Cléry. They put themselves in communication with the barricades of the Rue
+      du Cadran and with the two Mauconseil barricades. These two last
+      barricades were only separated from them by a space of about 150 paces.
+      They were about six feet high, fairly solid, but only guarded by six
+      workmen who had built them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Towards half-past four, in the twilight&mdash;the twilight begins early in
+      December&mdash;Jeanty Sarre took four men with him and went out to
+      reconnoitre. He thought also of raising an advanced barricade in one of
+      the little neighboring streets. On the way they found one which had been
+      abandoned, and which had been built with barrels. The barrels, however,
+      were empty, only one contained any paving-stones, and the barricade could
+      not have been held for two minutes. As they left this barricade they were
+      assailed by a sharp discharge of musketry. A company of infantry, hardly
+      visible in the dusk, was close upon them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They fell back hastily; but one of them, who was a shoemaker of the
+      Faubourg du Temple, was hit, and had remained on the pavement. They went
+      back and brought him away. He had the thumb of the right hand smashed.
+      "Thank God!" said Jeanty Sarre, "they have not killed him." "No," said the
+      poor man, "it is my bread which they have killed."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And he added, "I can no longer work; who will maintain my children?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They went back, carrying the wounded man. One of them, a medical student,
+      bound up his wound.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sentries, whom it was necessary to post in every direction, and who
+      were chosen from the most trustworthy men, thinned and exhausted the
+      little central land. There were scarcely thirty in the barricade itself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There, as in the Quarter of the Temple, all the streetlamps were
+      extinguished; the gas-pipes cut; the windows closed and unlighted; no
+      moon, not even stars. The night was profoundly dark.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They could hear distant fusillades. The soldiers were firing from around
+      Saint Eustache, and every three minutes sent a ball in their direction, as
+      much as to say, "We are here." Nevertheless they did not expect an attack
+      before the morning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dialogues like the following took place amongst them:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I wish I had a truss of straw," said Charpentier; "I have a notion that
+      we shall sleep here to-night."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Will you be able to get to sleep?" asked Jeanty Sarre.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I? Certainly I shall go to sleep."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He did go to sleep, in fact, a few moments later.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In this gloomy network of narrow streets, intersected with barricades, and
+      blockaded by soldiers, two wine-shops had remained open. They made more
+      lint there, however, than they drank wine; the orders of the chiefs were
+      only to drink reddened water.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The doorway of one of these wine-shops opened exactly between the two
+      barricades of the Petit Cancan. In it was a clock by which they regulated
+      the sentries' relief. In a back room they had locked up two
+      suspicious-looking persons who had intermingled with the combatants. One
+      of these men at the moment when he was arrested said, "I have come to
+      fight for Henri V." They kept them under lock and key, and placed a sentry
+      at the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An ambulance had been established in an adjoining room. There the wounded
+      shoemaker was lying upon a mattress thrown upon the ground.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They had established, in case of need, another ambulance in the Rue du
+      Cadran. An opening had been effected at the corner of the barricade on
+      this side, so that the wounded could be easily carried away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Towards half-past nine in the evening a man came up to the barricade.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jeanty Sarre recognized him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Good day, Denis," said he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Call me, Gaston," said the man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Why?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Because&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Are you your brother?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, I am my brother. For to-day."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Very well. Good-day, Gaston."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They heartily shook hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was Denis Dussoubs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was pale, calm, and bleeding; he had already been fighting during the
+      morning. At the barricade of the Faubourg Saint Martin a ball had grazed
+      his breast, but had been turned off by some money in his pocket, and had
+      only broken the skin. He had had the rare good fortune of being scratched
+      by a ball. It was like the first touch from the claws of death. He wore a
+      cap, his hat having been left behind in the barricade where he had fought:
+      and he had replaced his bullet-pierced overcoat, which was made of
+      Belleisle cloth, by a pea-jacket bought at a slop-shop.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How had he reached the barricade of the Petit Carreau? He could not say.
+      He had walked straight before him. He had glided from street to street.
+      Chance takes the predestined by the hand, and leads them straight to their
+      goal through the thick darkness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the moment when he entered the barricade they cried out to him, "Who
+      goes there?" He answered, "The Republic!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They saw Jeanty Sarre shake him by the hand. They asked Jeanty Sarre,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Who is he?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jeanty Sarre answered,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is some one."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And he added,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We were only sixty a short time since. We are a hundred now."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All pressed round the new-comer. Jeanty Sarre offered him the command.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No," said he, "I do not understand the tactics of barricade fighting. I
+      should be a bad chief, but I am a good soldier. Give me a gun."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They seated themselves on the paving-stones. They exchanged their
+      experiences of what had been done. Denis described to them the fighting on
+      the Faubourg Saint Martin. Jeanty Sarre told Denis of the fighting in the
+      Rue Saint Denis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During all this time the generals were preparing a final assault,&mdash;what
+      the Marquis of Clermont-Tonnerre, in 1822, called the "Coup de Collier,"
+      and what, in 1789, the Prince of Lambese had called the "Coup de Bas."
+      Throughout all Paris there was now only this point which offered any
+      resistance. This knot of barricade, this labyrinth of streets, embattled
+      like a redoubt, was the last citadel of the People and of Right. The
+      generals invested it leisurely, step by step, and on all sides. They
+      concentrated their forces. They, the combatants of this fateful hour, knew
+      nothing of what was being done. Only from time to time they interrupted
+      their recital of events and they listened. From the right and from the
+      left, from the front, from the rear, from every side, at the same time, an
+      unmistakable murmur, growing every moment louder, and more distinct,
+      hoarse, piercing, fear-inspiring, reached them through the darkness. It
+      was the sound of the battalions marching and charging at the
+      trumpet-command in all the adjoining streets. They resumed their gallant
+      conversation, and then in another moment they stopped again and listened
+      to that species of ill-omened chant, chanted by Death, which was
+      approaching.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nevertheless some still thought that they would not be attacked till the
+      next morning. Night combats are rare in street-warfare. They are more
+      "risky" than all the other conflicts. Few generals venture upon them. But
+      amongst the old hands of the barricade, from certain never-failing signs,
+      they believed that an assault was imminent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In fact, at half-past ten at night, and not at eight o'clock as General
+      Magnan has said in the despicable document which he calls his report&mdash;a
+      special movement was heard in the direction of the markets. This was the
+      marching of the troops. Colonel de Lourmel had determined to make the
+      attack. The 51st of the Line, posted at Saint Eustache, entered the Rue
+      Montorgueil. The 2d battalion formed the advanced guard. The Grenadiers
+      and the Light Infantry, hurled forward at the double, quickly carried the
+      three little barricades which were on the other side of the vacant space
+      of the Rue Mauconseil, and the feebly defended barricades of the adjoining
+      streets. It was at that very moment that the barricade near which I was
+      happened to be carried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From the barricade of the Petit Carreau they heard the night-strife draw
+      near through the darkness, with a fitful noise, strange and appalling.
+      First a great tumult, then volleys, then silence, and then all began
+      again. The flashing of the fusillades suddenly delineated in the darkness
+      the outlines of the houses, which appeared as though they themselves were
+      affrighted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The decisive moment drew near.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The outpost had fallen back upon the barricades. The advanced posts of the
+      Rue de Cléry and the Rue du Cadran had come back. They called over the
+      roll. Not one of those of the morning was missing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They were, as we have said, about sixty combatants, and not a hundred, as
+      the Magnan report has stated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From the upper extremity of the street where they were stationed it was
+      difficult to ascertain what was happening. They did not exactly know how
+      many barricades they were in the Rue Montorgueil between them and Saint
+      Eustache, whence the troops were coming. They only knew that their nearest
+      point of resistance was the double Mauconseil barricade, and that, when
+      all was at an end there, it would be their turn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Denis had posted himself on the inner side of the barricade in such a
+      manner that half his body was above the top, and from there he watched.
+      The glimmer which came from the doorway of the wine-shop rendered his
+      gestures visible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly he made a sign. The attack on the Mauconseil redoubt was
+      beginning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The soldiers, in fact, after having some time hesitated before this double
+      wall of paving-stones, lofty, well-built, and which they supposed was well
+      defended, had ended by rushing upon it, and attacking it with blows of
+      their guns.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They were not mistaken. It was well defended. We have already said that
+      there were only six men in this barricade, the six workmen who had built
+      it. Of the six one only had three cartridges, the others had only two
+      shots to fire. These six men heard the regiment advancing and the roll of
+      the battery which was followed on it, and did not stir. Each remained
+      silent at his post of battle, the barrel of his gun between two
+      paving-stones. When the soldiers were within range they fired, and the
+      battalion replied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That is right. Rage away, Red Breeches," said, laughingly, the man who
+      had three shots to fire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Behind them, the men of the Petit Carreau were crowded round Denis and
+      Jeanty Sarre, and leaning on the crest of their barricade, stretching
+      their necks towards the Mauconseil redoubt, they watched them like the
+      gladiators of the next combat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The six men of this Mauconseil redoubt resisted the onslaught of the
+      battalion for nearly a quarter of an hour. They did not fire together, "in
+      order," one of them said, "to make the pleasure last the longer." The
+      pleasure of being killed for duty; a noble sentence in this workman's
+      mouth. They did not fall back into the adjoining streets until after
+      having exhausted their ammunition. The last, he who had three cartridges,
+      did not leave until the soldiers were actually scaling the summit of the
+      barricade.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the barricade of the Petit Carreau not a word was spoken; they followed
+      all the phases of this struggle, and they pressed each other's hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly the noise ceased, the last musket-shot was fired. A moment
+      afterwards they saw the lighted candles being placed in all the windows
+      which looked on on the Mauconseil redoubt. The bayonets and the brass
+      ornaments on the shakos sparkled there. The barricade was taken.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The commander of the battalion, as is always the custom in similar
+      circumstances, had sent orders into the adjoining houses to light up all
+      the windows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was done at the Mauconseil redoubt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Seeing that their hour had come, the sixty combatants of the barricade of
+      the Petit Carreau mounted their heap of paving-stones, and shouted with
+      one voice, in the midst of the darkness, this piercing cry, "Long live the
+      Republic!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No one answered them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They could only hear the battalion loading their guns.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This acted upon them as a species of signal for action. They were all worn
+      out with fatigue, having been on their feet since the preceding day,
+      carrying paving-stones or fighting, the greater part had neither eaten nor
+      slept.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Charpentier said to Jeanty Sarre,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We shall all be killed."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Shall we really!" said Jeanty Sarre.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jeanty Sarre ordered the door of the wine-shop to be closed, so that their
+      barricade, completely shrouded in darkness, would give them some advantage
+      over the barricade which was occupied by the soldiers and lighted up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the meantime the 51st searched the streets, carried the wounded into
+      the ambulances, and took up their position in the double barricade of the
+      Rue Mauconseil. Half an hour thus elapsed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, in order to clearly understand what is about to follow, the reader
+      must picture to himself in this silent street, in this darkness of the
+      night, at from sixty to eighty yards apart, within speaking distance,
+      these two redoubts facing each other, and able as in an Iliad to address
+      each other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On one side the Army, on the other side the People, the darkness over all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The species of truce which always precedes decisive encounters drew to a
+      close. The preparations were completed on both sides. The soldiers could
+      be heard forming into order of battle, and the captains giving out their
+      commands. It was evident that the struggle was at hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Let us begin," said Charpentier; and he raised his gun.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Denis held his arm back. "Wait," he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then an epic incident was seen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Denis slowly mounted the paving-stones of the barricade, ascended to the
+      top, and stood there erect, unarmed and bareheaded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thence he raised his voice, and, facing the soldiers, he shouted to them,
+      "Citizens!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this word a sort of electric shudder ensued which was felt from one
+      barricade to the other. Every sound was hushed, every voice was silent, on
+      both sides reigned a deep religious and solemn silence. By the distant
+      glimmer of a few lighted windows the soldiers could vaguely distinguish a
+      man standing above a mass of shadows, like a phantom who was speaking to
+      them in the night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Denis continued,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Citizens of the Army! Listen to me!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The silence grew still more profound.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He resumed,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What have you come to do here? You and ourselves, all of us who are in
+      this street, at this hour, with the sword or gun in hand, what are we
+      about to do? To kill each other! To kill each other, citizens! Why?
+      Because they have raised a misunderstanding between us! Because we obey&mdash;you
+      your discipline&mdash;we our Right! You believe that you are carrying out
+      your instructions; as for us, we know that we are doing our duty. Yes! it
+      is Universal Suffrage, it is the Right of the Republic, it is our Right
+      that we are defending, and our Right, soldiers, is your Right. The Army is
+      the People, as the People is the Army. We are the same nation, the some
+      country, the same men. My God! See, is there any Russian blood in my
+      veins, in me who am speaking to you? Is there any Prussian blood in your
+      veins, in you who are listening to me? No! Why then should we fight? It is
+      always an unfortunate thing for a man to fire upon a man. Nevertheless, a
+      gun-shot between a Frenchman and an Englishman can be understood; but
+      between a Frenchman and a Frenchman, ah! that wounds Reason, that wounds
+      France, that wounds our mother!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All anxiously listened to him. At this moment from the opposite barricade
+      a voice shouted to him,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Go home, then!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this coarse interruption an angry murmur ran through Denis's
+      companions, and several guns could be heard being loaded. Denis restrained
+      them by a sign.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This sign possessed a strange authority.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Who is this man?" the combatants behind the barricade asked each other.
+      Suddenly they cried out,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He is a Representative of the People!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Denis had, in fact, suddenly assumed his brother Gaston's sash.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What he had premeditated was about to be accomplished; the hour of the
+      heroic falsehood had arrived. He cried out,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Soldiers, do you know what the man is who is speaking to you at this
+      moment? He is not only a citizen, he is a Legislator! He is a
+      Representative chosen by Universal Suffrage! My name is Dussoubs, and I am
+      a Representative of the People. It is in the name of the National
+      Assembly, it is in the name of the Sovereign Assembly, it is in the name
+      of the People, and in the name of the Law, that I summon you to hear me.
+      Soldiers, you are the armed force. Well, then, when the Law speaks, the
+      armed force listens."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This time the silence was not broken.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We reproduce these words almost literally; such as they are, and such as
+      they have remained graven on the memory of those who heard them; but what
+      we cannot reproduce, and what should be added to these words, in order to
+      realize the effect, is the attitude, the accent, the thrill of emotion,
+      the vibration of the words issuing from this noble breast, the intense
+      impression produced by the terrible hour and place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Denis Dussoubs continued: "He spoke for some twenty minutes," an
+      eye-witness has told me. Another has said, "He spoke with a loud voice;
+      the whole street heard him." He was vehement, eloquent, earnest; a judge
+      for Bonaparte, a friend for the soldiers. He sought to rouse them by
+      everything which could still vibrate in them; he recalled to them their
+      true wars, their true victories, the national glory, the ancient military
+      honor, the flag. He told them that all this was about to be slain by the
+      bullets from their guns. He adjured them, he ordered them to join
+      themselves to the People and to the Law; and then suddenly coming back to
+      the first words which he had pronounced, carried away by that fraternity
+      with which his soul overflowed, he interrupted himself in the middle of a
+      half-completed sentence, and cried out:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But to what purpose are all these words? It is not all this that is
+      wanted, it is a shake of the hand between brothers! Soldiers, you are
+      there opposite us, at a hundred paces from us, in a barricade, with the
+      sword drawn, with guns pointed; you are aiming directly at me; well then,
+      all of us who are here love you! There is not one of us who would not give
+      his life for one of you. You are the peasants of the fields of France; we
+      are the workmen of Paris. What, then, is in question? Simply to see each
+      other, to speak to each other, and not to cut each other's throats. Shall
+      we try this? Say! Ah! as for myself in this frightful battle-field of
+      civil war, I would rather die than kill. Look now, I am going to get off
+      this barricade and come to you. I am unarmed; I only know that you are my
+      brothers. I am confident, I am calm; and if one of you presents his
+      bayonet at me, I will offer him my hand."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He finished speaking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A voice cried out from the opposite barricade, "Advance in order!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then they saw him slowly descend the dimly-lighted crest of the barricade,
+      paving-stone by paving-stone, and plunge with head erect into the dark
+      street.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From the barricade all eyes followed him with an inexpressible anxiety.
+      Hearts ceased beating, mouths no longer breathed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No one attempted to restrain Denis Dussoubs. Each felt that he was going
+      where he ought to go. Charpentier wished to accompany him. "Would you like
+      me to go with you?" he cried out to him. Dussoubs refused, with a shake of
+      the head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dussoubs, alone and grave, advanced towards the Mauconseil Barricade. The
+      night was so dark that they lost sight of him immediately. They could
+      distinguish only for a few seconds his peaceable and intrepid bearing.
+      Then he disappeared. They could no longer see anything. It was an
+      inauspicious moment. The night was dark and dumb. There could only be
+      heard in this thick darkness the sound of a measured and firm step dying
+      away in the distance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After some time, how long no one could reckon, so completely did emotion
+      eclipse thought amongst the witnesses of this marvellous scene, a glimmer
+      of light appeared in the barricade of the soldiers; it was probably a
+      lantern which was being brought or taken away. By the flash they again saw
+      Dussoubs, he was close to the barricade, he had almost reached it, he was
+      walking towards it with his arms stretched out like Christ.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly the word of command, "Fire!" was heard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A fusillade burst forth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They had fired upon Dussoubs when he was at the muzzles of their guns.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dussoubs fell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he raised himself and cried, "Long live the Republic!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another bullet struck him, he fell again. Then they saw him raise himself
+      once more, and heard him shout in a loud voice, "I die with the Republic."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These were his last words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In this manner died Denis Dussoubs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was not vainly that he had said to his brother, "Your sash will be
+      there."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was anxious that this sash should do its duty. He determined in the
+      depths of his great soul that this sash should triumph either through the
+      law or through death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That is to say, in the first case it would save Right, in the second save
+      Honor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dying, he could say, "I have succeeded."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of the two possible triumphs of which he had dreamed, the gloomy triumph
+      was not the less splendid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The insurgent of the Elysée thought that he had killed a Representative of
+      the People, and boasted of it. The sole journal published by the <i>coup
+      d'état</i> under these different titles <i>Patrie</i>, <i>Univers</i>, <i>Moniteur</i>,
+      <i>Parisien</i>, etc., announced on the next day, Friday, the 5th, "that
+      the ex-Representative Dussoubs (Gaston) had been killed at the barricade
+      of the Rue Neuve Saint Eustache, and that he bore 'a red flag in his
+      hand.'"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0053" id="link2HCH0053"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IV. WHAT WAS DONE DURING THE NIGHT&mdash;THE PASSAGE DU SAUMON
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      When those on the barricade of the Petit Carreau saw Dussoubs fall, so
+      gloriously for his friends, so shamefully for his murderers, a moment of
+      stupor ensued. Was it possible? Did they really see this before them? Such
+      a crime committed by our soldiers? Horror filled every soul.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This moment of surprise did not last long. "Long live the Republic!"
+      shouted the barricade with one voice, and it replied to the ambuscade by a
+      formidable fire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The conflict began. A mad conflict on the part of the <i>coup d'état</i>,
+      a struggle of despair on the side of the Republic. On the side of the
+      soldiers an appalling and cold blooded resolution, a passive and ferocious
+      obedience, numbers, good arms, absolute chiefs, pouches filled with
+      cartridges. On the side of the People no ammunition, disorder, weariness,
+      exhaustion, no discipline, indignation serving for a leader.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It appears that while Dussoubs was speaking, fifteen grenadiers, commanded
+      by a sergeant named Pitrois, had succeeded in gliding in the darkness
+      along the houses, and, unperceived and unheard, had taken up their
+      position close to the barricade. These fifteen men suddenly formed
+      themselves together with lowered bayonets at twenty paces from the
+      barricade ready to scale it. A volley received them. They fell back,
+      leaving several corpses in the gutter. Major Jeannin cried out, "Finish
+      them off." The entire battalion which occupied the Mauconseil barricade,
+      then appeared with raised bayonets upon the uneven crest of this
+      barricade, and from there without breaking their line, with a sudden, but
+      regulated and inexorable movement, sprang into the street. The four
+      companies, in close order, and as though mingled and hardly visible,
+      seemed like a wave precipitating itself with a great noise from the height
+      of the barricade.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the barricade of the Petit Carreau they noted the manoeuvre, and had
+      paused in their fire. "Present," cried Jeanty Sarre, "but do not fire;
+      wait for the order."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Each put his gun to his shoulder, then placed the barrels between the
+      paving-stones, ready to fire, and waited.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As soon as it had quitted the Mauconseil redoubt, the battalion rapidly
+      formed itself into an attacking column, and a moment afterwards they heard
+      the intermittent sound of an advance at the double. It was the battalion
+      which was coming upon them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Charpentier," said Jeanty Sarre, "you have good eyes. Are they midway?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes," said Charpentier.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Fire," said Jeanty Sarre.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The barricade fired. The whole street was filled with smoke. Several
+      soldiers fell. They could hear the cries of the wounded. The battalion,
+      riddled with balls, halted and replied by platoon firing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Seven or eight combatants whose bodies reached above the barricade, which
+      had been made hastily and was too low were hit. Three were killed on the
+      spot. One fell wounded by a ball in his stomach, between Jeanty Sarre and
+      Charpentier. He shrieked out with pain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Quick, to the ambulance:" said Jeanty Sarre.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Where?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "In the Rue du Cadran."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jeanty Sarre and Charpentier picked up the wounded man, the one by the
+      feet, the other by the head, and carried him to the du Cadran through the
+      passage in the barricade.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During all this time there was continued file firing. There no longer
+      seemed anything in the street but smoke, the balls whistling and crossing
+      each other, the brief and repeated commands, some plaintive cries, and the
+      flash of the guns lighting up the darkness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly a loud void died out, "Forwards!" The battalion resumed its
+      double-quick march and threw itself upon the barricade.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then ensued a horrible scene. They fought hand to hand, four hundred on
+      the one side, fifty on the other. They seized each other by the collar, by
+      the throat, by the mouth, by the hair. There was no longer a cartridge in
+      the barricade, but there remained despair. A workman, pierced through and
+      through, snatched the bayonet from his belly, and stabbed a soldier with
+      it. They did not see each other, but they devoured each other. It was a
+      desperate scuffle in the dark.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The barricade did not hold out for two minutes. In several places, it may
+      be remembered, it was low. It was rather stridden over than scaled. That
+      was all the more heroic. One of the survivors<a href="#linknoteref-28"
+      name="linknote-28" id="linknote-28"><small>28</small></a> told the writer
+      of these lines, "The barricade defended itself very badly, but the men
+      died very well."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All this took place while Jeanty Sarre and Charpentier were carrying the
+      wounded man to the ambulance in the Rue du Cadran. His wounds having been
+      attended to, they came back to the barricade. They had just reached it
+      when they heard themselves called by name. A feeble voice close by said to
+      them, "Jeanty Sarre! Charpentier!" They turned round and saw one of their
+      men who was dying leaning against a wall, and his knees giving way beneath
+      him. He was a combatant who had left the barricade. He had only been able
+      to take a few steps down the street. He held his hand over his breast,
+      where he had received a ball fired at close quarters. He said to them in a
+      scarcely audible voice, "The barricade is taken, save yourselves."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No," said Jeanty Sarre, "I must unload my gun." Jeanty Sarre re-entered
+      the barricade, fired a last shot and went away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nothing could be more frightful than the interior of the captured
+      barricade.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Republicans, overpowered by numbers, no longer offered any resistance.
+      The officers cried out, "No prisoners!" The soldiers billed those who were
+      standing, and despatched those who had fallen. Many awaited their death
+      with their heads erect. The dying raised themselves up, and shouted, "Long
+      live the Republic!" Some soldiers ground their heels upon the faces of the
+      dead, so that they should not be recognized. There, stretched out amongst
+      the corpses, in the middle of the barricade, with his hair in the gutter,
+      was seen the all-but namesake of Charpentier, Carpentier, the delegate of
+      the committee of the Tenth Arrondissement, who had been killed, and had
+      fallen backwards, with two balls in his breast. A lighted candle which the
+      soldiers had taken from the wine-shop was placed on a paving stone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The soldiers were infuriated. One would say that they were revenging
+      themselves. On whom? A workman, named Paturel, received three balls and
+      six bayonet-thrusts, four of which were in the head. They thought that he
+      was dead, and they did not renew the attack. He felt them search him. They
+      took ten francs which he had about him. He did not die till six days
+      later, and he was able to relate the details which are given here. We may
+      note, by the way, that the name of Paturel does not figure upon any of the
+      lists of the corpses published by M. Bonaparte.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sixty Republicans were shut up in this redoubt of the Petit Carreau.
+      Forty-six were killed there. These men had come there that morning free,
+      proud to fight, and joyous to die. At midnight all was at an end. The
+      night wagons carried away on the next day nine corpses to the hospital
+      cemetery, and thirty-seven to Montmartre.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jeanty Sarre escaped by a miracle, as well as Charpentier, and a third
+      whose name we have not been able to ascertain. They glided along the
+      houses and reached the Passage du Saumon. The grated doors which closed
+      the Passage during the night only reached to the centre of the archway.
+      They climbed it and got over the spikes, at the risk of tearing
+      themselves. Jeanty Sarre was the first to climb it; having reached the
+      summit, one of the spikes pierced his trousers, hooked them, and Jeanty
+      Sarre fell headforemost upon the pavement. He got up again, he was only
+      stunned. The other two followed him, and gliding along the bars, all three
+      found themselves in the Passage. It was dimly lighted by a lamp which
+      shone at one end. In the meanwhile, they heard the soldiers, who were
+      pursuing them, coming up. In order to escape by the Rue Montmartre, they
+      would have to climb the grated gateway at the other end of the Passage;
+      their hands were grazed, their knees were bleeding; they were dying of
+      weariness; they were in no condition to recommence a similar ascent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jeanty Sarre knew where the keeper of the Passage lived. He knocked at his
+      window, and begged him to open. The keeper refused.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this moment the detachment which had been sent in pursuit of them
+      reached the grated gateway which they had just climbed. The soldiers,
+      hearing a noise in the Passage, passed the barrels of their guns through
+      the bars. Jeanty Sarre squeezed himself against the wall behind one of
+      those projecting columns which decorate the Passage; but the column was
+      very thin, and only half covered him. The soldiers fired, and smoke filled
+      the Passage. When it cleared away, Jeanty Sarre saw Charpentier stretched
+      on the stones, with his face to the ground. He had been shot through the
+      heart. Their other companion lay a few paces from him, mortally wounded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The soldiers did not scale the grated gateway, but they posted a sentinel
+      before it. Jeanty Sarre heard them going away by the Rue Montmartre. They
+      would doubtless come back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No means of flight. He felt all the doors round his prison successively.
+      One of them at length opened. This appeared to him like a miracle. Whoever
+      could have forgotten to shut the door? Providence, doubtless. He hid
+      himself behind it, and remained there for more than an hour, standing
+      motionless, scarcely breathing. He no longer heard any sound; he ventured
+      out. The sentinel was no longer there. The detachment had rejoined the
+      battalion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One of his old friends, a man to whom he had rendered services such as are
+      not forgotten, lived in this very Passage du Saumon. Jeanty Sarre looked
+      for the number, woke the porter, told him the name of his friend, was
+      admitted, went up the stairs, and knocked at the door. The door was
+      opened, his friend appeared in his nightshirt, with a candle in his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He recognized Jeanty Sarre, and cried out, "You here! What a state you are
+      in! Where hove you come from? From what riot? from what madness? And then
+      you come to compromise us all here? To have us murdered? To have us shot?
+      Now then, what do you want with me?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I want you to give me a brush down," said Jeanty Sarre.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His friend took a brush and brushed him, and Jeanty Sarre went away. While
+      going down the stairs, Jeanty Sarre cried out to his friend, "Thanks!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such is the kind of hospitality which we have since received in Belgium,
+      in Switzerland, and even in England.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next day, when they took up the bodies they found on Charpentier a
+      note-book and a pencil, and upon Denis Dussoubs a letter. A letter to a
+      woman. Even these stoic souls love.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the 1st of December, Denis Dussoubs began this letter. He did not
+      finish it. Here it is:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  "MY DEAR MARIE,
+
+  "Have you experienced that sweet pain of feeling regret for him who
+  regrets you? For myself since I left you I have known no other
+  affliction than that of thinking of you. Even in my affliction itself
+  there was something sweet and tender, and although I was troubled, I
+  was nevertheless happy to feel in the depths of my heart how greatly
+  I loved you by the regret which you cost me. Why are we separated?
+  Why have I been forced to fly from you? For we were so happy! When I
+  think of our little evenings so free from constraint, of our gay
+  country chats with your sisters, I feel myself seized with a bitter
+  regret. Did we not love each other clearly, my darling? We had no
+  secret from each other because we had no need to have one, and our
+  lips uttered the thoughts of our hearts without our thinking to keep
+  anything back.
+
+  "God has snatched away from us all these blessings, and nothing will
+  console me for having lost them; do you not lament with me the evils
+  of absence?
+
+  "How seldom we see those whom we love! Circumstances take us far from
+  them, and our soul tormented and attracted out of ourselves lives in
+  a perpetual anguish. I feel this sickness of absence. I imagine
+  myself wherever you are. I follow your work with my eyes, or I listen
+  to your words, seated beside you and seeking to divine the word which
+  you are about to utter; your sisters sew by our side. Empty
+  dreams&mdash;illusions of a moment&mdash;my hand seeks yours; where are you, my
+  beloved one?
+
+  "My life is an exile. Far from those whom I love and by whom I am
+  loved, my heart calls them and consumes away in its grief. No, I do
+  not love the great cities and their noise, towns peopled with
+  strangers where no one knows you and where you know no one, where
+  each one jostles and elbows the other without ever exchanging a
+  smile. But I love our quiet fields, the peace of home, and the voice
+  of friends who greet you. Up to the present I have always lived in
+  contradiction with my nature; my fiery blood, my nature so hostile to
+  injustice, the spectacle of unmerited miseries have thrown me into a
+  struggle of which I do not foresee the issue, a struggle in which
+  will remain to the end without fear and without reproach, that which
+  daily breaks me down and consumes my life.
+
+  "I tell you, my much-loved darling, the secret miseries of my heart;
+  no, I do not blush for what my hand has just written, but my heart is
+  sick and suffering, and I tell it to you. I suffer... I wish to blot
+  out these lines, but why? Could they offend you? What do they contain
+  that could wound my darling? Do I not know your affection, and do I
+  not know that you love me? Yes, you have not deceived me, I did not
+  kiss a lying mouth; when seated on my knees you lulled me with the
+  charm of your words, I believed you. I wished to bind myself to a
+  burning iron bar; weariness preys upon me and devours me. I feel a
+  maddening desire to recover life. Is it Paris that produces this
+  effect upon me? I always yearn to be in places where I am not. I live
+  here to a complete solitude. I believe you, Marie...."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Charpentier's note-book only contained this line, which he had written in
+      the darkness at the foot of the barricade while Denis Dussoubs was
+      speaking:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  Admonet et magna testatur voce per umbras.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a href="#linknote-28" name="linknoteref-28" id="linknoteref-28_"><small>28</small></a>
+      <i>February 18. Louvain.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0054" id="link2HCH0054"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER V. OTHER DEEDS OF DARKNESS
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Yvan had again seen Conneau. He corroborated the information given in the
+      letter of Alexandre Dumas to Bocage; with the fact we had the names. On
+      the 3d of December at M. Abbatucci's house, 31, Rue Caumartin, in the
+      presence of Dr. Conneau and of Piétri, a Corsican, born at Vezzani, named
+      Jacques François Criscelli,<a href="#linknoteref-29" name="linknote-29"
+      id="linknote-29"><small>29</small></a> a man attached to the secret and
+      personal service of Louis Bonaparte, had received from Piétri's own mouth
+      the offer of 25,000 francs "to take or kill Victor Hugo." He had accepted,
+      and said, "That is all very well if I am alone. But suppose there are two
+      of us?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Piétri had answered,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then there will be 50,000 francs."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This communication, accompanied by urgent prayers, had been made to me by
+      Yvan in the Rue de Monthabor, while we were still at Dupont White's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This said, I continue my story.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The massacre of the 4th did not produce the whole of its effect until the
+      next day, the 5th. The impulse given by us to the resistance still lasted
+      for some hours, and at nightfall, in the labyrinth of houses ranging from
+      the Rue du Petit Carreau to the Rue du Temple, there was fighting. The
+      Pagevin, Neuve Saint Eustache, Montorgueil, Rambuteau, Beaubourg, and
+      Transnonain barricades were gallantly defended. There, there was an
+      impenetrable network of streets and crossways barricaded by the People,
+      surrounded by the Army.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The assault was merciless and furious.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The barricade of the Rue Montorgueil was one of those which held out the
+      longest. A battalion and artillery was needed to carry it. At the last
+      moment it was only defended by three men, two shop-clerks and a
+      lemonade-seller of an adjoining street. When the assault began the night
+      was densely dark, and the three combatants escaped. But they were
+      surrounded. No outlets. Not one door was open. They climbed the grated
+      gateway of the Passage Verdeau as Jeanty Sarre and Charpentier had scaled
+      the Passage du Saumon, had jumped over, and had fled down the Passage. But
+      the other grated gateway was closed, and like Jeanty Sarre and Charpentier
+      they had no time to climb it. Besides, they heard the soldiers corning on
+      both sides. In a corner at the entrance of the Passage there were a few
+      planks which had served to close a stall, and which the stall-keeper was
+      in the habit of putting there. They hid themselves beneath these planks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The soldiers who had taken the barricade, after having searched the
+      streets, bethought themselves of searching the Passage. They also climbed
+      over the grated gateway, looked about everywhere with lanterns, and found
+      nothing They were going away, when one of them perceived the foot of one
+      of these three unfortunate men which was projecting from beneath the
+      planks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They killed all three of them on the spot with bayonet-thrusts. They cried
+      out, "Kill us at once! Shoot us! Do not prolong our misery."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The neighboring shop-keepers heard these cries, but dared not open their
+      doors or their windows, for fear, as one of them said the next day, "that
+      they should do the same to them."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The execution at an end, the executioners left the three victims lying in
+      a pool of blood on the pavement of the Passage. One of those unfortunate
+      men did not die until eight o'clock next morning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No one had dared to ask for mercy; no one had dared to bring any help.
+      They left them to die there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One of the combatants of the Rue Beaubourg was more fortunate. They were
+      pursuing him. He rushed up a staircase, reached a roof, and from there a
+      passage, which proved to be the top corridor of an hotel. A key was in the
+      door. He opened it boldly, and found himself face to face with a man who
+      was going to bed. It was a tired-out traveller who had arrived at the
+      hotel that very evening. The fugitive said to the traveller, "I am lost,
+      save me!" and explained him the situation in three words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The traveller said to him, "Undress yourself, and get into my bed." And
+      then he lit a cigar, and began quietly to smoke. Just as the man of the
+      barricade had got into bed a knock came at the door. It was the solders
+      who were searching the house. To the questions which they asked him the
+      traveller answered, pointing to the bed, "We are only two here. We have
+      just arrived here. I am smoking my cigar, and my brother is asleep." The
+      waiter was questioned, and confirmed the traveller's statement. The
+      soldiers went away, and no one was shot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We will say this, that the victorious soldiers killed less than on the
+      preceding day. They did not massacre in all the captured barricades. The
+      order had been given on that day to make prisoners. It might also be
+      believed that a certain humanity existed. What was this humanity? We shall
+      see.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At eleven o'clock at night all was at an end.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They arrested all those whom they found in the streets which had been
+      surrounded, whether combatants or not, they had all the wine-shops and the
+      <i>cafés</i> opened, they closely searched the houses, they seized all the
+      men whom they could find, only leaving the women and the children. Two
+      regiments formed in a square carried away all these prisoners huddled
+      together. They took them to the Tuileries, and shut them up in the vast
+      cellar situated beneath the terrace at the waterside.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On entering this cellar the prisoners felt reassured. They called to mind
+      that in June, 1848, a great number of insurgents had been shut up there,
+      and later on had been transported. They said to themselves that doubtless
+      they also would be transported, or brought before the Councils of War, and
+      that they had plenty of time before them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They were thirsty. Many of them had been fighting since that morning, and
+      nothing parches tire mouth so much as biting cartridges. They asked for
+      drink. Three pitchers of water were brought to them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A sort of security suddenly fell upon them. Amongst them were several who
+      had been transported in June, 1848, and who had already been in that
+      cellar, and who said, "In June they were not so humane. They left us for
+      three days without food or drink." Some of them wrapped themselves up in
+      their overcoats or cloaks, lay down, and slept. At one o'clock in the
+      morning a great noise was heard outside. Soldiers, carrying torches,
+      appeared in the cellars, the prisoners who were sleeping woke with a
+      start, an officer ordered them to get up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They made them go out anyhow as they had come in. As they went out they
+      coupled them two by two at random, and a sergeant counted them in a loud
+      voice. They asked neither their names, nor their professions, nor their
+      families, nor who they were, nor whence they came; they contented
+      themselves with the numbers. The numbers sufficed for what they were about
+      to do.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In this manner they counted 337. The counting having come to an end, they
+      ranged them in close columns, still two by two and arm-in-arm. They were
+      not tied together, but on each side of the column, on the right and on the
+      left, there were three files of soldiers keeping them within their ranks,
+      with guns loaded; a battalion was at their head, a battalion in their
+      rear. They began to march, pressed together and enclosed in this moving
+      frame of bayonets.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the moment when the column set forward, a young law-student, a fair
+      pale Alsatian, of some twenty years, who was in their ranks, asked a
+      captain, who was marching by him with his sword drawn,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Where are we going?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The officer made no reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Having left the Tuileries, they turned to the right, and followed the quay
+      as far as the Pont de la Concorde. They crossed the Pont de la Concorde,
+      and again turned to the right. In this manner they passed before the
+      esplanade of the Invalides, and reached the lonely quay of Gros-Caillou.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As we have just said, they numbered 337, and as they walked two by two,
+      there was one, the last, who walked alone. He was one of the most daring
+      combatants of the Rue Pagevin, a friend of Lecomte the younger. By chance
+      the sergeant, who was posted in the inner file by his side, was a native
+      of the same province. On passing under a street-lamp they recognized each
+      other. They exchanged quickly a few words in a whisper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Where are we going?" asked the prisoner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "To the military school," answered the sergeant. And he added, "Ah! my
+      poor lad!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then he kept at a distance from the prisoner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As this was the end of the column, there was a certain space between the
+      last rank of the soldiers who formed the line, and the first rank of the
+      company which closed the procession.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As they reached the lonely boulevard of Gros-Caillon, of which we have
+      just spoken, the sergeant drew near to the prisoner, and said to him in a
+      rapid and low tone,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "One can hardly see here. It is a dark spot. On the left there are trees.
+      Be off!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But," said the prisoner, "they will fire at me."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "They will miss you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But suppose they kill me?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It will be no worse than what awaits you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The prisoner understood, shook the sergeant's hand, and taking advantage
+      of the space between the line of soldiers and rear-ground, rushed with a
+      single bound outside the column, and disappeared in the darkness beneath
+      the trees.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A man is escaping!" cried out the officer who commanded the last company.
+      "Halt! Fire!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The column halted. The rear-guard company fired at random in the direction
+      taken by the fugitive, and, as the sergeant had foreseen, missed him. In a
+      few moments the fugitive had reached the streets adjoining the tobacco
+      manufactory, and had plunged into them. They did not pursue him. They had
+      more pressing work on hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Besides, confusion might have arisen in their ranks, and to recapture one
+      they risked letting the 336 escape.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The column continued its march. Having reached the Pont d'Iéna, they
+      turned to the left, and entered into the Champ de Mars.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There they shot them all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These 336 corpses were amongst those which were carried to Montmartre
+      Cemetery, and which were buried there with their heads exposed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In this manner their families were enabled to recognize them. The
+      Government learned who they were after killing them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Amongst these 336 victims were a large number of the combatants of the Rue
+      Pagevin and the Rue Rambuteau, of the Rue Neuve Saint Eustache and the
+      Porte Saint Denis. There were also 100 passers-by, whom they had arrested
+      because they happened to be there, and without any particular reason.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Besides, we will at once mention that the wholesale executions from the 3d
+      inst. were renewed nearly every night. Sometimes at the Champ de Mars,
+      sometimes at the Prefecture of Police, sometimes at both places at once.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the prisons were full, M. de Maupas said "Shoot!" The fusillades at
+      the Prefecture took place sometimes in the courtyard, sometimes in the Rue
+      de Jérusalem. The unfortunate people whom they shot were placed against
+      the wall which bears the theatrical notices. They had chosen this spot
+      because it is close by the sewer-grating of the gutter, so that the blood
+      would run down at once, and would leave fewer traces. On Friday, the 5th,
+      they shot near this gutter of the Rue de Jérusalem 150 prisoners. Some one<a
+      href="#linknoteref-30" name="linknote-30" id="linknote-30"><small>30</small></a>
+      said to me, "On the next day I passed by there, they showed the spot; I
+      dug between the paving-stones with the toe of my boot, and I stirred up
+      the mud. I found blood."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This expression forms the whole history of the <i>coup d'état</i>, and
+      will form the whole history of Louis Bonaparte. Stir up this mud, you will
+      find blood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Let this then be known to History:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The massacre of the boulevard had this infamous continuation, the secret
+      executions. The <i>coup d'état</i> after having been ferocious became
+      mysterious. It passed from impudent murder in broad day to hidden murder
+      at night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Evidence abounds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Esquiros, hidden in the Gros-Caillou, heard the fusillades on the Champ de
+      Mars every night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At Mazas, Chambolle, on the second night of his incarceration, heard from
+      midnight till five o'clock in the morning, such volleys that he thought
+      the prison was attacked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Like Montferrier, Desmoulins bore evidence to blood between the
+      paving-stones of the Rue de Jérusalem.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lieutenant-Colonel Cailland, of the ex-Republican Guard, is crossing the
+      Pont Neuf; he sees some <i>sergents de ville</i> with muskets to their
+      shoulders, aiming at the passers-by; he says to them, "You dishonor the
+      uniform." They arrest him. They search him. A <i>sergent de ville</i> says
+      to him, "If we find a cartridge upon you, we shall shoot you." They find
+      nothing. They take him to the Prefecture of Police, they shut him up in
+      the station-house. The director of the station-house comes and says to
+      him, "Colonel, I know you well. Do not complain of being here. You are
+      confided to my care. Congratulate yourself on it. Look here, I am one of
+      the family, I go and I come, I see, I listen; I know what is going on; I
+      know what is said; I divine what is not said. I hear certain noises during
+      the night; I see contain traces in the morning. As for myself I am not a
+      bad fellow. I am taking care of you. I am keeping you out of the way. At
+      the present moment be contented to remain with me. If you were not here
+      you would be underground."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An ex-magistrate, General Leflô's brother-in-law, is conversing on the
+      Pont de la Concorde with some officers before the steps of the Chamber;
+      some policemen come up to him: "You are tampering with the army." He
+      protests, they throw him into a vehicle, and they take him to the
+      Prefecture of Police. As he arrives there he sees a young man, in a blouse
+      and a cap, passing on the quay, who is being shoved along by three
+      municipal guards with the butt-ends of their muskets. At an opening of the
+      parapet, a guard shouts to him, "Go in there." The man goes in. Two guards
+      shoot him in the back. He falls. The third guard despatches him with a
+      shot in his ear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the 13th the massacres were not yet at an end. On the morning of that
+      day, in the dim light of the dawn, a solitary passer-by, going along the
+      Rue Saint Honoré, saw, between two lines of horse-soldiers, three wagons
+      wending their way, heavily loaded. These wagons could be traced by the
+      stains of blood which dripped from them. They came from the Champ de Mars,
+      and were going to the Montmartre Cemetery. They were full of corpses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a href="#linknote-29" name="linknoteref-29" id="linknoteref-29_"><small>29</small></a>
+      <i>It was this same Criscelli, who later on at Vaugirard in the Rue du
+      Trancy, killed by special order of the Prefect of Police a man named Kech,
+      "suspected of plotting the assassination of the Emperor."</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a href="#linknote-30" name="linknoteref-30" id="linknoteref-30_"><small>30</small></a>
+      <i>The Marquis Sarrazin de Montferrier, a relative of my eldest brother. I
+      can now mention his name.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0055" id="link2HCH0055"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VI. THE CONSULTATIVE COMMITTEE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Al danger being over, all scruples vanished. Prudent and wise people could
+      now give their adherence to the <i>coup d'état</i>, they allowed their
+      names to be posted up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here is the placard:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  "FRENCH REPUBLIC.
+
+  "<i>In the name of the French People</i>.
+
+  "The President of the Republic,
+
+  "Wishing, until the reorganization of the Legislative Body and the
+  Council of State, to be surrounded by men who justly possess the esteem
+  and the confidence of the country,
+
+  "Has created a Consultative committee, which is composed of MM.&mdash;
+
+  "Abbatucci, ex-Councillor of the Court of Cassation (of the Loiret).
+  General Achard (of the Moselle).
+  André, Ernest (of the Seine).
+  André (of the Charente).
+  D'Argout, Governor of the Bank, ex-Minister.
+  General Arrighi of Padua (of Corsica).
+  General de Bar (of the Seine).
+  General Baraguay-d'Hilliers (of Doubs).
+  Barbaroux, ex-Procureur-General (of the Réunion).
+  Baroche, ex-Minister of the Interior and of Foreign Affairs,
+      Vice-President of the Committee (of the Charente-Inférieure).
+  Barret (Ferdinand), ex-Minister (of the Seine).
+  Barthe, ex-Minister, first President (of the Cour de Comptes).
+  Bataille (of the Haute-Vienne).
+  Bavoux (Evariste) (of the Seine-et-Marne).
+  De Beaumont (of the Somme).
+  Bérard (of the Lot-et-Garonne).
+  Berger, Prefect of the Seine (of Puy-de-Dôme).
+  Bertrand (of the Yonne).
+  Bidault (of the Cher).
+  Bigrel (of the Côtes-du-Nord).
+  Billault, barrister.
+  Bineau, ex-Minister (of the Maine-et-Loire).
+  Boinvilliers, ex-President of the body of barristers (of the Seine).
+  Bonjean, Attorney-General of the Court of Cassation (of the Drome).
+  Boulatignier.
+  Bourbousson (of Vaucluse).
+  Bréhier (of the Manche).
+  De Cambacérès (Hubert).
+  De Cambacérès (of the Aisne).
+  Carlier, ex-Prefect of Police.
+  De Casabianca, ex-Minister (of Corsica).
+  General de Castellane, Commander-in-Chief at Lyons.
+  De Caulaincourt (of Calvados).
+  Vice-Admiral Cécile (of the Seine-Inférieure).
+  Chadenet (of the Meuse).
+  Charlemagne (of the Indre).
+  Chassaigne-Goyon (of Puy de Dôme).
+  General de Chasseloup-Laubat (of the Seine-Inférieure).
+  Prosper de Chasseloup-Laubat (Charente-Inférieure).
+  Chaix d'Est-Ange, Barrister of Paris (of the Marne).
+  De Chazelles, Mayor of Clermont-Ferrand (of Puy-de-Dôme).
+  Collas (of the Gironde).
+  De Crouseilhes, ex-Councillor of the Court of Cassation, ex-Minister
+      (of the Basses-Pyrénées).
+  Curial (of the Orne).
+  De Cuverville (of the Côtes-du-Nord).
+  Dabeaux (of the Haute-Garonne).
+  Dariste (of the Basses-Pyrénées).
+  Daviel, ex-Minister.
+  Delacoste, ex-Commissary-General (of the Rhône).
+  Delajus (of the Charente-Inférieure).
+  Delavau (of the Indre).
+  Deltheil (of the Lot).
+  Denjoy (of the Gironde).
+  Desjobert (of the Seine-Inférieure).
+  Desmaroux (of the Allier).
+  Drouyn de Lhuys, ex-Minister (of the Seine-et-Marne).
+  Théodore Ducos, Minister of the Marine and of the Colonies (of the
+      Seine).
+  Dumas (of the Institut) ex-Minister (of the Nord).
+  Charles Dupin, of the Institut (of the Seine-Inférieure).
+  General Durrieu (of the Landes).
+  Maurice Duval, ex-Prefect.
+  Eschassériaux (of the Charente-Inférieure).
+  Marshal Excelmans, Grand Chancellor of the Legion of Honor.
+  Ferdinand Favre (of the Loire-Inférieure) General de Flahaut,
+      ex-Ambassador.
+  Fortoul, Minister of Public Instruction (of the Basses-Alpes).
+  Achille Fould, Minister of Finance (of the Seine).
+  De Fourment (of the Somme).
+  Fouquier-d'Hérouël (of the Aisne).
+  Fremy (of the Yonne).
+  Furtado (of the Seine).
+  Gasc (of the Haute Garonne).
+  Gaslonde (of the Manche).
+  De Gasparin (ex-Minister).
+  Ernest de Girardin (of the Charente).
+  Augustin Giraud (of Maine-et-Loire).
+  Charles Giraud, of the Institut, member of the Court of Public
+      Instruction, ex-Minister.
+  Godelle (of the Aisne).
+  Goulhot de Saint-Germain (of the Manche).
+  General de Grammont (of the Loire).
+  De Grammont (of the Haute-Saône).
+  De Greslan (of the Réunion).
+  General de Grouchy (of the Gironde).
+  Kallez Claparède (of the Bas-Rhin).
+  General d'Hautpoul, ex-Minister (of the Aude).
+  Hébert (of the Aisne).
+  De Heeckeren (of the Haut-Rhin).
+  D'Hérembault (of the Pas-de-Calais).
+  Hermann.
+  Heurtier (of the Loire).
+  General Husson (of the Aube).
+  Janvier (of the Tarn-et-Garonne).
+  Lacaze (of the Hautes-Pyrénées).
+  Lacrosse, ex-Minister (of Finistère).
+  Ladoucette (of the Moselle).
+  Frédéric de Lagrange (of the Gers).
+  De Lagrange (of the Gironde).
+  General de La Hitte, ex-Minister.
+  Delangle, ex-Attorney-General.
+  Lanquetin, President of the Municipal Commission.
+  De la Riboissière (of Ille-et-Vilaine).
+  General Lawoestine.
+  Lebeuf (of the Seine-et-Marne).
+  Genéral Lebreton (of the Eure-et-Loir).
+  Le Comte (of the Yonne).
+  Le Conte (of the Côtes-du-Nord).
+  Lefebvre-Duruflé, Minister of Commerce (of the Eure).
+  Lélut (of the Haute-Saône).
+  Lemarois (of the Manche).
+  Lemercier (of the Charente). Lequien (of the Pas-de-Calais).
+  Lestiboudois (of the Nord).
+  Levavasseur (of the Seine-Inférieure).
+  Le Verrier (of the Manche).
+  Lezay de Marnésia (of Loir-et-Cher).
+  General Magnan, Commander-in-chief of the Army of Paris.
+  Magne, Minister of Public Works (of the Dordogne).
+  Edmond Maigne (of the Dordogne).
+  Marchant (of the Nord).
+  Mathieu Bodet, Barrister at the Court of Cassation.
+  De Maupas, Prefect of Police.
+  De Mérode (of the Nord).
+  Mesnard, President of the Chamber of the Court of Cassation.
+  Meynadier, ex-Prefect (of the Lozère).
+  De Montalembert (of the Doubs).
+  De Morny (of the Puy-de-Dôme).
+  De Mortemart (of the Seine-Inférieure).
+  De Mouchy (of the Oise).
+  De Moustiers (of the Doubs).
+  Lucien Murat (of the Lot).
+  General d'Ornano (of the Indre-et-Loire).
+  Pepin Lehalleur (of the Seine-et-Marne).
+  Joseph Périer, Governor of the Bank.
+  De Persigny (of the Nord).
+  Pichon, Mayor of Arras (of the Pas de Calais).
+  Portalis, First President of the Court of Cassation.
+  Pongerard, Mayor of Pennes (of the Ille-et-Vilaine).
+  General de Préval.
+  De Rancé (of Algeria).
+  General Randon, ex-Minister, Governor-General of Algeria.
+  General Regnauld de Saint-Jean-d'Angély, ex-Minister (of the
+      Charente-Inférieure).
+  Renouard de Bussière (of the Bas-Rhin).
+  Renouard (of the Lozère).
+  General Rogé.
+  Rouher, Keeper of the Seals, Minister of Justice (of the Puy-de-Dôme).
+  De Royer, ex-Minister, Attorney-General at the Court of Appeal of
+      Paris.
+  General de Saint-Arnaud, Minister of War.
+  De Saint-Arnaud, Barrister at the Court of Appeal of Paris.
+  De Salis (of the Moselle).
+  Sapey (of the Isère).
+  Schneider, ex-Minister.
+  De Ségur d'Aguesseau (of the Hautes-Pyréneés).
+  Seydoux (of the Nord).
+  Amédée Thayer.
+  Thieullen (of the Côtes-du-Nord).
+  De Thorigny, ex-Minister.
+  Toupot de Béveaux (of the Haute-Marne).
+  Tourangin, ex-Prefect. Troplong, First President of the Court of
+      Appeal.
+  De Turgot, Minister for Foreign Affairs.
+  Vaillant, Marshal of France.
+  Vaisse, ex-Minister (of the Nord).
+  De Vandeul (of the Haute-Marne).
+  General Vast-Vimeux (of the Charente-Inférieure).
+  Vauchelle, Mayor of Versailles.
+  Viard (of the Meurthe).
+  Vieillard (of the Manche).
+  Vuillefroy.
+  Vuitry, Under-Secretary of State at the Ministry of Finance De Wagram.
+
+  "The President of the Republic,
+
+  "LOUIS NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.
+
+  "Minister of the Interior, DE MORNY."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The name of Bourbousson is found on this list.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It would be a pity if this name were lost.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the same time as this placard appeared the protest of M. Daru, as
+      follows:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  "I approve of the proceedings of the National Assembly at the Mairie
+  of the Tenth Arrondissement on the 2d of December, 1851, in which I was
+  hindered from participating by force.
+
+  "DARU."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Some of these members of the Consultative Committee came from Mazas or
+      from Mount Valerien. They had been detained in a cell for four-and-twenty
+      hours, and then released. It may be seen that these legislators bore
+      little malice to the man who had made them undergo this disagreeable taste
+      of the law.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Many of the personages comprised in this menagerie possessed no other
+      renown but the outcry caused by their debts, clamoring around them. Such a
+      one had been twice declared bankrupt, but this extenuating circumstance
+      was added, "not under his own name:" Another who belonged to a literary or
+      scientific circle was reputed to have sold his vote. A third, who was
+      handsome, elegant, fashionable, dandified, polished, gilded, embroidered,
+      owed his prosperity to a connection which indicated a filthiness of soul.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such people as these gave their adherence with little hesitation to the
+      deed which "saved society."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Some others, amongst those who composed this mosaic, possessed no
+      political enthusiasm, and merely consented to figure in this list in order
+      to keep their situations and their salaries; they were under the Empire
+      what they had been before the Empire, neuters, and during the nineteen
+      years of the reign, they continued to exercise their military, judicial,
+      or administrative functions unobtrusively, surrounded with the right and
+      proper respect due to inoffensive idiots.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Others were genuine politicians, belonging to that learned school which
+      begins with Guizot, and does not finish with Parieu, grave physicians of
+      social order, who reassure the frightened middle-classes, and who preserve
+      dead things.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  "Shall I lose my eye?" asked Messer Pancrace.
+  "Not at all, my friend, I hold it in my hand."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      In this quasi Council of State there were a goodly number of men of the
+      Police, a race of beings then held in esteem, Carlier, Piétri, Maupas,
+      etc.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Shortly after the 2d of December under the title of Mixed Commissions, the
+      police substituted itself for justice, drew up judgments, pronounced
+      sentences, violated every law judicially without the regular magistracy
+      interposing the slightest obstacle to this irregular magistracy: Justice
+      allowed the police to do what it liked with the satisfied look of a team
+      of horses which had just been relieved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Some of the men inscribed on the list of this commission refused: Léon
+      Faucher Goulard, Mortemart, Frédéric Granier, Marchand, Maillard Paravay,
+      Beugnot. The newspapers received orders not to publish these refusals.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      M. Beugnot inscribed on his card: "Count Beugnot, who does not belong to
+      the Consultative Committee."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      M. Joseph Périer went from corner to corner of the streets, pencil in
+      hand, scratching out his name from all the placards, saying, "I shall take
+      back my name wherever I find it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      General Baraguay d'Hilliers did not refuse. A brave soldier nevertheless;
+      he had lost an arm in the Russian war. Later on, he has been Marshall of
+      France; he deserved better than to have been created a Marshal by Louis
+      Bonaparte. It did not appear likely that he would have come to this.
+      During the last days of November General Baraguay d'Hilliers, seated in a
+      large arm-chair before the high fireplace of the Conference Hall of the
+      National Assembly, was warming himself; some one, one of his colleagues,
+      he who is writing these lines, sat down near him on the other side of the
+      fireplace. They did not speak to each other, one belonging to the Right,
+      the other to the Left; but M. Piscatory came in, who belonged a little to
+      the Right and a little to the Left. He addressed himself to Baraguay
+      d'Hilliers: "Well, general, do you know what they are saying?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That one of these days the President will shut the door in our faces."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      General Baraguay d'Hilliers answered, and I heard the answer,&mdash;"If M.
+      Bonaparte should close the door of the Assembly against us, France will
+      fling it wide open again."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Louis Bonaparte at one moment thought of entitling this committee the
+      "Executive Commission." "No," said Morny to him, "that would be to credit
+      them with courage. They will willingly be supporters; they will not be
+      proscribers."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      General Rulhière was dismissed for having blamed the passive obedience of
+      the army.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Let us here mention an incident. Some days after the 4th of December,
+      Emmanuel Arago met M. Dupin, who was going up the Faubourg Saint Honoré.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What!" said Arago, "are you going to the Elysée?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      M. Dupin answered, "I never go to disreputable houses."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet he went there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      M. Dupin, it may be remembered, was appointed Attorney-General at the
+      Court of Cessation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0056" id="link2HCH0056"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VII. THE OTHER LIST
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Opposite to the list of adherents should be placed the list of the
+      proscribed. In this manner the two sides of the <i>coup d'état</i> can be
+      seen at a glance.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  "DECREE.
+
+  "ARTICLE I.&mdash;The ex-Representatives of the Assembly, whose names are
+  found beneath, are expelled from French territory, from Algeria, and
+  from the Colonies, for the sake of public safety:&mdash;
+
+  "Edmond Valentine.          Charrassin.
+  Paul Racouchot.             Bandsept.
+  Agricol Perdiguier.         Savoye.
+  Eugène Cholat.              Joly.
+  Louis Latrade.              Combier.
+  Michel Renaud.              Boysset.
+  Joseph Benoist (du Rhône).  Duché.
+  Joseph Burgard.             Ennery.
+  Jean Colfavru.              Guilgot.
+  Joseph Faure (du Rhone).    Hochstuhl.
+  Pierre-Charles Gambon.      Michot Boutet.
+  Charles Lagrange.           Baune.
+  Martin Nadaud.              Bertholon.
+  Barthélemy Terrier.         Schoelcher.
+  Victor Hugo.                De Flotte.
+  Cassal.                     Joigneaux.
+  Signard.                    Laboulaye.
+  Viguier.                    Bruys.
+  Esquiros.                   Gaston Dussoubs.
+  Madier de Montjau.          Guiter.
+  Noël Parfait.               Lafon.
+  Emile Péan.                 Lamarque.
+  Pelletier.                  Pierre Lafranc.
+  Raspail.                    Jules Leroux.
+  Théodore Bac.               Francisque Maigne.
+  Bancel.                     Malardier.
+  Belin (Drôme).              Mathieu (de la Drôme).
+  Bosse.                      Millotte.
+  Bourzat.                    Roselli-Mollet.
+  Brive.                      Charras.
+  Chavoix.                    Saint-Ferreol.
+  Clément Dulac.              Sommier.
+  Dupout (de Bussac).         Testelin (Nord).
+
+  "ARTICLE II.&mdash;In the event, contrary to the present decree, of one of
+  the persons named in Article I. re-entering the prohibited limits, he
+  may be transported for the sake of public safety.
+
+  "Given at the Palace of the Tuileries, at the Cabinet Council assembled,
+  January 9th, 1852.
+
+  "LOUIS BONAPARTE.
+
+  "DE MORNY, Minister of the Interior."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      There was besides a list of the "provisionally exiled," on which figured
+      Edward Quinet, Victor Chauffour, General Laidet, Pascal Duprat, Versigny,
+      Antony Thouret, Thiers, Girardin, and Rémusat. Four Representatives,
+      Mathé, Greppo, Marc-Dufraisse, and Richardet, were added to the list of
+      the "expelled." Representative Miot was reserved for the tortures of the
+      casemates of Africa. Thus in addition to the massacres, the victory of the
+      <i>coup d'état</i> was paid for by these figures: eighty-eight
+      Representatives proscribed, one killed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I usually dined at Brussels in a café, called the Café des Mille Colonnes,
+      which was frequented by the exiles. On the 10th of January I had invited
+      Michel de Bourges to lunch, and we were sitting at the same table. The
+      waiter brought me the <i>Moniteur Français</i>; I glanced over it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ah," said I, "here is the list of the proscribed." I ran my eye over it,
+      and I said to Michel de Bourges, "I have a piece of bad news to tell you."
+      Michel de Bourges turned pale. I added, "You are not on the list." His
+      face brightened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Michel de Bourges, so dauntless in the face of death, was faint-hearted in
+      the face of exile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0057" id="link2HCH0057"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VIII. DAVID D'ANGERS
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Brutalities and ferocities were mingled together. The great sculptor,
+      David d'Angers, was arrested in his own house, 16, Rue d'Assas; the
+      Commissary of Police on entering, said to him,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Have you any arms in your house?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes," Said David, "for my defence."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And he added,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If I had to deal with civilized people."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Where are these arms?" rejoined the Commissary. "Let us see them."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      David showed him his studio full of masterpieces.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They placed him in a <i>fiacre</i>, and drove him to the station-house of
+      the Prefecture of Police.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Although there was only space for 120 prisoners, there were 700 there.
+      David was the twelfth in a dungeon intended for two. No light nor air. A
+      narrow ventilation hole above their heads. A dreadful tub in a corner,
+      common to all, covered but not closed by a wooden lid. At noon they
+      brought them soup, a sort of warm and stinking water, David told me. They
+      stood leaning against the wall, and trampled upon the mattresses which had
+      been thrown on the floor, not having room to lie down on them. At length,
+      however, they pressed so closely to each other, that they succeeded in
+      lying down at full length. Their jailers had thrown them some blankets.
+      Some of them slept. At day break the bolts creaked, the door was
+      half-opened and the jailers cried out to them, "Get up!" They went into
+      the adjoining corridor, the jailer took up the mattresses, threw a few
+      buckets of water on the floor, wiped it up anyhow, replaced the mattresses
+      on the damp stones, and said to them, "Go back again." They locked them up
+      until the next morning. From time to time they brought in 100 new
+      prisoners, and they fetched away 100 old ones (those who had been there
+      for two or three days). What became of them?&mdash;At night the prisoners
+      could hear from their dungeon the sound of explosions, and in the morning
+      passers-by could see, as we have stated, pools of blood in the courtyard
+      of the Prefecture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The calling over of those who went out was conducted in alphabetical
+      order.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One day they called David d'Angers. David took up his packet, and was
+      getting ready to leave, when the governor of the jail, who seemed to be
+      keeping watch over him, suddenly came up and said quickly, "Stay, M.
+      David, stay."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One morning he saw Buchez, the ex-President of the Constituent Assembly,
+      coming into his cell "Ah!" said David, "good! you have come to visit the
+      prisoners?"&mdash;"I am a prisoner," said Buchez.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They wished to insist on David leaving for America. He refused. They
+      contented themselves with Belgium. On the 19th December he reached
+      Brussels. He came to see me, and said to me, "I am lodging at the Grand
+      Monarque, 89, Rue des Fripiers."<a href="#linknoteref-31"
+      name="linknote-31" id="linknote-31"><small>31</small></a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And he added laughing, "The Great Monarch&mdash;the King. The old
+      clothesmen&mdash;the Royalists, '89. The Revolution." Chance occasionally
+      furnishes some wit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a href="#linknote-31" name="linknoteref-31" id="linknoteref-31_"><small>31</small></a>
+      <i>Anglice, "old clothes men.</i>"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0058" id="link2HCH0058"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IX. OUR LAST MEETING
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      On the 3d of December everything was coming in in our favor. On the 5th
+      everything was receding from us. It was like a mighty sea which was going
+      out. The tide had come in gloriously, it went out disastrously. Gloomy ebb
+      and flow of the people.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And who was the power who said to this ocean, "Thou shalt go no farther?"
+      Alas! a pigmy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These hiding-places of the abyss are fathomless.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The abyss is afraid. Of what?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of something deeper than itself. Of the Crime.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The people drew back. They drew back on the 5th; on the 6th they
+      disappeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the horizon there could be seen nothing but the beginning of a species
+      of vast night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This night has been the Empire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We found ourselves on the 5th what we were on the 2d. Alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But we persevered. Our mental condition was this&mdash;desperate, yes;
+      discouraged, no.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Items of bad news came to us as good news had come to us on the evening of
+      the 3d, one after another. Aubry du Nord was at the Concièrgerie. Our dear
+      and eloquent Crémieux was at Mazas. Louis Blanc, who, although banished,
+      was coming to the assistance of France, and was bringing to us the great
+      power of his name and of his mind, had been compelled, like Ledru Rollin,
+      to halt before the catastrophe of the 4th. He had not been able to get
+      beyond Tournay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As for General Neumayer, he had not "marched upon Paris," but he had come
+      there. For what purpose? To give in his submission.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We no longer possessed a refuge. No. 15, Rue Richelieu, was watched, No.
+      11, Rue Monthabor, had been denounced. We wandered about Paris, meeting
+      each other here and there, and exchanging a few words in a whisper, not
+      knowing where we should sleep, or whether we should get a meal; and
+      amongst those heads which did not know what pillow they should have at
+      night there was at least one upon which a price was set.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They accosted each other, and this is the sort of conversation they held:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What has became of So-and-So?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He is arrested."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And So-and-So?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Dead."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And So-and-So?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Disappeared."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We held, however, one other meeting. This was on the 6th, at the house of
+      the Representative Raymond, in the Place de la Madeleine. Nearly all of us
+      met there. I was enabled to shake the hands of Edgar Quinet, of Chauffour,
+      of Clément Dulac, of Bancel, of Versigny, of Emile Péan, and I again met
+      our energetic and honest host of the Rue Blanche, Coppens, and our
+      courageous colleague, Pons Stande, whom we had lost sight of in the smoke
+      of the battle. From the windows of the room where we were deliberating we
+      could see the Place de la Madeleine and the Boulevards militarily
+      occupied, and covered with a fierce and deep mass of soldiers drawn up in
+      battle order, and which still seemed to face a possible combat. Charamaule
+      came in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He drew two pistols from his great cloak, placed them on the table, and
+      said, "All is at an end. Nothing feasible and sensible remains, except a
+      deed of rashness. I propose it. Are you of my opinion, Victor Hugo?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes," I answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not know what he was going to say, but I knew that he would only say
+      that which was noble.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was his proposition.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We number," resumed he, "about fifty Representatives of the People, still
+      standing and assembled together. We are all that remains of the National
+      Assembly, of Universal Suffrage, of the Law, of Right. To-morrow, where
+      shall we be? We do not know. Scattered or dead. The hour of to-day is
+      ours; this hour gone and past, we have nothing left but the shadow. The
+      opportunity is unique. Let us profit by it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He stopped, looked at us fixedly with his steadfast gaze, and resumed,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Let us take the advantage of this chance of being alive and the good
+      fortune of being together. The group which is here is the whole of the
+      Republic. Well, then; let us offer in our persons all the Republic to the
+      army, and let us make the army fall back before the Republic, and Might
+      fall back before Right. In that supreme moment one of the two must
+      tremble, Might or Right, and if Right does not tremble Might will tremble.
+      If we do not tremble the soldiers will tremble. Let us march upon the
+      Crime. If the Law advances, the Crime will draw back. In either case we
+      shall have done our duty. Living, we shall be preservers, dead, we shall
+      be heroes. This is what I propose."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A profound silence ensued.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Let us put on our sashes, and let us all go down in a procession, two by
+      two, into the Place de la Madeleine. You can see that Colonel before that
+      large flight of steps, with his regiment in battle array; we will go to
+      him, and there, before his soldiers, I will summon him to come over to the
+      side of duty, and to restore his regiment to the Republic. If he refuses
+      ..."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Charamaule took his two pistols in his hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "... I will blow out his brains."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Charamaule," said I, "I will be by your side."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I knew that well," Charamaule said to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He added,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This explosion will awaken the people."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But," several cried out, "suppose it does not awaken them?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We shall die."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I am on your side," said I to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We each pressed the other's hand. But objections burst forth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No one trembled, but all criticised the proposal. Would it not be madness?
+      And useless madness? Would it not be to play the last card of the Republic
+      without any possible chance of success? What good fortune for Bonaparte!
+      To crush with one blow all that remained of those who were resisting and
+      of those who were combating! To finish with them once for all! We were
+      beaten, granted, but was it necessary to add annihilation to defeat? No
+      possible chance of success. The brains of an army cannot be blown out. To
+      do what Charamaule advised would be to open the tomb, nothing more. It
+      would be a magnificent suicide, but it would be a suicide. Under certain
+      circumstances it is selfish to be merely a hero. A man accomplishes it at
+      once, he becomes illustrious, he enters into history, all that is very
+      easy. He leaves to others behind him the laborious work of a long protest,
+      the immovable resistance of the exile, the bitter, hard life of the
+      conquered who continues to combat the victory. Some degree of patience
+      forms a part of politics. To know how to await revenge is sometimes more
+      difficult than to hurry on its catastrophe. There are two kinds of courage&mdash;bravery
+      and perseverance; the first belongs to the soldier, the second belongs to
+      the citizen. A hap-hazard end, however dauntless, does not suffice. To
+      extricate oneself from the difficulty by death, it is only too easily
+      done: what is required, what is the reverse of easy, is to extricate one's
+      country from the difficulty. No, said those high-minded men, who opposed
+      Charamaule and myself, this to-day which you propose to us is the
+      suppression of to-morrow; take care, there is a certain amount of
+      desertion in suicide....
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The word "desertion" grievously wounded Charamaule. "Very well," said he,
+      "I abandon the idea."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This scene was exceedingly grand, and Quinet later on, when in exile,
+      spoke to me of it with deep emotion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We separated. We did not meet again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I wandered about the streets. Where should I sleep? That was the question.
+      I thought that No. 19, Rue Richelieu would probably be as much watched as
+      No. 15. But the night was cold, and I decided at all hazards to re-enter
+      this refuge, although perhaps a hazardous one. I was right to trust myself
+      to it. I supped on a morsel of bread, and I passed a very good night. The
+      next morning at daybreak on waking I thought of the duties which awaited
+      me. I thought that I was abut to go out, and that I should probably not
+      come back to the room; I took a little bread which remained, and I
+      crumbled it on the window-sill for the birds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0059" id="link2HCH0059"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER X. DUTY CAN HAVE TWO ASPECTS
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Had it been in the power of the Left at any moment to prevent the <i>coup
+      d'état</i>?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We do not think so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nevertheless here is a fact which we believe we ought not to pass by in
+      silence. On the 16th November, 1851, I was in my study at home at 37, Rue
+      de la Tour d'Auvergne; it was about midnight. I was working. My servant
+      opened the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Will you see M. &mdash;&mdash;, sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And he mentioned a name.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes," I said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Some one came in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I shall only speak reservedly of this eminent and distinguished man. Let
+      it suffice to state that he had the right to say when mentioning the
+      Bonapartes "my family."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is known that the Bonaparte family is divided into two branches, the
+      Imperial family and the private family. The Imperial family had the
+      tradition of Napoleon, the private family had the tradition of Lucien: a
+      shade of difference which, however, had no reality about it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My midnight visitor took the other corner of the fireplace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He began by speaking to me of the memoirs of a very highminded and
+      virtuous woman, the Princess &mdash;&mdash;, his mother, the manuscript of
+      which he had confided to me, asking my advice as to the utility or the
+      suitability of their publication; this manuscript, besides being full of
+      interest, possessed for me a special charm, because the handwriting of the
+      Princess resembled my mother's handwriting. My visitor, to whom I gave it
+      back, turned over the leaves for a few moments, and then suddenly
+      interrupting himself, he turned to me and said,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The Republic is lost."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I answered,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Almost."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He resumed,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Unless you save it."
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      "I?"
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      "You."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "How so?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Listen to me."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he set forth with that clearness, complicated at times with
+      paradoxes, which is one of the resources of his remarkable mind, the
+      situation, at the same time desperate and strong, in which we were placed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This situation, which moreover I realized as well as he himself, was this:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Right of the Assembly was composed of about 400 members, and the Left
+      of about 180. The four hundred of the majority belonged by thirds to three
+      parties, the Legitimist party, the Orleanist party, the Bonapartist party,
+      and in a body to the Clerical party. The 180 of the minority belonged to
+      the Republic. The Right mistrusted the Left, and had taken a precaution
+      against the minority.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A Vigilance Committee, composed of sixteen members of the Right, charged
+      with impressing unity upon this trinity of parties, and charged with the
+      task of carefully watching the Left, such was this precaution. The Left at
+      first had confined itself to irony, and borrowing from me a word to which
+      people then attached, though wrongly, the idea of decrepitude, had called
+      the sixteen Commissioners the "Burgraves." The irony subsequently turning
+      into suspicion, the Left had on its side ended by creating a committee of
+      sixteen members to direct the Left, and observe the Right; these the Right
+      had hastened to name the "Red Burgraves." A harmless rejoinder. The result
+      was that the Right watched the Left, and that the Left watched the Right,
+      but that no one watched Bonaparte. They were two flocks of sheep so
+      distrustful of one another that they forgot the wolf. During that time, in
+      his den at the Elysée, Bonaparte was working. He was busily employing the
+      time which the Assembly, the majority and the minority, was losing in
+      mistrusting itself. As people feel the loosening of the avalanche, so they
+      felt the catastrophe tottering in the gloom. They kept watch upon the
+      enemy, but they did not turn their attention in the true direction. To
+      know where to fix one's mistrust is the secret of a great politician. The
+      Assembly of 1851 did not possess this shrewd certainty of eyesight, their
+      perspective was bad, each saw the future after his own fashion, and a sort
+      of political short-sightedness blinded the Left as well as the Right; they
+      were afraid, but not where fear was advisable; they were in the presence
+      of a mystery, they had an ambuscade before them, but they sought it where
+      it did not exist, and they did not perceive where it really lay. Thus it
+      was that these two flocks of sheep, the majority, and the minority faced
+      each other affrightedly, and while the leaders on one side and the guides
+      on the other, grave and attentive, asked themselves anxiously what could
+      be the mewing of the grumbling, of the Left on the one side, of the
+      bleatings of the Right on the other, they ran the risk of suddenly feeling
+      the four claws of the <i>coup d'état</i> fastened in their shoulders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My visitor said to me,-
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You are one of the Sixteen!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes," answered I, smiling; "a 'Red Burgrave.'"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Like me, a 'Red Prince.'"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And his smile responded to mine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He resumed,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You have full powers?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes. Like the others."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And I added,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not more than the others. The Left has no leaders."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He continued,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yon, the Commissary of Police, is a Republican?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He would obey an order signed by you?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Possibly."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "<i>I</i> say, without doubt."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked at me fixedly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, then, have the President arrested this night."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was now my turn to look at him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What do you mean?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What I say."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I ought to state that his language was frank, resolute, and
+      self-convinced, and that during the whole of this conversation, and now,
+      and always, it has given me the impression of honesty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Arrest the President!" I cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he set forth that this extraordinary enterprise was an easy matter;
+      that the Army was undecided; that in the Army the African Generals
+      counterpoised the President; that the National Guard favored the Assembly,
+      and in the Assembly the Left; that Colonel Forestier answered for the 8th
+      Legion; Colonel Gressier for the 6th, and Colonel Howyne for the 5th; that
+      at the order of the Sixteen of the Left there would be an immediate taking
+      up of arms; that my signature would suffice; that, nevertheless, if I
+      preferred to call together the Committee, in Secret Session, we could wait
+      till the next day; that on the order from the Sixteen, a battalion would
+      march upon the Elysée; that the Elysée apprehended nothing, thought only
+      of offensive, and not of defensive measures, and accordingly would be
+      taken by surprise; that the soldiers would not resist the National Guard;
+      that the thing would be done without striking a blow; that Vincennes would
+      open and close while Paris slept; that the President would finish his
+      night there, and that France, on awakening, would learn the twofold good
+      tidings: that Bonaparte was out of the fight, and France out of danger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He added,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You can count on two Generals: Neumayer at Lyons, and Lawoëstyne at
+      Paris."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He got up and leaned against the chimney-piece; I can still see him there,
+      standing thoughtfully; and he continued:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I do not feel myself strong enough to begin exile all over again, but I
+      feel the wish to save my family and my country."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He probably thought he noticed a movement of surprise in me, for he
+      accentuated and italicized these words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I will explain myself. Yes; I wish to save my family and my country. I
+      bear the name of Napoleon; but as you know without fanaticism. I am a
+      Bonaparte, but not a Bonapartist. I respect the name, but I judge it. It
+      already has one stain. The Eighteenth Brumaire. Is it about to have
+      another? The old stain disappeared beneath the glory; Austerlitz covered
+      Brumaire. Napoleon was absolved by his genius. The people admired him so
+      greatly that it forgave him. Napoleon is upon the column, there is an end
+      of it, let them leave him there in peace. Let them not resuscitate him
+      through his bad qualities. Let them not compel France to remember too
+      much. This glory of Napoleon is vulnerable. It has a wound; closed, I
+      admit. Do not let them reopen it. Whatever apologists may say and do, it
+      is none the less true that by the Eighteenth of Brumaire Napoleon struck
+      himself a first blow."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "In truth," said I, "it is ever against ourselves that we commit a crime."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, then," he continued, "his glory has survived a first blow, a second
+      will kill it. I do not wish it. I hate the first Eighteenth Brumaire; I
+      fear the second. I wish to prevent it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He paused again, and continued,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That is why I have come to you to-night. I wish to succor this great
+      wounded glory. By the advice which I am giving you, if you can carry it
+      out, if the Left carries it out, I save the first Napoleon; for if a
+      second crime is superposed upon his glory, this glory would disappear.
+      Yes, this name would founder, and history would no longer own it. I will
+      go farther and complete my idea. I also save the present Napoleon, for he
+      who as yet has no glory will only have come. I save his memory from an
+      eternal pillory. Therefore, arrest him."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was truly and deeply moved. He resumed,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "As to the Republic, the arrest of Louis Bonaparte is deliverance for her.
+      I am right, therefore, in saying that by what I am proposing to you I am
+      saving my family and my country."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But," I said to him, "what you propose to me is a <i>coup d'état</i>."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Do you think so?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Without doubt. We are the minority, and we should commit an act which
+      belongs to the majority. We are a part of the Assembly. We should be
+      acting as though we were the entire Assembly. We who condemn all
+      usurpation should ourselves become usurpers. We should put our hands upon
+      a functionary whom the Assembly alone has the right of arresting. We, the
+      defenders of the Constitution, we should break the Constitution. We, the
+      men of the Law, we should violate the Law. It is a <i>coup d'état</i>."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, but a <i>coup d'état</i> for a good purpose."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Evil committed for a good purpose remains evil."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Even when it succeeds?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Above all when it succeeds."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Why?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Because it then becomes an example."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You do not then approve of the Eighteenth Fructidor?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But Eighteenth Fructidors prevent Eighteenth Brumaires."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No. They prepare the way for them."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But reasons of State exist?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No. What exists is the Law."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The Eighteenth Fructidor has been accepted by exceedingly honest minds."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I know that."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Blanqui is in its favor, with Michelet."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I am against it, with Barbès."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From the moral aspect I passed to the practical aspect.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This said," resumed I, "let us examine your plan."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This plan bristled with difficulties. I pointed them out to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Count on the National Guard! Why, General Lawoëstyne had not yet got
+      command of it. Count on the Army? Why, General Neumayer was at Lyons, and
+      not at Paris. Would he march to the assistance of the Assembly? What did
+      we know about this? As for Lawoëstyne, was he not double-faced? Were they
+      sure of him? Call to arms the 8th Legion? Forestier was no longer Colonel.
+      The 5th and 6th? But Gressier and Howyne were only lieutenant-colonels,
+      would these legions follow them? Order the Commissary Yon? But would he
+      obey the Left alone? He was the agent of the Assembly, and consequently of
+      the majority, but not of the minority. These were so many questions. But
+      these questions, supposing them answered, and answered in the sense of
+      success, was success itself the question? The question is never Success,
+      it is always Right. But here, even if we had obtained success, we should
+      not have Right. In order to arrest the President an order of the Assembly
+      was necessary; we should replace the order of the Assembly by an act of
+      violence of the Left. A scaling and a burglary; an assault by
+      scaling-ladders on the constituted authority, a burglary on the Law. Now
+      let us suppose resistance; we should shed blood. The Law violated leads to
+      the shedding of blood. What is all this? It is a crime."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, indeed," he exclaimed, "it is the <i>salus populi</i>."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And he added,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "<i>Suprema Lex</i>."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not for me," I said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I continued,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I would not kill a child to save a people."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Cato did so."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Jesus did not do so."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And I added,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You have on your side all ancient history, you are acting according to
+      the uprightness of the Greeks, and according to the uprightness of the
+      Romans; for me, I am acting according to the uprightness of Humanity. The
+      new horizon is of wider range than the old."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a pause. He broke it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then he will be the one to attack!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Let it be so."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You are about to engage in a battle which is almost lost beforehand."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I fear so."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And this unequal combat can only end for you, Victor Hugo, in death or
+      exile."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I believe it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Death is the affair of a moment, but exile is long."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is a habit to be learned."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He continued,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You will not only be proscribed. You will be calumniated."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is a habit already learned."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He continued,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Do you know what they are saying already?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "They say that you are irritated against him because he has refused to
+      make you a Minister."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Why you know yourself that&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I know that it is just the reverse. It is he who has asked you, and it is
+      you who have refused."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, then&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "They lie."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What does it matter?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He exclaimed,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Thus, you will have caused the Bonapartes to re-enter France, and you
+      will be banished from France by a Bonaparte!"<a href="#linknoteref-32"
+      name="linknote-32" id="linknote-32"><small>32</small></a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Who knows," said I, "if I have not committed a fault? This injustice is
+      perhaps a justice."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We were both silent. He resumed,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Could you bear exile?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I will try."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Could you live without Paris?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I should have the ocean."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You would then go to the seaside?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I think so."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is sad."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is grand."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was another pause. He broke it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You do not know what exile is. I do know it. It is terrible. Assuredly, I
+      would not begin it again. Death is a bourne whence no one comes back,
+      exile is a place whither no one returns."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If necessary," I said to him, "I will go, and I will return to it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Better die. To quit life is nothing, but to quit one's country&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Alas!" said I, "that is every thing."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, then, why accept exile when it is in your power to avoid it? What
+      do you place above your country?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Conscience."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This answer made him thoughtful. However, he resumed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But on reflection your conscience will approve of what you will have
+      done."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Why?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I have told you. Because my conscience is so constituted that it puts
+      nothing above itself. I feel it upon me as the headland can feel the
+      lighthouse which is upon it. All life is an abyss, and conscience
+      illuminates it around me."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And I also," he exclaimed&mdash;and I affirm that nothing could be more
+      sincere or more loyal than his tone&mdash;"and I also feel and see my
+      conscience. It approves of what I am doing. I appear to be betraying
+      Louis; but I am really doing him a service. To save him from a crime is to
+      save him. I have tried every means. There only remains this one, to arrest
+      him. In coming to you, in acting as I do, I conspire at the same time
+      against him and for him, against his power, and for his honor. What I am
+      doing is right."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is true," I said to him. "You have a generous and a lofty aim."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And I resumed,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But our two duties are different. I could not hinder Louis Bonaparte from
+      committing a crime unless I committed one myself. I wish neither for an
+      Eighteenth Brumaire for him, nor for an Eighteenth Fructidor for myself. I
+      would rather be proscribed than be a proscriber. I have the choice between
+      two crimes, my crime and the crime of Louis Bonaparte. I will not choose
+      my crime."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But then you will have to endure his."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I would rather endure a crime than commit one."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He remained thoughtful, and said to me,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Let it be so."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And he added,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Perhaps we are both in the right."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I think so," I said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And I pressed his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He took his mother's manuscript and went away. It was three o'clock in the
+      morning. The conversation had lasted more than two hours. I did not go to
+      bed until I had written it out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a href="#linknote-32" name="linknoteref-32" id="linknoteref-32_"><small>32</small></a>
+      <i>14th of June, 1847. Chamber of Peers. See the work "Avant l'Exile.</i>"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0060" id="link2HCH0060"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XI. THE COMBAT FINISHED, THE ORDEAL BEGINS
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      I did not know where to go.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      On the afternoon of the 7th I determined to go back once more to 19, Rue
+      Richelieu. Under the gateway some one seized my arm. It was Madame D. She
+      was waiting for me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Do not go in," she said to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Am I discovered?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And taken."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She added,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Come."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We crossed the courtyard, and we went out by a backdoor into the Rue
+      Fontaine Molière; we reached the square of the Palais Royal. The <i>fiacres</i>
+      were standing there as usual. We got into the first we came to.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Where are we to go?" asked the driver.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked at me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I answered,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I do not know."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I know," she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Women always know where Providence lies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An hour later I was in safety.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From the 4th, every day which passed by consolidated the <i>coup d'état</i>.
+      Our defeat was complete, and we felt ourselves abandoned. Paris was like a
+      forest in which Louis Bonaparte was making a <i>battue</i> of the
+      Representatives; the wild beast was hunting down the sportsmen. We heard
+      the indistinct baying of Maupas behind us. We were compelled to disperse.
+      The pursuit was energetic. We entered into the second phase of duty&mdash;the
+      catastrophe accepted and submitted to. The vanquished became the
+      proscribed. Each one of us had his own concluding adventures. Mine was
+      what it should have been&mdash;exile; death having missed me. I am not
+      going to relate it here, this book is not my biography, and I ought not to
+      divert to myself any of the attention which it may excite. Besides, what
+      concerns me personally is told in a narrative which is one of the
+      testaments of exile.<a href="#linknoteref-33" name="linknote-33"
+      id="linknote-33"><small>33</small></a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Notwithstanding the relentless pursuit which was directed against us, I
+      did not think it my duty to leave Paris as long as a glimmer of hope
+      remained, and as long as an awakening of the people seemed possible.
+      Malarmet sent me word in my refuge that a movement would take place at
+      Belleville on Tuesday the 9th. I waited until the 12th. Nothing stirred.
+      The people were indeed dead. Happily such deaths as these, like the deaths
+      of the gods, are only for a time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I had a last interview with Jules Favre and Michel de Bourges at Madame
+      Didier's in the Rue de la Ville-Lévêque. It was at night. Bastide came
+      there. This brave man said to me,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You are about to leave Paris; for myself, I remain here. Take me as your
+      lieutenant. Direct me from the depths of your exile. Make use of me as an
+      arm which you have in France."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I will make use of you as of a heart," I said to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the 14th, amidst the adventures which my son Charles relates in his
+      book, I succeeded in reaching Brussels.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The vanquished are like cinders, Destiny blows upon them and disperses
+      them. There was a gloomy vanishing of all the combatants for Right and for
+      Law. A tragical disappearance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a href="#linknote-33" name="linknoteref-33" id="linknoteref-33_"><small>33</small></a>
+      <i>"Les Hommes de l'Exile," by Charles Hugo.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0061" id="link2HCH0061"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XII. THE EXILED
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The Crime having succeeded, all hastened to join it. To persist was
+      possible, to resist was not possible. The situation became more and more
+      desperate. One would have said that an enormous wall was rising upon the
+      horizon ready to close in. The outlet: Exile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The great souls, the glories of the people, emigrated. Thus there was seen
+      this dismal sight&mdash;France driven out from France.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But what the Present appears to lose, the Future gains, the hand which
+      scatters is also the hand which sows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Representatives of the Left, surrounded, tracked, pursued, hunted
+      down, wandered for several days from refuge to refuge. Those who escaped
+      found great difficulty in leaving Paris and France. Madier de Montjan had
+      very black and thick eyebrows, he shaved off half of them, cut his hair,
+      and let his beard grow. Yvan, Pelletier, Gindrier, and Doutre shaved off
+      their moustaches and beards. Versigny reached Brussels on the 14th with a
+      passport in the name of Morin. Schoelcher dressed himself up as a priest.
+      This costume became him admirably, and suited his austere countenance and
+      grave voice. A worthy priest helped him to disguise himself, and lent him
+      his cassock and his band, made him shave off his whiskers a few days
+      previously, so that he should not be betrayed by the white trace of his
+      freshly-cut beard, gave him his own passport, and only left him at the
+      railway station.<a href="#linknoteref-34" name="linknote-34"
+      id="linknote-34"><small>34</small></a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      De Flotte disguised himself as a servant, and in this manner succeeded in
+      crossing the frontier at Mouscron. From there he reached Ghent, and thence
+      Brussels.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the night of December 26th, I had returned to the little room, without
+      a fire, which I occupied (No. 9) on the second story of the Hôtel de la
+      Porte-Verte; it was midnight; I had just gone to bed and was falling
+      asleep, when a knock sounded at my door. I awoke. I always left the key
+      outside. "Come in," I said. A chambermaid entered with a light, and
+      brought two men whom I did not know. One was a lawyer, of Ghent, M.
+      &mdash;&mdash;; the other was De Flotte. He took my two hands and pressed
+      them tenderly. "What," I said to him, "is it you?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the Assembly De Flotte, with his prominent and thoughtful brow, his
+      deep-set eyes, his close-shorn head, and his long beard, slightly turned
+      back, looked like a creation of Sebastian del Piombo wandering out of his
+      picture of the "Raising of Lazarus;" and I had before my eyes a short
+      young man, thin and pallid, with spectacles. But what he had not been able
+      to change, and what I recognized immediately, was the great heart, the
+      lofty mind, the energetic character, the dauntless courage; and if I did
+      not recognize him by his features, I recognized him by the grasp of his
+      hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Edgar Quinet was brought away on the 10th by a noble-hearted Wallachian
+      woman, Princess Cantacuzène, who undertook to conduct him to the frontier,
+      and who kept her word. It was a troublesome task. Quinet had a foreign
+      passport in the name of Grubesko, he was to personate a Wallachian, and it
+      was arranged that he should not know how to speak French, he who writes it
+      as a master. The journey was perilous. They ask for passports along all
+      the line, beginning at the terminus. At Amiens they were particularly
+      suspicious. But at Lille the danger was great. The gendarmes went from
+      carriage to carriage; entered them lantern in hand, and compared the
+      written descriptions of the travellers with their personal appearance.
+      Several who appeared to be suspicious characters were arrested, and were
+      immediately thrown into prison. Edgar Quinet, seated by the side of Madame
+      Cantacuzène awaited the turn of his carriage. At length it came. Madame
+      Cantacuzène leaned quickly forward towards the gendarmes, and hastened to
+      present her passport, but the corporal waved back Madame Cantacuzène's
+      passport saying, "It is useless, Madame. We have nothing to do with
+      women's passports," and he asked Quinet abruptly, "Your papers?" Quinet
+      held out his passport unfolded. The gendarmes said to him, "Come out of
+      the carriage, so that we can compare your description." It happened,
+      however, that the Wallachian passport contained no description. The
+      corporal frowned, and said to his subordinates, "An irregular passport! Go
+      and fetch the Commissary."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All seemed lost, but Madame Cantacuzène began to speak to Quinet in the
+      most Wallachian words in the world, with incredible assurance and
+      volubility, so much so that the gendarme, convinced that he had to deal
+      with all Wallachia in person, and seeing the train ready to start,
+      returned the passport to Quinet, saying to him, "There! be off with you!"&mdash;a
+      few hours afterwards Edgar Quinet was in Belgium.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Arnauld de l'Ariège also had his adventures. He was a marked man, he had
+      to hide himself. Arnauld being a Catholic, Madame Arnauld went to the
+      priest; the Abbé Deguerry slipped out of the way, the Abbé Maret consented
+      to conceal him; the Abbé Maret was honest and good. Arnauld d'Ariège
+      remained hidden for a fortnight at the house of this worthy priest. He
+      wrote from the Abbé Maret's a letter to the Archbishop of Paris, urging
+      him to refuse the Pantheon, which a decree of Louis Bonaparte took away
+      from France and gave to Rome. This letter angered the Archbishop. Arnauld,
+      proscribed, reached Brussels, and there, at the age of eighteen months,
+      died the "little Red," who on the 3d of December had carried the workman's
+      letter to the Archbishop&mdash;an angel sent by God to the priest who had
+      not understood the angel, and who no longer knew God.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In this medley of incidents and adventures each one had his drama.
+      Cournet's drama was strange and terrible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Cournet, it may be remembered, had been a naval officer. He was one of
+      those men of a prompt, decisive character, who magnetized other men, and
+      who on certain extraordinary occasions send an electric shock through a
+      multitude. He possessed an imposing air, broad shoulders, brawny arms,
+      powerful fists, a tall stature, all of which give confidence to the
+      masses, and the intelligent expression which gives confidence to the
+      thinkers. You saw him pass, and you recognized strength; you heard him
+      speak, and you felt the will, which is more than strength. When quite a
+      youth he had served in the navy. He combined in himself in a certain
+      degree&mdash;and it is this which made this energetic man, when well
+      directed and well employed, a means of enthusiasm and a support&mdash;he
+      combined the popular fire and the military coolness. He was one of those
+      natures created for the hurricane and for the crowd, who have begun their
+      study of the people by their study of the ocean, and who are at their ease
+      in revolutions as in tempests. As we have narrated, he took an important
+      part in the combat. He had been dauntless and indefatigable, he was one of
+      those who could yet rouse it to life. From Wednesday afternoon several
+      police agents were charged to seek him everywhere, to arrest him wherever
+      they might find him, and to take him to the Prefecture of the Police,
+      where orders had been given to shoot him immediately.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Cournet, however, with his habitual daring, came and went freely in order
+      to carry on the lawful resistance, even in the quarters occupied by the
+      troops, shaving off his moustaches as his sole precaution.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the Thursday afternoon he was on the boulevards at a few paces from a
+      regiment of cavalry drawn up in order. He was quietly conversing with two
+      of his comrades of the fight, Huy and Lorrain. Suddenly, he perceives
+      himself and his companions surrounded by a company of <i>sergents de ville</i>;
+      a man touches his arm and says to him, "You are Cournet; I arrest you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Bah!" answers Cournet; "My name is Lépine."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The man resumes,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You are Cournet. Do not you recognize me? Well, then, I recognize you; I
+      have been, like you, a member of the Socialist Electoral Committee."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Cournet looks him in the face, and finds this countenance in his memory.
+      The man was right. He had, in fact, formed part of the gathering in the
+      Rue Saint Spire. The police spy resumed, laughing,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I nominated Eugène Sue with you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was useless to deny it, and the moment was not favorable for
+      resistance. There were on the spot, as we have said, twenty <i>sergents de
+      ville</i> and a regiment of Dragoons.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I will follow you," said Cournet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A <i>fiacre</i> was called up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "While I am about it," said the police spy, "come in all three of you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He made Huy and Lorrain get in with Cournet, placed them on the front
+      seat, and seated himself on the back seat by Cournet, and then shouted to
+      the driver,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "To the Prefecture!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The <i>sergents de ville</i> surrounded the <i>fiacre</i>. But whether by
+      chance or through confidence, or in the haste to obtain the payment for
+      his capture, the man who had arrested Cournet shouted to the coachman,
+      "Look sharp, look sharp!" and the <i>fiacre</i> went off at a gallop.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the meantime Cournet was well aware that on arriving he would be shot
+      in the very courtyard of the Prefecture. He had resolved not to go there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At a turning in the Rue St Antoine he glanced behind, and noticed that the
+      <i>sergents de ville</i> only followed the <i>fiacre</i> at a considerable
+      distance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not one of the four men which the <i>fiacre</i> was bearing away had as
+      yet opened their lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Cournet threw a meaning look at his two companions seated in front of him,
+      as much as to say, "We are three; let us take advantage of this to
+      escape." Both answered by an imperceptible movement of the eyes, which
+      pointed out the street full of passers-by, and which said, "No."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A few moments afterwards the <i>fiacre</i> emerged from the Rue St.
+      Antoine, and entered the Rue de Fourcy. The Rue de Fourcy is usually
+      deserted, no one was passing down it at that moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Cournet turned suddenly to the police spy, and asked him,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Have you a warrant for my arrest?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No; but I have my card."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And he drew his police agent's card out of his pocket, and showed it to
+      Cournet. Then the following dialogue ensued between these two men,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This is not regular."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What does that matter to me?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You have no right to arrest me."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "All the same, I arrest you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Look here; is it money that you want? Do you wish for any? I have some
+      with me; let me escape."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A gold nugget as big as your head would not tempt me. You are my finest
+      capture, Citizen Cournet."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Where are you taking me to?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "To the Prefecture."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "They will shoot me there?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Possibly."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And my two comrades?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I do not say 'No.'"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I will not go."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You will go, nevertheless."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I tell you I will not go," exclaimed Cournet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And with a movement, unexpected as a flash of lightning, he seized the
+      police spy by the throat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The police agent could not utter a cry, he struggled: a hand of bronze
+      clutched him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His tongue protruded from his mouth, his eyes became hideous, and started
+      from their sockets. Suddenly his head sank down, and reddish froth rose
+      from his throat to his lips. He was dead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Huy and Lorrain, motionless, and as though themselves thunderstruck, gazed
+      at this gloomy deed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They did not utter a word. They did not move a limb. The <i>fiacre</i> was
+      still driving on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Open the door!" Cournet cried to them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They did not stir, they seemed to have become stone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Cournet, whose thumb was closely pressed in the neck of the wretched
+      police spy, tried to open the door with his left hand, but he did not
+      succeed, he felt that he could only do it with his right hand, and he was
+      obliged to loose his hold of the man. The man fell face forwards, and sank
+      down on his knees.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Cournet opened the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Off with you!" he said to them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Huy and Lorrain jumped into the street and fled at the top of their speed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The coachman had noticed nothing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Cournet let them get away, and then, pulling the check string, stopped the
+      <i>fiacre</i>, got down leisurely, reclosed the door, quietly took forty
+      sous from his purse, gave them to the coachman, who had not left his seat,
+      and said to him, "Drive on."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He plunged into Paris. In the Place des Victoires he met the
+      ex-Constituent Isidore Buvignier, his friend, who about six weeks
+      previously had come out of the Madelonnettes, where he had been confined
+      for the matter of the <i>Solidarité Républicaine</i>. Buvignier was one of
+      the noteworthy figures on the high benches of the Left; fair,
+      close-shaven, with a stern glance, he made one think of the English
+      Roundheads, and he had the bearing rather of a Cromwellian Puritan than of
+      a Dantonist Man of the Mountain. Cournet told his adventure, the extremity
+      had been terrible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Buvignier shook his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You have killed a man," he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In "Marie Tudor," I have made Fabiani answer under similar circumstances,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, a Jew."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Cournet, who probably had not read "Marie Tudor," answered,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, a police spy."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he resumed,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I have killed a police spy to save three men, one of whom was myself."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Cournet was right. They were in the midst of the combat, they were taking
+      him to be shot; the spy who had arrested him was, properly speaking, an
+      assassin, and assuredly it was a case of legitimate defence. I add that
+      this wretch, a democrat for the people, a spy for the police, was a
+      twofold traitor. Moreover, the police spy was the jackal of the <i>coup
+      d'état</i>, while Cournet was the combatant for the Law.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You must conceal yourself," said Buvignier; "come to Juvisy."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Buvignier had a little refuge at Juvisy, which is on the road to Corbeil.
+      He was known and loved there; Cournet and he reached there that evening.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But they had hardly arrived when some peasants said to Buvignier, "The
+      police have already been here to arrest you, and are coming again
+      to-night."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was necessary to go back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Cournet, more in danger than ever, hunted, wandering, pursued, hid himself
+      in Paris with considerable difficulty. He remained there till the 16th. He
+      had no means of procuring himself a passport. At length, on the 16th, some
+      friends of his on the Northern Railway obtained for him a special
+      passport, worded as follows:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Allow M. &mdash;&mdash;, an Inspector on the service of the Company, to
+      pass."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He decided to leave the next day, and take the day train, thinking,
+      perhaps rightly, that the night train would be more closely watched.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the 17th, at daybreak, favored by the dim dawn, he glided from street
+      to street, to the Northern Railway Station. His tall stature was a special
+      source of danger. He, however, reached the station in safety. The stokers
+      placed him with them on the tender of the engine of the train, which was
+      about to start. He only had the clothes which he had worn since the 2d; no
+      clean linen, no trunk, a little money.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In December, the day breaks late and the night closes in early, which is
+      favorable to proscribed persons.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He reached the frontier at night without hindrance. At Neuvéglise he was
+      in Belgium; he believed himself in safety. When asked for his papers he
+      caused himself to be taken before the Burgomaster, and said to him, "I am
+      a political refugee."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Burgomaster, a Belgian but a Bonapartist&mdash;this breed is to be
+      found&mdash;had him at once reconducted to the frontier by the gendarmes,
+      who were ordered to hand him over to the French authorities.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Cournet gave himself up for lost.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Belgian gendarmes took him to Armentières. If they had asked for the
+      Mayor it would have been all at an end with Cournet, but they asked for
+      the Inspector of Customs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A glimmer of hope dawned upon Cournet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He accosted the Inspector of Customs with his head erect, and shook hands
+      with him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Belgian gendarmes had not yet released him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Now, sir," said Cournet to the Custom House officer, "you are an
+      Inspector of Customs, I am an Inspector of Railways. Inspectors do not eat
+      inspectors. The deuce take it! Some worthy Belgians have taken fright and
+      sent me to you between four gendarmes. Why, I know not. I am sent by the
+      Northern Company to relay the ballast of a bridge somewhere about here
+      which is not firm. I come to ask you to allow me to continue my road. Here
+      is my pass."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He presented the pass to the Custom House officer, the Custom House
+      officer read it, found it according to due form, and said to Cournet,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Mr. Inspector, you are free."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Cournet, delivered from the Belgian gendarmes by French authority,
+      hastened to the railway station. He had friends there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Quick," he said, "it is dark, but it does not matter, it is even all the
+      better. Find me some one who has been a smuggler, and who will help me to
+      pass the frontier."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They brought him a small lad of eighteen; fair-haired, ruddy, hardy, a
+      Walloon<a href="#linknoteref-35" name="linknote-35" id="linknote-35"><small>35</small></a>
+      and who spoke French.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What is your name?" said Cournet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Henry."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You look like a girl."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Nevertheless I am a man."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Is it you who undertake to guide me?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You have been a smuggler?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I am one still."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Do you know the roads?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No. I have nothing to do with the roads."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What do you know then?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I know the passes."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "There are two Custom House lines."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I know that well."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Will you pass me across them?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Without doubt."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then you are not afraid of the Custom House officers?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'm afraid of the dogs."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "In that case," said Cournet, "we will take sticks."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They accordingly armed themselves with big sticks. Cournet gave fifty
+      francs to Henry, and promised him fifty more when they should have crossed
+      the second Custom House line.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That is to say, at four o'clock in the morning," said Henry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was midnight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They set out on their way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What Henry called the "passes" another would have called the "hindrances."
+      They were a succession of pitfalls and quagmires. It had been raining, and
+      all the holes were pools of water.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An indescribable footpath wound through an inextricable labyrinth,
+      sometimes as thorny as a heath, sometimes as miry as a marsh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The night was very dark.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From time to time, far away in the darkness, they could hear a dog bark.
+      The smuggler then made bends or zigzags, turned sharply to the right or to
+      the left, and sometimes retraced his steps.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Cournet, jumping hedges, striding over ditches, stumbling at every moment,
+      slipping into sloughs, laying hold of briers, with his clothes in rags,
+      his hands bleeding, dying with hunger, battered about, wearied, worn out,
+      almost exhausted, followed his guide gaily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At every minute he made a false step; he fell into every bog, and got up
+      covered with mud. At length he fell into a pond. It was several feet deep.
+      This washed him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Bravo!" he said. "I am very clean, but I am very cold."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At four o'clock in the morning, as Henry had promised him, they reached
+      Messine, a Belgian village. The two Custom House lines had been cleared.
+      Cournet had nothing more to fear, either from the Custom House nor from
+      the <i>coup d'état</i>, neither from men nor from dogs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He gave Henry the second fifty francs, and continued his journey on foot,
+      trusting somewhat to chance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was not until towards evening that he reached a railway station. He got
+      into a train, and at nightfall he arrived at the Southern Railway Station
+      at Brussels.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had left Paris on the preceding morning, had not slept an hour, had
+      been walking all night, and had eaten nothing. On searching in his pocket
+      he missed his pocket book, but found a crust of bread. He was more
+      delighted at the discovery of the crust than grieved at the loss of his
+      pocket-book. He carried his money in a waistband; the pocket-book, which
+      had probably disappeared in the pond, contained his letters, and amongst
+      others an exceedingly useful letter of introduction from his friend M.
+      Ernest Koechlin, to the Representatives Guilgot and Carlos Forel, who at
+      that moment were refugees at Brussels, and lodged at the Hôtel de Brabant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On leaving the railway station he threw himself into a cab, and said to
+      the coachman,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Hôtel de Brabant."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He heard a voice repeat, "Hôtel de Brabant." He put out his head and saw a
+      man writing something in a notebook with a pencil by the light of a
+      street-lamp.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was probably some police agent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Without a passport, without letters, without papers, he was afraid of
+      being arrested in the night, and he was longing for a good sleep. A good
+      bed to-night, he thought, and to-morrow the Deluge! At the Hôtel de
+      Brabant he paid the coachman, but did not go into the hotel. Moreover, he
+      would have asked in vain for the Representatives Forel and Guilgot; both
+      were there under false names.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He took to wandering about the streets. It was eleven o'clock at night,
+      and for a long time he had begun to feel utterly worn out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At length he saw a lighted lamp with the inscription "Hôtel de la
+      Monnaie."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He walked in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The landlord came up, and looked at him somewhat askance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He then thought of looking at himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His unshaven beard, his disordered hair, his cap soiled with mud, his
+      blood-stained hands, his clothes in rags, he looked horrible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He took a double louis out of his waistband, and put it on the table of
+      the parlor, which he had entered and said to the landlord,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "In truth, sir, I am not a thief, I am a proscript; money is now my only
+      passport. I have just come from Paris, I wish to eat first and sleep
+      afterwards."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The landlord was touched, took the double louis, and gave him bed and
+      supper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Next day, while he was still sleeping, the landlord came into his room,
+      woke him gently, and said to him,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Now, sir, if I were you, I should go and see Baron Hody."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Who and what is Baron Hody?" asked Cournet, half asleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The landlord explained to him who Baron Hody was. When I had occasion to
+      ask the same question as Cournet, I received from three inhabitants of
+      Brussels the three answers as follows:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He is a dog."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He is a polecat."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He is a hyena."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is probably some exaggeration in these three answers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A fourth Belgian whom I need not specify confined himself to saying to me,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He is a beast."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As to his public functions, Baron Hody was what they call at Brussels "The
+      Administrator of Public Safety;" that is to say, a counterfeit of the
+      Prefect of Police, half Carlier, half Maupas.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thanks to Baron Hody, who has since left the place, and who, moreover,
+      like M. de Montalembert, was a "mere Jesuit," the Belgian police at that
+      moment was a compound of the Russian and Austrian police. I have read
+      strange confidential letters of this Baron Hody. In action and in style
+      there is nothing more cynical and more repulsive than the Jesuit police,
+      when they unveil their secret treasures. These are the contents of the
+      unbuttoned cassock.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the time of which we are speaking (December, 1851), the Clerical party
+      had joined itself to all the forms of Monarchy; and this Baron Hody
+      confused Orleanism with Legitimate right. I simply tell the tale. Nothing
+      more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Baron Hody. Very well, I will go to him," said Cournet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He got up, dressed himself, brushed his clothes as well as he could, and
+      asked the landlord, "Where is the Police office?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "At the Ministry of Justice."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In fact this is the case in Brussels; the police administration forms part
+      of the Ministry of Justice, an arrangement which does not greatly raise
+      the police and somewhat lowers justice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Cournet went there, and was shown into the presence of this personage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Baron Hody did him the honor to ask him sharply,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Who are you?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A refugee," answered Cournet; "I am one of those whom the <i>coup d'état</i>
+      has driven from Paris.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Your profession?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ex-naval officer."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ex-naval officer!" exclaimed Baron Hody in a much gentler tone, "did you
+      know His Royal Highness the Prince de Joinville?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I have served under him."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the truth. Cournet had served under M. de Joinville, and prided
+      himself on it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this statement the administrator of Belgian safety completely unbent,
+      and said to Cournet, with the most gracious smile that the police can
+      find, "That's all right, sir; stay here as long as you please; we close
+      Belgium to the Men of the Mountain, but we throw it widely open to men
+      like you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Cournet told me this answer of Hody's, I thought that my fourth
+      Belgian was right.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A certain comic gloom was mingled at times with these tragedies.
+      Barthelémy Terrier was a Representative of the people, and a proscript.
+      They gave him a special passport for a compulsory route as far as Belgium
+      for himself and his wife. Furnished with this passport he left with a
+      woman. This woman was a man. Préveraud, a landed proprietor at Donjon, one
+      of the most prominent men in the Department of Allier, was Terrier's
+      brother-in-law. When the <i>coup d'état</i> broke out at Donjon, Préveraud
+      had taken up arms and fulfilled his duty, had combated the outrage and
+      defended the law. For this he had been condemned to death. The justice of
+      that time, as we know. Justice executed justice. For this crime of being
+      an honest man they had guillotined Charlet, guillotined Cuisinier,
+      guillotined Cirasse. The guillotine was an instrument of the reign.
+      Assassination by the guillotine was one of the means of order of that
+      time. It was necessary to save Préveraud. He was little and slim: they
+      dressed him as a woman. He was not sufficiently pretty for them not to
+      cover his face with a thick veil. They put the brave and sturdy hands of
+      the combatant in a muff. Thus veiled and a little filled out with padding,
+      Préveraud made a charming woman. He became Madame Terrier, and his
+      brother-in-law took him away. They crossed Paris peaceably, and without
+      any other adventure than an imprudence committed by Préveraud, who, seeing
+      that the shaft-horse of a wagon had fallen down, threw aside his muff,
+      lifted his veil and his petticoat, and if Terrier, in dire alarm, had not
+      stopped him, he would have helped the carter to raise his horse. Had a <i>sergent
+      de ville</i> been there, Préveraud would have been captured. Terrier
+      hastened to thrust Préveraud into a carriage, and at nightfall they left
+      for Brussels. They were alone in the carriage, each in a corner and face
+      to face. All went well as far as Amiens. At Amiens station the door was
+      opened, and a gendarme entered and seated himself by the side of
+      Préveraud. The gendarme asked for his passport, Terrier showed it him; the
+      little woman in her corner, veiled and silent, did not stir, and the
+      gendarme found all in due form. He contented himself with saying, "We
+      shall travel together, I am on duty as far as the frontier."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The train, after the ordinary delay of a few minutes, again started. The
+      night was dark. Terrier had fallen asleep. Suddenly Préveraud felt a knee
+      press against his, it was the knee of the policeman. A boot placed itself
+      softly on his foot, it was a horse-soldier's boot. An idyll had just
+      germinated in the gendarme's soul. He first tenderly pressed Préveraud's
+      knee, and then emboldened by the darkness of the hour and by the
+      slumbering husband, he ventured his hand as far as her dress, a
+      circumstance foreseen by Molière, but the fair veiled one was virtuous.
+      Préveraud, full of surprise and rage, gently pushed back the gendarme's
+      hand. The danger was extreme. Too much love on the part of the gendarme,
+      one audacious step further, would bring about the unexpected, would
+      abruptly change the eclogue into an official indictment, would reconvert
+      the amorous satyr into a stony-hearted policeman, would transform Tircis
+      into Vidocq; and then this strange thing would be seen, a passenger
+      guillotined because a gendarme had committed an outrage. The danger
+      increased every moment. Terrier was sleeping. Suddenly the train stopped.
+      A voice cried, "Quièvrain!" and the door was opened. They were in Belgium.
+      The gendarme, obliged to stop here, and to re-enter France, rose to get
+      out, and at the moment when he stepped on to the ground he heard behind
+      him these expressive words coming from beneath the lace veil, "Be off, or
+      I'll break your jaw!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a href="#linknote-34" name="linknoteref-34" id="linknoteref-34_"><small>34</small></a>
+      <i>See "Les Hommes de l'Exile."</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a href="#linknote-35" name="linknoteref-35" id="linknoteref-35_"><small>35</small></a>
+      <i>The name given to a population belonging to the Romanic family, and
+      more particularly to those of French descent, who occupy the region along
+      the frontiers of the German-speaking territory in the South Netherlands
+      from Dunkirk to Malmedy in Rhenish Prussia.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0062" id="link2HCH0062"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIII. THE MILITARY COMMISSIONS AND THE MIXED COMMISSIONS
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      Justice sometime meets with strange adventures.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      This old phrase assumed a new sense.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The code ceased to be a safeguard. The law became something which had
+      sworn fealty to a crime. Louis Bonaparte appointed judges by whom one felt
+      oneself stopped as in the corner of a wood. In the same manner as the
+      forest is an accomplice through its density, so the legislation was an
+      accomplice by its obscurity. What it lacked at certain points in order to
+      make it perfectly dark they added. How? By force. Purely and simply. By
+      decree. <i>Sic jubeo</i>. The decree of the 17th of February was a
+      masterpiece. This decree completed the proscription of the person, by the
+      proscription of the name. Domitian could not have done better. Human
+      conscience was bewildered; Right, Equity, Reason felt that the master had
+      over them the authority that a thief has over a purse. No reply. Obey.
+      Nothing resembles those infamous times.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Every iniquity was possible. Legislative bodies supervened and instilled
+      so much gloom into legislation that it was easy to achieve a baseness in
+      this darkness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A successful <i>coup d'état</i> does not stand upon ceremony. This kind of
+      success permits itself everything.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Facts abound. But we must abridge, we will only present them briefly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There were two species of Justice; the Military Commissions and the Mixed
+      Commissions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Military Commissions sat in judgment with closed doors. A colonel
+      presided.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In Paris alone there were three Military Commissions: each received a
+      thousand bills of indictment. The Judge of Instruction sent these
+      accusations to the Procureur of the Republic, Lascoux, who transmitted
+      them to the Colonel President. The Commission summoned the accused to
+      appear. The accused himself was his own bill of indictment. They searched
+      him, that is to say, they "thumbed" him. The accusing document was short.
+      Two or three lines. Such as this, for example,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Name. Christian name. Profession. A sharp fellow. Goes to the Café. Reads
+      the papers. Speaks. Dangerous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The accusation was laconic. The judgment was still less prolix. It was a
+      simple sign.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The bill of indictment having been examined, the judges having been
+      consulted, the colonel took a pen, and put at the end of the accusing line
+      one of three signs:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     -     +     o
+
+     -  signified consignment to Lambessa.
+
+     +  signified transportation to Cayenne. (The dry guillotine. Death.)
+
+     o  signified acquittal.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      While this justice was at work, the man on whose case they were working
+      was sometimes still at liberty, he was going and coming at his ease;
+      suddenly they arrested him, and without knowing what they wanted with him,
+      he left for Lambessa or for Cayenne.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His family was often ignorant of what had become of him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      People asked of a wife, of a sister, of a daughter, of a mother,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Where is your husband?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Where is your brother?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Where is your father?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Where is your son?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The wife, the sister, the daughter, the mother answered,&mdash;"I do not
+      know."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the Allier eleven members of one family alone, the Préveraud family of
+      Donjon, were struck down, one by the penalty of death, the others by
+      banishment and transportation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A wine-seller of the Batignolles, named Brisadoux, was transported to
+      Cayenne for this line in his deed of accusation: <i>his shop is frequented
+      by Socialists</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here is a dialogue, word for word, and taken from life, between a colonel
+      and his convicted prisoner:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You are condemned."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Indeed! Why?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "In truth I do not exactly know myself. Examine your conscience. Think
+      what you have done."
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      "I?"
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "How I?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You must have done something."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No. I have done nothing. I have not even done my duty. I ought to have
+      taken my gun, gone down into the street, harangued the people, raised
+      barricades; I remained at home stupidly like a sluggard" (the accused
+      laughs); "that is the offence of which I accuse myself."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You have not been condemned for that offence. Think carefully."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I can think of nothing."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What! You have not been to the <i>café</i>?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, I have breakfasted there."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Have you not chatted there?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, perhaps."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Have you not laughed?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Perhaps I have laughed."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "At whom? At what?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "At what is going on. It is true I was wrong to laugh."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "At the same time you talked?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Of whom?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Of the President."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What did you say?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Indeed, what may be said with justice, that he had broken his oath."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And then?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That he had not the right to arrest the Representatives."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You said that?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes. And I added that he had not the right to kill people on the
+      boulevard...."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here the condemned man interrupted himself and exclaimed,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And thereupon they send me to Cayenne!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The judge looks fixedly at the prisoner, and answers,&mdash;"Well, then?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another form of justice:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Three miscellaneous personages, three removable functionaries, a Prefect,
+      a soldier, a public prosecutor, whose only conscience is the sound of
+      Louis Bonaparte's bell, seated themselves at a table and judged. Whom?
+      You, me, us, everybody. For what crimes? They invented crimes. In the name
+      of what laws? They invented laws. What penalties did they inflict? They
+      invented penalties. Did they know the accused? No. Did they listen to him?
+      No. What advocates did they listen to? None. What witnesses did they
+      question? None. What deliberation did they enter upon? None. What public
+      did they call in? None. Thus, no public, no deliberation, no counsellors,
+      no witnesses, judges who are not magistrates, a jury where none are sworn
+      in, a tribunal which is not a tribunal, imaginary offences, invented
+      penalties, the accused absent, the law absent; from all these things which
+      resembled a dream there came forth a reality: the condemnation of the
+      innocent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Exile, banishment, transportation, ruin, home-sickness, death, and despair
+      for 40,000 families.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That is what History calls the Mixed Commissions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ordinarily the great crimes of State strike the great heads, and content
+      themselves with this destruction; they roll like blocks of stone, all in
+      one piece, and break the great resistances; illustrious victims suffice
+      for them. But the Second of December had its refinements of cruelty; it
+      required in addition petty victims. Its appetite for extermination
+      extended to the poor and to the obscure, its anger and animosity
+      penetrated as far as the lowest class; it created fissures in the social
+      subsoil in order to diffuse the proscription there; the local
+      triumvirates, nicknamed "mixed mixtures," served it for that. Not one head
+      escaped, however humble and puny. They found means to impoverish the
+      indigent, to ruin those dying of hunger, to spoil the disinherited; the <i>coup
+      d'état</i> achieved this wonderful feat of adding misfortune to misery.
+      Bonaparte, it seems, took the trouble to hate a mere peasant; the
+      vine-dresser was torn from his vine, the laborer from his furrow, the
+      mason from his scaffold, the weaver from his loom. Men accepted this
+      mission of causing the immense public calamity to fall, morsel by morsel,
+      upon the humblest walks of life. Detestable task! To crumble a catastrophe
+      upon the little and on the weak.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0063" id="link2HCH0063"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIV. A RELIGIOUS INCIDENT
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      A little religion can be mingled with this justice. Here is an example.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Frederick Morin, like Arnauld de l'Ariège, was a Catholic Republican. He
+      thought that the souls of the victims of the 4th of December, suddenly
+      cast by the volleys of the <i>coup d'état</i> into the infinite and the
+      unknown, might need some assistance, and he undertook the laborious task
+      of having a mass said for the repose of these souls. But the priests
+      wished to keep the masses for their friends. The group of Catholic
+      Republicans which Frederick Morin headed applied successively to all the
+      priests of Paris; but met with a refusal. They applied to the Archbishop:
+      again a refusal. As many masses for the assassin as they liked, but far
+      the assassinated not one. To pray for dead men of this sort would be a
+      scandal. The refusal was determined. How should it be overcome? To do
+      without a mass would have appeared easy to others, but not to these
+      staunch believers. The worthy Catholic Democrats with great difficulty at
+      length unearthed in a tiny suburban parish a poor old vicar, who consented
+      to mumble in a whisper this mass in the ear of the Almighty, while begging
+      Him to say nothing about it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0064" id="link2HCH0064"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XV. HOW THEY CAME OUT OF HAM
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      On the night of the 7th and 8th of January, Charras was sleeping. The
+      noise of his bolts being drawn awoke him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "So then!" said he, "they are going to put us in close confinement." And
+      he went to sleep again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An hour afterwards the door was opened. The commandant of the fort entered
+      in full uniform, accompanied by a police agent carrying a torch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was about four o'clock in the morning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Colonel," said the Commandant, "dress yourself at once."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What for?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You are about to leave."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Some more rascality, I suppose!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Commandant was silent. Charras dressed himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he finished dressing, a short young man, dressed in black, came in.
+      This young man spoke to Charras.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Colonel, you are about to leave the fortress, you are about to quit
+      France. I am instructed to have you conducted to the frontier."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Charras exclaimed,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If I am to quit France I will not leave the fortress. This is yet another
+      outrage. They have no more the right to exile me than they had the right
+      to imprison me. I have on my side the Law, Right, my old services, my
+      commission. I protest. Who are you, sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I am the Private Secretary of the Minister of the Interior."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ah! it is you who are named Léopold Lehon."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The young man cast down his eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Charras continued,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You come on the part of some one whom they call 'Minister of the
+      Interior,' M. de Morny, I believe. I know M. de Morny. A bald young man;
+      he has played the game where people lose their hair; and now he is playing
+      the game where people risk their heads."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The conversation was painful. The young man was deeply interested in the
+      toe of his boot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After a pause, however, he ventured to speak,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "M. Charras, I am instructed to say that if you want money&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Charras interrupted him impetuously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Hold your tongue, sir! not another word. I have served my country
+      five-and-twenty years as an officer, under fire, at the peril of my life,
+      always for honor, never for gain. Keep your money for your own set!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But, sir&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Silence! Money which passes through your hands would soil mine."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another pause ensued, which the private secretary again broke,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Colonel, you will be accompanied by two police agents who have special
+      instructions, and I should inform you that you are ordered to travel with
+      a false passport, and under the name of Vincent."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Good heavens!" said Charras; "this is really too much. Who is it imagines
+      that they will make me travel by order with a false passport, and under a
+      false name?" And looking steadily at M. Léopold Lehon, "Know, sir, that my
+      name is Charras and not Vincent, and that I belong to a family whose
+      members have always borne the name of their father."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They set out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They journeyed by carriage as far as Creil, which is on the railway.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At Creil station the first person whom Charras saw was General
+      Changarnier.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ah! it is you, General."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The two proscripts embraced each other. Such is exile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What the deuce are they doing with you?" asked the General.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What they are probably doing with you. These vagabonds are making me
+      travel under the name of Vincent."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And me," said Changarnier, "under the name of Leblanc."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "In that case they ought at least to have called me Lerouge," said
+      Charras, with a burst of laughter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the meantime a group, kept at a distance by the police agents, had
+      formed round them. People had recognized them and saluted them. A little
+      child, whose mother could not hold him back, ran quickly to Charras and
+      took his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They got into the train apparently as free as other travellers. Only they
+      isolated them in empty compartments, and each was accompanied by two men,
+      who sat one at the side and the other facing him, and who never took their
+      eyes off him. The keepers of General Changarnier were of ordinary strength
+      and stature. Those of Charras were almost giants. Charras is exceedingly
+      tall; they topped him by an entire head. These men who were galley
+      sergeants, had been carabineers; these spies had been heroes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Charras questioned them. They had served when quite young, from 1813. Thus
+      they had shared the bivouac of Napoleon; now they ate the same bread as
+      Vidocq. The soldier brought to such a sorry pass as this is a sad sight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The pocket of one of them was bulged out with something which he was
+      hiding there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When this man crossed the station in company with Charras, a lady
+      traveller said,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Has he got M. Thiers in his pocket?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What the police agent was hiding was a pair of pistols. Under their long,
+      buttoned-up and doubled-breasted frock coats these men were armed. They
+      were ordered to treat "those gentlemen" with the most profound respect,
+      but in certain circumstances to blow out their brains.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The prisoners had each been informed that in the eyes of the different
+      authorities whom they would meet on the road they would pass for
+      foreigners, Swiss or Belgians, expelled on account of their political
+      opinions, and that the police agents would keep their title of police
+      agents, and would represent themselves as charged with reconducting these
+      foreigners to the frontier.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two-thirds of the journey were accomplished without any hindrance. At
+      Valenciennes an incident occurred.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The <i>coup d'état</i> having succeeded, zeal reigned paramount. No task
+      was any longer considered despicable. To denounce was to please; zeal is
+      one of the forms of servitude towards which people lean the most
+      willingly. The general became a common soldier, the prefect became a
+      commissary of police, the commissary of police became a police spy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The commissary of police at Valenciennes himself superintended the
+      inspection of passports. For nothing in the world would he have deputed
+      this important office to a subordinate inspector. When they presented him
+      the passport of the so-called Leblanc, he looked the so-called Leblanc
+      full in the face, started, and exclaimed,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You are General Changarnier!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That is no affair of mine," said the General.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Upon this the two keepers of the General protested and exhibited their
+      papers, perfectly drawn up in due form.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Mr. Commissary, we are Government agents. Here are our proper passports."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Improper ones," said the General.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Commissary shook his head. He had been employed in Paris, and had been
+      frequently sent to the headquarters of the staff at the Tuileries, to
+      General Changarnier. He knew him very well.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This is too much!" exclaimed the police agents. They blustered, declared
+      that they were police functionaries on a special service, that they had
+      instructions to conduct to the frontier this Leblanc, expelled for
+      political reasons, swore by all the gods, and gave their word of honor
+      that the so-called Leblanc was really named Leblanc.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I do not much believe in words of honor," said the Commissary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Honest Commissary," muttered Changarnier, "you are right. Since the 2d of
+      December words of honor and oaths are no more than worthless paper money."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then he began to smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Commissary became more and more perplexed. The police agents ended by
+      invoking the testimony of the prisoner himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Now, sir, tell him your name yourself."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Get out of the difficulty yourselves," answered Changarnier.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All this appeared most irregular to the mind of a provincial alguazil.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It seemed evident to the Commissary of Valenciennes that General
+      Changarnier was escaping from Ham under a false name with a false
+      passport, and with false agents of police, in order to mislead the
+      authorities, and that it was a plot to escape which was on the point of
+      succeeding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Come down, all three of you!" exclaimed the Commissary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The General gets down, and on putting foot to the ground notices Charras
+      in the depths of his compartment between his two bullies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oho! Charras, you are there!" he cries.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Charras!" exclaimed the Commissary. "Charras there! Quick! the passports
+      of these gentlemen!" And looking Charras in the face,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Are you Colonel Charras?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Egad!" said Charras.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet another complication. It was now the turn of Charras's bullies to
+      bluster. They declared that Charras was the man called Vincent, displayed
+      passports and papers, swore and protested. The Commissary's suspicions
+      were fully confirmed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Very well," said he, "I arrest everybody."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And he handed over Changarnier, Charras, and the four police agents to the
+      gendarmes. The Commissary saw the Cross of Honor shining in the distance.
+      He was radiant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The police arrested the police. It happens sometimes that the wolf thinks
+      he has seized a victim and bites his own tail.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The six prisoners&mdash;for now there were six prisoners&mdash;were taken
+      into a parlor at the railway station. The Commissary informed the town
+      authorities. The town authorities hastened hither, headed by the
+      sub-prefect.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sub-prefect, who was named Censier, comes in, and does not know
+      whether he ought to salute or to question, to grovel in the dust or to
+      keep his hat on his head. These poor devils of magistrates and local
+      officials were very much exercised in their minds. General Changarnier had
+      been too near the Dictatorship not to make them thoughtful. Who can
+      foresee the course of events? Everything is possible. Yesterday called
+      itself Cavaignac, to-day calls itself Bonaparte, to-morrow may call itself
+      Changarnier. Providence is really cruel not to let sub-prefects have a
+      peep at the future.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is sad for a respectable functionary, who would ask for nothing better
+      than to be servile or arrogant according to circumstances, to be in danger
+      of lavishing his platitudes on a person who is perhaps going to rot
+      forever in exile, and who is nothing more than a rascal, or to risk being
+      insolent to a vagabond of a postscript who is capable of coming back a
+      conqueror in six months' time, and of becoming the Government in his turn.
+      What was to be done? And then they were spied upon. This takes place
+      between officials. The slightest word would be maliciously interpreted,
+      the slightest gesture would be laid to their discredit. How should he keep
+      on good terms at the same time this Cabbage, which is called To-day, and
+      that Goat, which is called To-morrow? To ask too many questions would
+      offend the General, to render to many salutations would annoy the
+      President. How could he be at the same time very much a sub-prefect, and
+      in some degree a lacquey? How could he combine the appearance of
+      obsequiousness, which would please Changarnier, with the appearance of
+      authority, which would please Bonaparte?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sub-prefect thought to get out of the difficulty by saying, "General,
+      you are my prisoner," and by adding, with a smile, "Do me the honor of
+      breakfasting with me?" He addressed the same words to Charras.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The General refused curtly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Charras looked at him fixedly, and did not answer him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Doubts regarding the identity of the prisoners came to the mind of the
+      sub-prefect. He whispered to the Commissary "Are you quite sure?"
+      "Certainly," said the Commissary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sub-prefect decided to address himself to Charras, and dissatisfied
+      with the manner in which his advances had been received, asked him
+      somewhat sharply, "But, in short, who are you?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Charras answered, "We are packages."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And turning to his keepers who were now in their turn in keeping:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Apply to our exporters. Ask our Custom House officers. It is a mere
+      matter of goods traffic."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They set the electric telegraph to work. Valenciennes, alarmed, questioned
+      Paris. The sub-prefect informed the Minister of the Interior that, thanks
+      to a strict supervision, which he had trusted to no one but himself, he
+      had just effected an important capture, that he had just discovered a
+      plot, had saved the President, had saved society, had saved religion,
+      etc., that in one word he had just arrested General Changarnier and
+      Colonel Charras, who had escaped that morning from the fort of Ham with
+      false passports, doubtless for the purpose of heading a rising, etc., and
+      that, in short, he asked the Government what was to be done with the two
+      prisoners.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the end of an hour the answer arrived:&mdash;"Let them go on their
+      way."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The police perceived that in a burst of zeal they had pushed profundity to
+      the point of stupidity. That sometimes happens.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next train carried away the prisoners, restored, not to liberty, but
+      to their keepers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They passed Quiévrain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They got down from the carriage, and got in again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the train again started Charras heaved the deep, joyous sigh of a
+      freed man, and said, "At last!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He raised his eyes, and perceived his two jailers by his side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They had got up behind him into the carriage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ah, indeed!" he said to them; "you there!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of these two men there was only one who spoke, that one answered,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, Colonel."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What are you doing here?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We are keeping watch over you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But we are in Belgium."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Possibly."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Belgium is not France."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ah, that may be."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But suppose I put my head out of the carriage? Suppose I call out?
+      Suppose I had you arrested? Suppose I reclaimed my liberty?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You will not do all that, Colonel."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "How will you prevent me?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The police agent showed the butt-end of his pistol and said "Thus."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Charras burst out laughing, and asked them, "Where then are you going to
+      leave me?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "At Brussels."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That is to say, that at Brussels you will salute me with your cap; but
+      that at Mons you will salute me with your pistol."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "As you say, Colonel."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "In truth," said Charras, "it does not matter to me. It is King Leopold's
+      business. The Bonaparte treats countries as he has treated the
+      Representatives. He has violated the Assembly, he violates Belgium. But
+      all the same, you are a medley of strange rascals. He who is at the top is
+      a madman, those who are beneath are blockheads. Very well, my friends, let
+      me go to sleep."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And he went to sleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Almost the same incident happened nearly at the same moment to Generals
+      Changarnier and Lamoricière and to M. Baze.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The police agents did not leave General Changarnier until they had reached
+      Mons. There they made him get down from the train, and said to him,
+      "General, this is your place of residence. We leave you free."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ah!" said he, "this is my place of residence, and I am free? Well, then,
+      good-night."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And he sprang lightly back into the carriage just as the train was
+      starting, leaving behind him two galley sergeants dumfounded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The police released Charras at Brussels, but did not release General
+      Lamoricière. The two police agents wished to compel him to leave
+      immediately for Cologne. The General, who was suffering from rheumatism
+      which he had caught at Ham, declared that he would sleep at Brussels.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Be it so," said the police agents.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They followed him to the Hôtel de Bellevue. They spent the night there
+      with him. He had considerable difficulty to prevent them from sleeping in
+      his room. Next day they carried him off, and took him to Cologne-violating
+      Prussian territory after having violated Belgian territory.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The <i>coup d'état</i> was still more impudent with M. Baze.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They made M. Baze journey with his wife and his children under the name of
+      Lassalle. He passed for the servant of the police agent who accompanied
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They took him thus to Aix-la-Chapelle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There, in the middle of the night, in the middle of the street, the police
+      agents deposited him and the whole of his family, without a passport,
+      without papers, without money. M. Baze, indignant, was obliged to have
+      recourse to threats to induce them to take him and identify him before a
+      magistrate. It was, perhaps, part of the petty joys of Bonaparte to cause
+      a Questor of the Assembly to be treated as a vagrant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the night of the 7th of January, General Bedeau, although he was not to
+      leave till the next day, was awakened like the others by the noise of
+      bolts. He did not understand that they were shutting him in, but on the
+      contrary, believed that they were releasing M. Baze, his neighbor in the
+      adjoining cell. He cried through the door, "Bravo, Baze!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In fact, every day the Generals said to the Questor, "You have no business
+      here, this is a military fortress. One of these fine mornings you will be
+      thrust outside like Roger du Nord."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nevertheless General Bedeau heard an unusual noise in the fortress. He got
+      up and "knocked" for General Leflô, his neighbor in the cell on the other
+      side, with whom he exchanged frequent military dialogues, little
+      flattering to the <i>coup d'état</i>. General Leflô answered the knocking,
+      but he did not know any more than General Bedeau.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      General Bedeau's window looked out on the inner courtyard of the prison.
+      He went to this window and saw lanterns flashing hither and thither,
+      species of covered carts, horsed, and a company of the 48th under arms. A
+      moment afterwards he saw General Changarnier come into the courtyard, get
+      into a carriage, and drive off. Some moments elapsed, then he saw Charras
+      pass. Charras noticed him at the window, and cried out to him, "Mons!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In fact he believed he was going to Mons, and this made General Bedeau, on
+      the next day, choose Mons as his residence, expecting to meet Charras
+      there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Charras having left, M. Léopold Lehon came in accompanied by the
+      Commandant of the fort. He saluted Bedeau, explained his business, and
+      gave his name. General Bedeau confined himself to saying, "They banish us;
+      it is an illegality, and one more indignity added to the others. However,
+      with the people who send you one is no longer surprised at anything."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They did not send him away till the next day. Louis Bonaparte had said,
+      "We must 'space out' the Generals."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The police agent charged with escorting General Bedeau to Belgium was one
+      of those who, on the 2d of December, had arrested General Cavaignac. He
+      told General Bedeau that they had had a moment of uneasiness when
+      arresting General Cavaignae: the picket of fifty men, which had been told
+      off to assist the police having failed them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the compartment of the railway carriage which was taking General Bedeau
+      into Belgium there was a lady, manifestly belonging to good society, of
+      very distinguished appearance, and who was accompanied by three little
+      children. A servant in livery, who appeared to be a German, had two of the
+      children on his knees, and lavished a thousand little attentions on them.
+      However, the General, hidden by the darkness, and muffled up, like the
+      police agents, in the collar of his mantle, paid little attention to this
+      group. When they reached Quièvrain, the lady turned to him and said,
+      "General, I congratulate you, you are now in safety."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The General thanked her, and asked her name.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Baroness Coppens," she answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It may be remembered that it was at M. Coppens's house, 70, Rue Blanche,
+      that the first meeting of the Left had taken place on December 2d.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You have charming children there, madam," said the General, "and," he
+      added, "an exceedingly good servant."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is my husband," said Madame Coppens.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      M. Coppens, in fact, had remained five weeks buried in a hiding-place
+      contrived in his own house. He had escaped from France that very night
+      under the cover of his own livery. They had carefully taught their
+      children their lesson. Chance had made them get into the same carriage as
+      General Bedeau and the two bullies who were keeping guard over him, and
+      throughout the night Madame Coppens had been in terror lest, in the
+      presence of the policeman, one of the little ones awakening, should throw
+      its arms around the neck of the servant and cry "Papa!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0065" id="link2HCH0065"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVI. A RETROSPECT
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Louis Bonaparte had tested the majority as engineers test a bridge; he had
+      loaded it with iniquities, encroachments, enormities, slaughters on the
+      Place du Havre, cries of "Long live the Emperor," distributions of money
+      to the troops, sales of Bonapartist journals in the streets, prohibition
+      of Republican and parliamentary journals, reviews at Satory, speeches at
+      Dijon; the majority bore everything.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Good," said he, "It will carry the weight of the <i>coup d'état</i>."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Let us recall the facts. Before the 2d of December the <i>coup d'état</i>
+      was being constructed in detail, here and there, a little everywhere, with
+      exceeding impudence, and yet the majority smiled. The Representative
+      Pascal Duprat had been violently treated by police agents. "That is very
+      funny," said the Right. The Representative Dain was seized. "Charming."
+      The Representative Sartin was arrested. "Bravo." One fine morning when all
+      the hinges had been well tested and oiled, and when all the wires were
+      well fixed, the <i>coup d'état</i> was carried out all at once, abruptly.
+      The majority ceased to laugh, but the trick, was done. It had not
+      perceived that for a long time past, while it was laughing at the
+      strangling of others, the cord was round its own neck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Let us maintain this, not to punish the past, but to illuminate the
+      future. Many months before being carried out, the <i>coup d'état</i> had
+      been accomplished. The day having come, the hour having struck, the
+      mechanism being completely wound up, it had only to be set going. It was
+      bound not to fail, and nothing did fail. What would have been an abyss if
+      the majority had done its duty, and had understood its joint
+      responsibility with the Left, was not even a ditch. The inviolability had
+      been demolished by those who were inviolable. The hand of gendarmes had
+      become as accustomed to the collar of the Representatives as to the collar
+      of thieves: the white tie of the statesman was not even rumpled in the
+      grasp of the galley sergeants, and one can admire the Vicomte de Falloux&mdash;oh,
+      candor!&mdash;for being dumfounded at being treated like Citizen Sartin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The majority, going backwards, and ever applauding Bonaparte, fell into
+      the hole which Bonaparte had dug for it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0066" id="link2HCH0066"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVII. CONDUCT OF THE LEFT
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The conduct of the Republican Left in this grave crisis of the 2d of
+      December was memorable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The flag of the Law was on the ground, in the mire of universal treason,
+      under the feet of Louis Bonaparte; the Left raised this flag, washed away
+      the mire with its blood, unfurled it, waved it before the eyes of the
+      people, and from the 2d to the 5th of December held Bonaparte at bay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A few men, a mere handful, 120 Representatives of the people escaped by
+      chance from arrest, plunged in darkness and in silence, without even
+      possessing that cry of the free press which sounds the tocsin to human
+      intellects, and which encourages the combatants, without generals under
+      their orders, without soldiers, without ammunition, went down into the
+      streets, resolutely barred the way against the <i>coup d'état</i>, and
+      gave battle to this monstrous crime, which had taken all its precautions,
+      which was mail-clad in every part, armed to the teeth, crowding round it
+      forests of bayonets, and making a pack of mortars and cannons give tongue
+      in its favor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They had that presence of mind, which is the most practical kind of
+      courage; they had, while lacking everything else, the formidable
+      improvisation of duty, which never loses heart. They had no
+      printing-offices, they obtained them; they had no guns, they found them;
+      they had no balls, they cast them; they had no powder, they manufactured
+      it; they had nothing but paving-stones, and from thence they evolved
+      combatants.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is true that these paving-stones were the paving-stones of Paris,
+      stones which change themselves into men.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such is the power of Right, that, during four days these hundred and
+      twenty men, who had nothing in their favor but the goodness of their
+      cause, counterbalanced an army of 100,000 soldiers. At one moment the
+      scale turned on their side. Thanks to them, thanks to their resistance,
+      seconded by the indignation of honest hearts, there came an hour when the
+      victory of the law seemed possible, and even certain. On Thursday, the
+      4th, the <i>coup d'état</i> tottered, and was obliged to support itself by
+      assassination. We seen that without the butchery of the boulevards, if he
+      had not saved his perjury by a massacre, if he had not sheltered his crime
+      by another crime, Louis Bonaparte was lost.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During the long hours of this struggle, a struggle without a truce, a
+      struggle against the army during the day and against the police during the
+      night,&mdash;an unequal struggle, where all the strength and all the rage
+      was on one side, and, as we have just said, nothing but Right on the
+      other, not one of these hundred and twenty Representatives, not a single
+      one failed at the call of duty, not one shunned the danger, not one drew
+      back, not one wearied,&mdash;all these heads placed themselves resolutely
+      under the axe, and for four days waited for it to fall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To-day captivity, transportation, expatriation, exile, the axe has fallen
+      on nearly all these heads.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am one of those who have had no other merit in this struggle than to
+      rally into one unique thought the courage of all; but let me here heartily
+      render justice to those men amongst whom I pride myself with having for
+      three years served the holy cause of human progress, to this Left,
+      insulted, calumniated, unappreciated, and dauntless, which was always in
+      the breach, and which did not repose for a single day, which recoiled none
+      the more before the military conspiracy than before the parliamentary
+      conspiracy, and which, entrusted by the people with the task of defending
+      them, defended them even when abandoned by themselves; defended them in
+      the tribune with speech, and in the street with the sword.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the Committee of Resistance in the sitting at which the decree of
+      deposition and of outlawry was drawn up and voted, making use of the
+      discretionary power which the Left had confided to it, decided that all
+      the signatures of the Republican Representatives remaining at liberty
+      should be placed at the foot of the decree, it was a bold stroke; the
+      Committee did not conceal from itself that it was a list of proscription
+      offered to the victorious <i>coup d'état</i> ready drawn up, and perhaps
+      in its inner conscience it feared that some would disavow it, and protest
+      against it. As a matter of fact, the next day we received two letters, two
+      complaints. They were from two Representatives who had been omitted from
+      the list, and who claimed the honor of being reinstated there. I reinstate
+      these two Representatives here, in their right of being proscripts. Here
+      are their names&mdash;Anglade and Pradié.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From Tuesday, the 2d, to Friday, the 5th of December, the Representatives
+      of the Left and the Committee, dogged, worried, hunted down, always on the
+      point of being discovered and taken, that is to say&mdash;massacred;
+      repaired for the purpose of deliberating, to twenty-seven different
+      houses, shifted twenty-seven times their place of meeting, from their
+      first gathering in the Rue Blanche to their last conference at Raymond's.
+      They refused the shelters which were offered them on the left bank of the
+      river, wishing always to remain in the centre of the combat. During these
+      changes they more than once traversed the right bank of Paris from one end
+      to the other, most of the time on foot, and making long circuits in order
+      not to be followed. Everything threatened them with danger; their number,
+      their well-known faces, even their precautions. In the populous streets
+      there was danger, the police were permanently posted there; in the lonely
+      streets there was danger, because the goings and comings were more noticed
+      there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They did not sleep, they did not eat, they took what they could find, a
+      glass of water from time to time, a morsel of bread here and there. Madame
+      Landrin gave us a basin of soup, Madame Grévy the remainder of a cold pie.
+      We dined one evening on a little chocolate which a chemist had distributed
+      in a barricade. At Jeunesse's, in the Rue de Grammont, during the night of
+      the 3rd, Michel de Bourges took a chair, and said, "This is my bed." Were
+      they tired? They did not feel it. The old men, like Ronjat, the sick, like
+      Boysset, all went forward. The public peril, like a fever, sustained them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Our venerable colleague, Lamennais, did not come, but he remained three
+      days without going to bed, buttoned up in his old frock coat, his thick
+      boots on his feet, ready to march. He wrote to the author these three
+      lines, which it is impossible not to quote:&mdash;"You are heroes without
+      me. This pains me greatly. I await your orders. Try, then, to find me
+      something to do, be it but to die."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In these meetings each man preserved his usual demeanor. At times one
+      might have thought it an ordinary sitting in one of the bureaux of the
+      Assembly. There was the calm of every day, mingled with the firmness of
+      decisive crises. Edgar Quinet retained all his lofty judgment, Noël
+      Parfait all his mental vivacity, Yvan all his vigorous and intelligent
+      penetration, Labrousse all his animation. In a corner Pierre Lefranc,
+      pamphleteer and ballad-writer, but a pamphleteer like Courier, and a
+      ballad-writer like Béranger smiled at the grave and stern words of Dupont
+      de Bussac. All that brilliant group of young orators of the Left, Baneel
+      with his powerful ardor, Versigny and Victor Chauffour with their youthful
+      daring. Sain with his coolheadedness which reveals strength, Farconnet
+      with his gentle voice and his energetic inspiration, lavishing his efforts
+      in resisting the <i>coup d'état</i>, sometimes taking part in the
+      deliberations, at others amongst the people, proving that to be an orator
+      one must possess all the qualifications of a combatant. De Flotte,
+      indefatigable, was ever ready to traverse all Paris. Xavier Durrieu was
+      courageous, Dulac dauntless, Charamaule fool-hardy. Citizens and Paladins.
+      Courage! who would have dared to exhibit none amongst all these men, of
+      whom not one trembled? Untrimmed beards, torn coats, disordered hair, pale
+      faces, pride glistening in every eye. In the houses where they were
+      received they installed themselves as best they could. If there were no
+      sofas or chairs, some, exhausted in strength, but not in heart, seated
+      themselves on the floor. All became copyists of the decrees and
+      proclamations; one dictated, ten wrote. They wrote on tables, on the
+      corners of furniture, on their knees. Frequently paper was lacking, pens
+      were wanting. These wretched trifles created obstacles at the most
+      critical times. At certain moments in the history of peoples an inkstand
+      where the ink is dried up may prove a public calamity. Moreover,
+      cordiality prevailed among all, all shades of difference were effaced. In
+      the secret sittings of the Committee Madier de Montjau, that firm and
+      generous heart, De Flotte, brave and thoughtful, a fighting philosopher of
+      the Devolution, Carnot, accurate, cold, tranquil, immovable, Jules Favre,
+      eloquent, courageous, admirable through his simplicity and his strength,
+      inexhaustible in resources as in sarcasms, doubled, by combining them, the
+      diverse powers of their minds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Michel de Bourges, seated in a corner of the fireplace, or leaning on a
+      table enveloped in his great coat, his black silk cap on his head, had an
+      answer for every suggestion, gave back to occurrences blow for blow, was
+      on his guard for danger, difficulty, opportunity, necessity, for his is
+      one of those wealthy natures which have always something ready either in
+      their intellect or in their imagination. Words of advice crossed without
+      jostling each other. These men entertained no illusion. They knew that
+      they had entered into a life-and-death struggle. They had no quarter to
+      expect. They had to do with the Man who had said, "Crush everything." They
+      knew the bloody words of the self-styled Minister, Merny. These words the
+      placards of Saint-Arnaud interpreted by decrees, the Praetorians let loose
+      in the street interpreted them by murder. The members of the
+      Insurrectionary Committee and the Representatives assisting at the
+      meetings were not ignorant that wherever they might be taken they would be
+      killed on the spot by bayonet-thrusts. It was the fortune of this war. Yet
+      the prevailing expression on every face was serenity; that profound
+      serenity which comes from a happy conscience. At times this serenity rose
+      to gaiety. They laughed willingly and at everything. At the torn trousers
+      of one, at the hat which another had brought back from the barricade
+      instead of his own, at the comforter of a third. "Hide your big body,"
+      they said to him. They were children, and everything amused them. On the
+      morning of the 4th Mathien de la Drôme came in. He had organized for his
+      part a committee which communicated with the Central Committee, he came to
+      tell us of it. He had shaved off his fringe of beard so as not to be
+      recognized in the streets. "You look like an Archbishop," said Michel de
+      Bourges to him, and there was a general laugh. And all this, with this
+      thought which every moment brought back; the noise which is heard at the
+      door, the key which turns in the lock is perhaps Death coming in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Representatives and the Committee were at the mercy of chance. More
+      than once they could have been captured, and they were not; either owing
+      to the scruples of certain police agents (where the deuce will scruples
+      next take up their abode?) or that these agents doubted the final result,
+      and feared to lay their hand heedlessly upon possible victors. If Vassal,
+      the Commissary of Police, who met us on the morning of the 4th, on the
+      pavement of the Rue des Moulins, had wished, we might have been taken that
+      day. He did not betray us. But these were exceptions. The pursuit of the
+      police was none the less ardent and implacable. At Marie's, it may be
+      remembered that the <i>sergents de ville</i> and the gendarmes arrived ten
+      minutes after we had left the house, and that they even ransacked under
+      the beds with their bayonets.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Amongst the Representatives there were several Constituents, and at their
+      head Bastide. Bastide, in 1848, had been Minister for Foreign Affairs.
+      During the second night, meeting in the Rue Popincourt, they reproached
+      him with several of his actions. "Let me first get myself killed," he
+      answered, "and then you can reproach me with what you like." And he added,
+      "How can you distrust me, who am a Republican up to the hilt?" Bastide
+      would not consent to call our resistance the "insurrection," he called it
+      the "counter-insurrection." he said, "Victor Hugo is right. The insurgent
+      is at the Elysée." It was my opinion, as we have seen, that we ought to
+      bring the battle at once to an issue, to defer nothing, to reserve
+      nothing; I said, "We must strike the <i>coup d'état</i> while it is hot."
+      Bastide supported me. In the combat he was impassive, cold, gay beneath
+      his coldness. At the Saint Antoine barricade, at the moment when the guns
+      of the <i>coup d'état</i> were leveled at the Representatives of the
+      people, he said smilingly to Madier de Montjau, "Ask Schoelcher what he
+      thinks of the abolition of the penalty of death." (Schoelcher, like
+      myself, at this supreme moment, would have answered, "that it ought to be
+      abolished") In another barricade Bastide, compelled to absent himself for
+      a moment, placed his pipe on a paving-stone. They found Bastide's pipe,
+      and they thought him dead. He came back, and it was hailing musket-balls;
+      he said, "My pipe?" he relighted it and resumed the fight. Two balls
+      pierced his coat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the barricades were constructed, the Republican Representatives
+      spread themselves abroad; and distributed themselves amongst them. Nearly
+      all the Representatives of the Left repaired to the barricades, assisting
+      either to build them or to defend them. Besides the great exploit at Saint
+      Antoine barricade, where Schoelcher was so admirable, Esquiros went to the
+      barricade of the Rue de Charonne, De Flotte to those of the Pantheon and
+      of the Chapelle Saint Denis, Madier de Montjau to those of Belleville and
+      the Rue Aumaire, Doutre and Pelletier to that of the Mairie of the Fifth
+      Arrondissement, Brives to that of Rue Beaubourg, Arnauld de l'Ariège to
+      that of Rue de Petit-Repîsoir, Viguier to that of the Rue Pagevin,
+      Versigny to that of the Rue Joigneaux; Dupont de Bussac to that of the
+      Carré Saint Martin; Carlos Forel and Boysset to that of the Rue Rambuteau.
+      Doutre received a sword-cut on his head, which cleft his hat; Bourzat had
+      four balls in his overcoat; Baudin was killed; Gaston Dussoubs was ill and
+      could not come; his brother, Denis Dussoubs, replaced him. Where? In the
+      tomb.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Baudin fell on the first barricade, Denis Dussoubs on the last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was less favored than Bourzat; I only had three balls in my overcoat,
+      and it is impossible for me to say whence they came. Probably from the
+      boulevard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After the battle was lost there was no general helter-skelter, no rout, no
+      flight. All remained hidden in Paris ready to reappear, Michel in the Rue
+      d'Alger, myself in the Rue de Navarin. The Committee held yet another
+      sitting on Saturday, the 6th, at eleven o'clock at night. Jules Favre,
+      Michel de Bourges, and myself, we came during the night to the house of a
+      generous and brave woman, Madame Didier. Bastide came there and said to
+      me, "If you are not killed here, you are going to enter upon exile. For
+      myself, I am going to remain in Paris. Take me for your lieutenant." I
+      have related this incident.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They hoped for the 9th (Tuesday) a resumption of arms, which did not take
+      place. Malarmet had announced it to Dupont de Bussac, but the blow of the
+      4th had prostrated Paris. The populace no longer stirred. The
+      Representatives did not resolve to think of their safety, and to quit
+      France through a thousand additional dangers until several days
+      afterwards, when the last spark of resistance was extinguished in the
+      heart of the people, and the last glimmer of hope in heaven.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Several Republican Representatives were workmen; they have again become
+      workmen in exile. Nadaud has resumed his trowel, and is a mason in London.
+      Faure (du Rhône), a cutler, and Bansept, a shoemaker, felt that their
+      trade had become their duty, and practise it in England. Faure makes
+      knives, Bansept makes boots. Greppo is a weaver, it was he who when a
+      proscript made the coronation robe of Queen Victoria. Gloomy smile of
+      Destiny. Noël Parfait is a proof-reader at Brussels; Agricol Perdiguier,
+      called Avignonnais-la-Vertu, has girded on his leathern apron, and is a
+      cabinet-maker at Antwerp. Yesterday these men sat in the Sovereign
+      Assembly. Such things as these are seen in Plutarch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The eloquent and courageous proscript, Emile Deschanel, has created at
+      Brussels, with a rare talent of speech, a new form of public instruction,
+      the Conferences. To him is due the honor of this foundation, so fruitful
+      and so useful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Let us say in conclusion that the National Legislative Assembly lived
+      badly but died well.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this moment of the fall, irreparable for the cowards, the Right was
+      worthy, the Left was great.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Never before has History seen a Parliament fall in this manner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      February had blown upon the Deputies of the legal country, and the
+      Deputies had vanished. M. Sauzet had sunk down behind the tribune, and had
+      gone away without even taking his hat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bonaparte, the other, the first, the true Bonaparte, had made the "Five
+      Hundred" step out of the windows of the Orangery of Saint Cloud, somewhat
+      embarrassed with their large mantles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Cromwell, the oldest of the Bonapartes, when he achieved his Eighteenth
+      Brumaire, encountered scarcely any other resistance than a few
+      imprecations from Milton and from Ludlaw, and was able to say in his
+      boorishly gigantic language, "I have put the King in my knapsack and the
+      Parliament in my pocket."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We must go back to the Roman Senate in order to find true Curule chairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Legislative Assembly, let us repeat, to its honor, did not lose
+      countenance when facing the abyss. History will keep an account of it.
+      After having betrayed so many things, it might have been feared that this
+      Assembly would end by betraying itself. It did nothing of the kind. The
+      Legislature, one is obliged to remember, had committed faults upon faults;
+      the Royalist majority had, in the most odious manner, persecuted the
+      Republican minority, which was bravely doing its duty in denouncing it to
+      the people; this Assembly had had a very long cohabitation and a most
+      fatal complicity with the Man of Crime, who had ended by strangling it as
+      a robber strangles his concubine in his bed; but whatever may be said of
+      this fateful Assembly, it did not exhibit that wretched vanishing away
+      which Louis Bonaparte hoped for; it was not a coward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This is due to its having originated from universal suffrage. Let us
+      mention this, for it is an instructive lesson. The virtue of this
+      universal suffrage, which had begotten the Assembly and which the Assembly
+      had wished to slay, it felt in itself to its last hour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sap of a whole people does not spread in vain throughout an Assembly,
+      even throughout the most decrepit. On the decisive day this sap asserts
+      itself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Legislative Assembly, laden as it may be with formidable
+      responsibilities, will, perhaps, be less overwhelmed than it deserves by
+      the reprobation of posterity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thanks to universal suffrage, which it had deceived, and which constituted
+      its faith and its strength at the last moment, thanks to the Left, which
+      it had oppressed, scoffed at, calumniated, and decimated, and which cast
+      on it the glorious reflection of its heroism, this pitiful Assembly died a
+      grand death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0067" id="link2HCH0067"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVIII. PAGE WRITTEN AT BRUSSELS
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Well then, yes, I will kick open the door of this Palace, and I will enter
+      with you, History! I will seize by the collar all the perpetrators,
+      continually caught red-handed in the commission of all these outrages! I
+      will suddenly illuminate this cavern of night with the broad daylight of
+      truth!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yes, I will bring in the daylight! I will tear down the curtain, I will
+      open the window, I will show to every eye such as it really is, infamous,
+      horrible, wealthy, triumphant, joyous, gilded, besmirched&mdash;this
+      Elysée! this Court! this group! this heap! call it what you will! this
+      galley-crew! where writhe and crawl, and pair and breed every baseness,
+      every indignity, every abomination: filibusters, buccaneers, swearers of
+      oaths, Signers of the Cross, spies, swindlers, butchers, executioners,
+      from the brigand who vends his sword, to the Jesuit who sells his God
+      second-hand! This sink where Baroche elbows Teste! where each brings his
+      own nastiness! Magnan his epaulets; Montalembert his religion, Dupin his
+      person!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And above all the innermost circle, the Holy of Holies, the private
+      Council, the smug den where they drink&mdash;where they eat&mdash;where
+      they laugh&mdash;where they sleep&mdash;where they play&mdash;where they
+      cheat&mdash;where they call Highnesses "Thou,"&mdash;where they wallow!
+      Oh! what ignominies! It is them! It is there! Dishonor, baseness, shame,
+      and opprobrium are there! Oh History! A hot iron for all these faces.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is there that they amuse themselves, and that they jest, and that they
+      banter, and that they make sport of France! It is there that they pocket
+      hap-hazard, amid great shouts of laughter, the millions of louis and the
+      millions of votes! See them, look at them! They have treated the Law like
+      a girl, they are content! Right is slaughtered, Liberty is gagged, the
+      flag is dishonored, the people are under their feet. They are happy! And
+      who are they? What are these men? Europe knows not. One fine morning it
+      saw them come out of a crime. Nothing more. A parcel of rascals who vainly
+      tried to become celebrated, and who have remained anonymous. Look! they
+      are all there! See them, I tell you! Look at them, I tell you! Recognize
+      them if you can. Of what sex are they? To what species do they belong? Who
+      is this one? Is he a writer? No; he is a dog. He gobbles human flesh. And
+      that one? Is he a dog? No, he is a courtier&mdash;he has blood on his paw.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      New men, that is what they term them. New, in truth! Unlooked-for,
+      strange, unprecedented, monstrous! Perjury, iniquity, robbery,
+      assassination, erected into ministerial departments, swindling applied to
+      universal suffrage, government under false pretences, duty called crime,
+      crime called duty, cynicism laughing in the midst of atrocity,&mdash;it is
+      of all this that their newness is compounded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, all is well, they have succeeded, they have a fair wind, they enjoy
+      themselves to the full. They have cheated France, they are dividing the
+      spoil. France is a bag, and they put their hand in it. Rummage, for
+      Heaven's sake! Take, while you are there; help yourselves, draw out,
+      plunder, steal! One wants money, another wants situations, another wants a
+      decorative collar round his neck, another a plume in his hat, another
+      embroidery on his sleeve, another women, another power; another news for
+      the Bourse, another a railway, another wine. I should think, indeed, that
+      they are well satisfied. Picture to yourself a poor devil who, three years
+      ago, borrowed ten sous of his porter, and who to-day, leaning voluptuously
+      on the <i>Moniteur</i>, has only to sign a decree to take a million. To
+      make themselves perfectly happy, to be able to devour the finances of the
+      State, to live at the expense of the Treasury like a son of the family,
+      this is what is called their policy. Their ambition has a true name, it is
+      gluttony.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They ambitious? Nonsense! They are gluttons. To govern is to gamble. This
+      does not prevent betrayal. On the contrary, they spy upon each other, they
+      betray each other. The little traitors betray the great traitors. Pietri
+      looks askance at Maupas, and Maupas at Carlier. They all lie in the same
+      reeking sewer! They have achieved the <i>coup d'état</i> in common. That
+      is all. Moreover they feel sure of nothing, neither of glances, nor of
+      smiles, nor of hidden thoughts, nor of men, nor of women, nor of the
+      lacquey, nor of the prince, nor of words of honor, nor of birth
+      certificates. Each feels himself fraudulent, and knows himself suspected.
+      Each has his secret aims. Each alone knows why he has done this. Not one
+      utters a word about his crime, and no one bears the name of his father.
+      Ah! may God grant me life, and may Jesus pardon me, I will raise a gibbet
+      a hundred yards high, I will take hammer and nails, and I will crucify
+      this Beauharnais called Bonaparte, between this Leroy called Saint-Arnoud,
+      and this Fialin called Persigny!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And I would drag you there also, all of you accomplices! This Morny, this
+      Romieu, this Fould, the Jew senator, this Delangle, who bears on his back
+      this placard: JUSTICE! and this Troplong, this judicial glorifier of the
+      violation of the laws, this lawyer apologist of the <i>coup d'état</i>,
+      this magistrate flatterer of perjury, this judge panegyrist of murder, who
+      will go down to posterity with a sponge filled with mud and with blood in
+      his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I begin the battle therefore. With whom? With the present ruler of Europe.
+      It is right that this spectacle should be given to the world. Louis
+      Bonaparte is the success, is the intoxicated triumph, is the gay and
+      ferocious despotism, opening out under the victory, he is the mad fulness
+      of power, seeking limits and finding none, neither in things nor in men;
+      Louis Bonaparte holds France, <i>Urbem Roman habit</i>; and whoever holds
+      France holds the world; he is master of the votes, master of the
+      consciences, master of the people; he nominates his successor, reigns
+      forever over future electoral scrutinies, disposes of eternity, and places
+      futurity in an envelope; his Senate, his Legislative Body, his Council of
+      State, with heads lowered and mingled confusedly behind him, lick his
+      feet; he drags along in a leash the bishops and cardinals; he tramples on
+      the justice which curses him, and on the judges who adore him, thirty
+      correspondents inform the Continent that he has frowned, and every
+      electric telegraph vibrates if he raises his little finger; around him is
+      heard the rustling of sabres, and the drums beat the salute; he sits under
+      the shadow of the eagle in the midst of bayonets and of citadels, the free
+      nations tremble and hide their liberties for fear that he should steal
+      them, the great American Republic herself falters in his presence, and
+      dares not withdraw her Ambassador from him; the kings, surrounded by their
+      armies, look at him smilingly, with their hearts full of fear. Where will
+      he begin? With Belgium? With Switzerland? With Piedmont? Europe expects to
+      be overrun. He is capable of all, and he dreams of all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Well, then! Before this master, this triumpher, this conqueror, this
+      dictator, this Emperor, this all-powerful, there rises a solitary man, a
+      wanderer, despoiled, ruined, prostrate, proscribed, and attacks him. Louis
+      Napoleon has ten thousand cannons, and five hundred thousand soldiers; the
+      writer has his pen and his ink-stand. The writer is nothing, he is a grain
+      of dust, he is a shadow, he is an exile without a refuge, he is a vagrant
+      without a passport, but he has by his side and fighting with him two
+      powers, Right, which is invincible, and Truth, which is immortal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Assuredly, for this struggle to the death, for this formidable duel,
+      Providence could have chosen a more illustrious champion, a grander
+      athlete. But what matter men, there, where it is the idea with combats!
+      Such as it is, it is good, let us repeat, that this spectacle should be
+      given to the world. What is this in truth? It is intellect, an atom which
+      resists strength&mdash;a colossus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have only one stone in my sling, but that stone is a good one; that
+      stone is justice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I attack Louis Bonaparte at this hour, when he is erect; at this hour,
+      when he is master. He is in his zenith. So much the better; it is that
+      which suits me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yes, I attack Louis Bonaparte. I attack him before the world; I attack him
+      in the presence of God and men; I attack him resolutely, desperately; for
+      the love of the people and of France. He is about to be Emperor, let it be
+      so. Let there be at least one brow which resists. Let Louis Bonaparte know
+      that an Empire may be taken, but that a Conscience cannot be taken.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0068" id="link2HCH0068"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIX. THE INFALLIBLE BENEDICTION
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      The Pope approved.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      When the mails brought to Rome intelligence of the event of the 2d of
+      December, the Pope went to a review held by General Gémeau, and begged him
+      to congratulate Prince Louis Napoléon for him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a precedent for this.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the 12th December, 1572, Saint-Goard, Ambassador of Charles the Ninth,
+      King of France, to Philip the Second, King of Spain, wrote from Madrid to
+      his master, Charles the Ninth, "The news of the events of the day of Saint
+      Bartholomew have reached the Catholic King. Contrary to his wont and
+      custom, he has shown so much joy, that he has manifested it more openly
+      than he has ever done for all the happy events and good fortune which have
+      previously befallen him. So that I went to him on Sunday morning at Saint
+      Hieronimus, and having approached him, he burst out laughing, and with
+      every demonstration of extreme pleasure and contentment, began to praise
+      your Majesty."<a href="#linknoteref-36" name="linknote-36" id="linknote-36"><small>36</small></a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The hand of Pius IX. remained extended over France, when it had become the
+      Empire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, under the shadow of this benediction, began an era of prosperity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a href="#linknote-36" name="linknoteref-36" id="linknoteref-36_"><small>36</small></a>
+      <i>"Archives of the house of Orange," page 125, Supplement.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_CONC" id="link2H_CONC"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CONCLUSION&mdash;THE FALL.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0069" id="link2HCH0069"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER I.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      I was coming back from my fourth exile&mdash;an exile in Belgium, a small
+      matter. It was one of the last days of September, 1871. I was re-entering
+      France by the Luxembourg frontier. I had fallen asleep in the carriage.
+      Suddenly the jolt of the train coming to a standstill awoke me. I opened
+      my eyes.
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      The train had stopped in the middle of a charming landscape.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      I was in the half-consciousness of an interrupted sleep; and ideas, as yet
+      half-dreams, hazy and diffuse, hovered between myself and reality. I
+      experienced the undefinable and confused sensation of awakening.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A river flowed by the side of the railway, clear, around a bright and
+      verdant island. This vegetation was so thick that the moor-hens, on
+      reaching it, plunged beneath it and disappeared. The river wound through a
+      valley, which appeared like a huge garden. Apple-trees were there, which
+      reminded one of Eve, and willows, which made one think of Galatea. It was,
+      as I have said, in one of those equinoctial months when may be felt the
+      peculiar charm of a season drawing to a close. If it be winter which is
+      passing away, you hear the song of approaching spring; if it be summer
+      which is vanishing, you see glimmering on the horizon the undefinable
+      smile of autumn. The wind lulled and harmonized all those pleasant sounds
+      which compose the murmur of the fields; the tinkling of the sheep-bells
+      seemed to soothe the humming of the bees; the last butterflies met
+      together with the first grapes; this hour of the year mingles the joy of
+      being still alive with the unconscious melancholy of fast approaching
+      death; the sweetness of the sun was indescribable. Fertile fields streaked
+      with furrows, honest peasants' cottages; under the trees a turf covered
+      with shade, the lowing of cattle as in Virgil, and the smoke of hamlets
+      penetrated by rays of sunshine; such was the complete picture. The
+      clanging of anvils rang in the distance, the rhythm of work amidst the
+      harmony of nature. I listened, I mused vaguely. The valley was beautiful
+      and quiet, the blue heavens seemed as though resting upon a lovely circle
+      of hills; in the distance were the voices of birds, and close to me the
+      voices of children, like two songs of angels mingled together; the
+      universal purity enshrouded me: all this grace and all this grandeur shed
+      a golden dawn into my soul....
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly a fellow-traveller asked,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What place is this?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another answered,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sedan."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I shuddered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This paradise was a tomb.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I looked around. The valley was circular and hollow, like the bottom of a
+      crater; the winding river resembled a serpent; the high hills, ranged one
+      behind the other, surrounded this mysterious spot like a triple line of
+      inexorable walls; once there, there is no means of exit. It reminded me of
+      the amphitheatres. An indescribable disquieting vegetation which seemed to
+      be an extension of the Black Forest, overran all the heights, and lost
+      itself in the horizon like a huge impenetrable snare; the sun shone, the
+      birds sang, carters passed by whistling; sheep, lambs, and pigeons were
+      scattered about, leaves quivered and rustled; the grass, a densely thick
+      grass, was full of flowers. It was appalling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I seemed to see waving over this valley the flashing of the avenging
+      angel's sword.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This word "Sedan" had been like a veil abruptly torn aside. The landscape
+      had become suddenly filled with tragedy. Those shapeless eyes which the
+      bark of trees delineates on the trunks were gazing&mdash;at what? At
+      something terrible and lost to view.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In truth, that was the place! And at the moment when I was passing by
+      thirteen months all but a few days had elapsed. That was the place where
+      the monstrous enterprise of the 2d of December had burst asunder. A
+      fearful shipwreck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The gloomy pathways of Fate cannot be studied without profound anguish of
+      the heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0070" id="link2HCH0070"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER II.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      On the 31st of August, 1870, an army was reassembled, and was, as it were,
+      massed together under the walls of Sedan, in a place called the Givonne
+      Valley. This army was a French army&mdash;twenty-nine brigades, fifteen
+      divisions, four army corps&mdash;90,000 men. This army was in this place
+      without any one being able to divine the reason; without order, without an
+      object, scattered about&mdash;a species of heap of men thrown down there
+      as though with the view of being seized by some huge hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This army either did not entertain, or appeared not to entertain, for the
+      moment any immediate uneasiness. They knew, or at least they thought they
+      knew, that the enemy was a long way off. On calculating the stages at four
+      leagues daily, it was three days' march distant. Nevertheless, towards
+      evening the leaders took some wise strategic precautions; they protected
+      the army, which rested in the rear on Sedan and the Meuse, by two battle
+      fronts, one composed of the 7th Corps, and extending from Floing to
+      Givonne, the other composed of the 12th Corps, extending from Givonne to
+      Bazeilles; a triangle of which the Meuse formed the hypothenuse. The 12th
+      Corps, formed of the three divisions of Lacretelle, Lartigue, and Wolf,
+      ranged on the right, with the artillery, between the brigades formed a
+      veritable barrier, having Bazeilles and Givonne at each end, and Daigny in
+      its centre; the two divisions of Petit and Lhéritier massed in the rear
+      upon two lines supported this barrier. General Lebrun commanded the 12th
+      Corps. The 7th Corps, commanded by General Douay, only possessed two
+      divisions&mdash;Dumont's division and Gilbert's division&mdash;and formed
+      the other battle front, covering the army of Givonne to Floing on the side
+      of Illy; this battle front was comparatively weak, too open on the side of
+      Givonne, and only protected on the side of the Meuse by the two cavalry
+      divisions of Margueritte and Bonnemains, and by Guyomar's brigade, resting
+      in squares upon Floing. Within this triangle were encamped the 5th Corps,
+      commanded by General Wimpfen, and the 1st Corps, commanded by General
+      Ducrot. Michel's cavalry division covered the 1st Corps on the side of
+      Daigny; the 5th supported itself upon Sedan. Four divisions, each disposed
+      upon two lines&mdash;the divisions of Lhéritier, Grandchamp, Goze, and
+      Conseil-Duménil&mdash;formed a sort of horseshoe, turned towards Sedan,
+      and uniting the first battle front with the second. The cavalry division
+      of Ameil and the brigade of Fontanges served as a reserve for these four
+      divisions. The whole of the artillery was upon the two battle fronts. Two
+      portions of the army were in confusion, one to the right of Sedan beyond
+      Balan, the other to the left of Sedan, on this side of Iges. Beyond Balan
+      were the divisions of Vassoigne and the brigade of Reboul, on this side of
+      Iges were the two cavalry divisions of Margueritte and Bonnemains.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These arrangements indicated a profound feeling of security. In the first
+      place the Emperor Napoleon III. would not have come there if he had not
+      been perfectly tranquil. This Givonne Valley is what Napoleon I. called a
+      "washhand basin." There could not be a more complete enclosure. An army is
+      so much at home there that it is too much so; it runs the risk of no
+      longer being able to get out. This disquieted some brave and prudent
+      leaders such as Wimpfen, but they were not listened to. If absolutely
+      necessary, said the people of the Imperial circle, they could always be
+      sure of being able to reach Mézières, and at the worst the Belgian
+      frontier. Was it, however, needful to provide for such extreme
+      eventualities? In certain cases foresight is almost an offence. They were
+      all of one mind, therefore, to be at their ease.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If they had been uneasy they would have cut the bridges of the Meuse; but
+      they did not even think of it. To what purpose? The enemy was a long way
+      off. The Emperor, who evidently was well informed, affirmed it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The army bivouacked somewhat in confusion, as we have said, and slept
+      peaceably throughout this night of August 31, having, whatever might
+      happen, or believing that they had, the retreat upon Mézières open behind
+      it. They disdained to take the most ordinary precautions, they made no
+      cavalry reconnaissances, they did not even place outposts. A German
+      military writer has stated this.<a href="#linknoteref-37"
+      name="linknote-37" id="linknote-37"><small>37</small></a> Fourteen leagues
+      at least separated them from the German army, three days' march; they did
+      not exactly know where it was; they believed it scattered, possessing
+      little unity, badly informed, led somewhat at random upon several points
+      at once, incapable of a movement converging upon one single point, like
+      Sedan; they believed that the Crown Prince of Saxony was marching on
+      Chalons, and that the Crown Prince of Prussia was marching on Metz; they
+      were ignorant of everything appertaining to this army, its leaders, its
+      plan, its armament, its effective force. Was it still following the
+      strategy of Gustavus Adolphus? Was it still following the tactics of
+      Frederick II.? No one knew. They felt sure of being at Berlin in a few
+      weeks. What nonsense! The Prussian army! They talked of this war as of a
+      dream, and of this army as of a phantom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During this very night, while the French army was sleeping, this is what
+      was taking place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a href="#linknote-37" name="linknoteref-37" id="linknoteref-37_"><small>37</small></a>
+      <i>M. Harwik.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0071" id="link2HCH0071"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER III.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      At a quarter to two in the morning, at his headquarters at Mouzon, Albert,
+      Crown Prince of Saxony, set the Army of the Meuse in motion; the Royal
+      Guard were beat to arms, and two divisions marched, one upon
+      Villers-Cernay, by Escambre and Fouru-aux-Bois, the other upon Francheval
+      by Suchy and Fouru-Saint-Remy. The Artillery of the Guard followed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the same moment the 12th Saxon Corps was beaten to arms, and by the
+      high road to the south of Douzy reached Lamécourt, and marched upon La
+      Moncelle; the 1st Bavarian Corps marched upon Bazeilles, supported at
+      Reuilly-sur-Meuse by an Artillery Division of the 4th Corps. The other
+      division of the 4th Corps crossed the Meuse at Mouzon, and massed itself
+      in reserve at Mairy, upon the right bank. These three columns maintained
+      close communication with each other. The order was given to the advanced
+      guards to begin no offensive movement before five o'clock, and silently to
+      occupy Fouru-aux-Bois, Fouru-Saint-Remy, and Douay. They had left their
+      knapsacks behind them. The baggage-wagons did not stir. The Crown Prince
+      of Saxony was on horseback on the heights of Amblimont.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the same time, at his headquarters at Chémery, Blumenthal was having a
+      bridge built over the Meuse by the Wurtemburg division. The 11th Corps,
+      astir before daylight, crossed the Meuse at Dom-le-Mesnil and at Donchery,
+      and reached Vrigne-sur-Bois. The artillery followed, and held the road
+      from Vrigne to Sedan. The Wurtemburg division kept the bridge which it had
+      built, and held the road from Sedan to Mézières. At five o'clock, the 2d
+      Bavarian Corps, with the artillery at its head, detached one of its
+      divisions, and sent it by Bulson upon Frénois; the other division passed
+      by Noyers, and drew up before Sedan, between Frénois and Wadelincourt. The
+      artillery of the Reserve was drawn up on the heights of the left bank,
+      opposite Donchery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the same time the 6th Cavalry Division was sent from Mazeray, and
+      passing by Boutancourt and Bolzicourt, reached the Meuse at Flize; the 2d
+      Cavalry Division quitted its encampment, and took up its position to the
+      south of Boutancourt; the 4th Cavalry Division took up its position to the
+      south of Frénois; the 1st Bavarian Corps installed itself at Remilly; the
+      5th Cavalry Division and the 6th Corps were posted to observe, and all in
+      line, and order, massed upon the heights waited for the dawn to appear.
+      The Crown Prince of Prussia was on horseback on the hill of Frénois.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the same moment, upon every point of the horizon, other and similar
+      movements were taking place from every side. The high hills were suddenly
+      overrun by an immense black army. Not one shout of command. Two hundred
+      and fifty thousand men came silently to encircle the Givonne Valley.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This is what the circle consisted of,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Bavarians, the right wing, at Bazeilles on the Meuse; next to the
+      Bavarians the Saxons, at La Moncelle and Daigny; opposite Givonne, the
+      Royal Guard; the 5th Corps at Saint Menges; the 2d at Flaigneux; the
+      Wurtemburgers at the bend of the Meuse, between Saint Menges and Donchery;
+      Count Stolberg and his cavalry at Donchery; in front, towards Sedan, the
+      2d Bavarian Army.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All this was carried out in a ghostly manner, in order, without a whisper,
+      without a sound, through forests, ravines, and valleys. A tortuous and
+      ill-omened march. A stealthy gliding onwards of reptiles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Scarcely could a murmur be heard beneath the thick foliage. The silent
+      battle swarmed in the darkness awaiting the day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The French army was sleeping.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly it awoke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a prisoner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sun rose, brilliant on the side of God&mdash;terrible on the side of
+      man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0072" id="link2HCH0072"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IV.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Let us review the situation. The Germans have numbers on their side; they
+      are three against one, perhaps four; they own to 250,000 men, and it is
+      certain that their attacking front extended for 30 kilomètres; they have
+      on their side the positions, they crown the heights, they fill the
+      forests, they are covered by all these escarpments, they are masked by all
+      this shade; they possess an incomparable artillery. The French army is in
+      a valley, almost without artillery and without supplies, utterly naked
+      beneath their hail of lead. The Germans have on their side the ambuscade,
+      and the French have only on their side heroism. Death is glorious, but
+      surprise is profitable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A surprise, that is the true description of this brilliant exploit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Is it fair warfare? Yes. But if this is fair, what is unfair warfare? It
+      is the same thing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This said, the story of the Battle of Sedan has been told.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I should have wished to stop there. But I cannot. Whatever horror the
+      historian may feel, History is a duty, and this duty must be fulfilled.
+      There is no incline more inexorable than this: to tell the truth; he who
+      ventures on it rolls to the very bottom. It must be so. The guardian of
+      Justice is doomed to justice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Battle of Sedan is more than a battle which has been fought; it is a
+      syllogism which is completed; a formidable premeditation of destiny.
+      Destiny never hurries, but it always comes. At its hour, there it is. It
+      allows years to pass by, and at the moment when men are least thinking of
+      it, it appears. Of this character is the fatal, the unexpected catastrophe
+      named Sedan. From time to time in History, Divine logic makes an
+      onslaught. Sedan is one of those onslaughts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus on the 1st of September, at five o'clock in the morning the world
+      awoke under the sun, and the French army under the thunderbolt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0073" id="link2HCH0073"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER V.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Bazeilles takes fire, Givonne takes fire, Floing takes fire; the battle
+      begins with a furnace. The whole horizon is aflame. The French camp is in
+      this crater, stupefied, affrighted, starting up from sleeping,&mdash;a
+      funereal swarming. A circle of thunder surrounds the army. They are
+      encircled by annihilation. This mighty slaughter is carried on on all
+      sides simultaneously. The French resist, and they are terrible, having
+      nothing left but despair. Our cannon, almost all old-fashioned and of
+      short range, are at once dismounted by the fearful and exact aim of the
+      Prussians. The density of the rain of shells upon the valley is so great,
+      that "the earth is completely furrowed," says an eye-witness, "as though
+      by a rake." How many cannon? Eleven hundred at least. Twelve German
+      batteries upon La Moncelle alone; the 3d and 4th <i>Abtheilung</i>, an
+      awe-striking artillery, upon the crests of Givonne, with the 2d horse
+      battery in reserve; opposite Doigny ten Saxon and two Wurtemburg
+      batteries; the curtain of trees of the wood to the north of Villers-Cernay
+      masks the mounted <i>Abtheilung</i>, which is there with the 3d Heavy
+      Artillery in reserve, and from this gloomy copse issues a formidable fire;
+      the twenty-four pieces of the 1st Heavy Artillery are ranged in the glade
+      skirting the road from La Moncelle to La Chapelle; the battery of the
+      Royal Guard sets fire to the Garenne Wood; the shells and the balls riddle
+      Suchy, Francheval, Fouru-Saint-Remy, and the valley between Heibes and
+      Givonne; and the third and fourth rank of cannon extend without break of
+      continuity as far as the Calvary of Illy, the extreme point of the
+      horizon. The German soldiers, seated or lying before the batteries, watch
+      the artillery at work. The French soldiers fall and die. Amongst the
+      bodies which cover the plain there is one, the body of an officers on
+      which they will find, after the battle, a sealed note, containing this
+      order, signed NAPOLEON: "To-day, September 1st, rest for the whole army."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The gallant 35th of the Line almost completely disappears under the
+      overwhelming shower of shells; the brave Marine Infantry holds at bay for
+      a moment the Saxons, joined by the Bavarians, but outflanked on every
+      side, draws back; all the admirable cavalry of the Targueritte Division
+      hurled against the German infantry, halts and sinks down midway,
+      "annihilated," says the Prussian Report, "by well-aimed and cool firing."<a
+      href="#linknoteref-38" name="linknote-38" id="linknote-38"><small>38</small></a>
+      This field of carnage has three outlets; all three barred: the Bouillon
+      road by the Prussian Guard, the Carignan road by the Bavarians, the
+      Mézières road by the Wurtemburgers. The French have not thought of
+      barricading the railway viaduct; three German battalions have occupied it
+      during the night. Two isolated houses on the Balan road could be made the
+      pivot of a long resistance; but the Germans are there. The wood from
+      Monvilliers to Bazeilles, bushy and dense, might prevent the junction of
+      the Saxons, masters of La Moncelle, and the Bavarians, masters of
+      Bazeilles; but the French have been forestalled: they find the Bavarians
+      cutting the underwood with their bill-hooks. The German army moves in one
+      piece, in one absolute unity; the Crown Prince of Saxony is on the height
+      of Mairy, whence he surveys the whole action; the command oscillates in
+      the French army; at the beginning of the battle, at a quarter to six,
+      MacMahon is wounded by the bursting of a shell; at seven o'clock Ducrot
+      replaces him; at ten o'clock Wimpfen replaces Ducrot. Every instant the
+      wall of fire is drawing closer in, the roll of the thunder is continuous,
+      a dismal pulverization of 90,000 men! Never before has anything equal to
+      this been seen; never before has an army been overwhelmed beneath such a
+      downpour of lead and iron! At one o'clock all is lost. The regiments fly
+      helter-skelter into Sedan. But Sedan begins to burn; Dijonval burns, the
+      ambulances burn, there is nothing now possible but to cut their way out.
+      Wimpfen, brave and resolute, proposes this to the Emperor. The 3d Zouaves,
+      desperate, have set the example. Cut off from the rest of the army, they
+      have forced a passage, and have reached Belgium. A flight of lions!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly, above the disaster, above the huge pile of dead and dying, above
+      all this unfortunate heroism, appears disgrace. The white flag is hoisted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Turenne and Vauban were both present, one in his statue, the other in his
+      citadel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The statue and the citadel witnessed the awe-striking capitulation. These
+      two virgins, one of bronze, the other of granite, felt themselves
+      prostituted. O noble face of our country! Oh, eternal blushes!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a href="#linknote-38" name="linknoteref-38" id="linknoteref-38_"><small>38</small></a>
+      <i>The Franco-German War of 1870-71. Report of the Prussian Staff, page
+      1087.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0074" id="link2HCH0074"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VI.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      This disaster of Sedan was easy of avoidance by any other man, but
+      impossible of avoidance for Louis Bonaparte. He avoided it so little that
+      he sought it. <i>Lex fati</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Our army seemed expressly arranged for the catastrophe. The soldier was
+      uneasy, ignorant of his whereabouts, famished. On the 31st of August, in
+      the streets of Sedan, soldiers were seeking their regiments, and going
+      from door to door asking for bread. We have seen the Emperor's order
+      announcing the next day, September 1st, as a day of rest. In truth the
+      army was worn out with fatigue. And yet it had only marched by short
+      stages. The soldier was almost losing the habit of marching. One corps,
+      the 1st, for example, only accomplished two leagues per day (on the 29th
+      of August from Stonne to Raucourt).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During that time the German army, inexorably commanded and driven at the
+      stick's end like the army of the Xerxes, achieved marches of fourteen
+      leagues in fifteen hours, which enabled it to arrive unexpectedly, and to
+      surround the French army while asleep. It was customary to allow oneself
+      to be surprised. General Failly allowed himself to be surprised at
+      Beaumont; during the day the soldiers took their guns to pieces to clean
+      them, at night they slept, without even cutting the bridges which
+      delivered them to the enemy; thus they neglected to blow up the bridges of
+      Mouzon and Bazeilles. On September 1st, daylight had not yet appeared,
+      when an advance guard of seven battalions, commanded by General Schultz,
+      captured La Rulle, and insured the junction of the army of the Meuse with
+      the Royal Guard. Almost at the same minute, with German precision, the
+      Wurtemburgers seized the bridge of La Platinerie, and hidden by the
+      Chevalier Wood, the Saxon battalions, spread out into company columns,
+      occupied the whole of the road from La Moncelle to Villers-Cernay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus, as we have seen, the awakening of the French Army was horrible. At
+      Bazeilles a fog was added to the smoke. Our soldiers, attacked in this
+      gloom, knew not what death required of them; they fought from room to room
+      and from house to house.<a href="#linknoteref-39" name="linknote-39"
+      id="linknote-39"><small>39</small></a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was in vain that the Reboul brigade came to support the Martin des
+      Pallières brigade; they were obliged to yield. At the same time Ducrot was
+      compelled to concentrate his forces in the Garenne Wood, before the
+      Calvary of Illy; Douay, shattered, fell back; Lebrun alone stood firm on
+      the plateau of Stenay. Our troops occupied a line of five kilomètres; the
+      front of the French army faced the east, the left faced the north, the
+      extreme left (the Guyomar brigade) faced the west; but they did not know
+      whether they faced the enemy, they did not see him; annihilation struck
+      without showing itself; they had to deal with a masked Medusa. Our cavalry
+      was excellent, but useless. The field of battle, obstructed by a large
+      wood, cut up by clumps of trees, by houses and by farms and by enclosure
+      walls, was excellent for artillery and infantry, but bad for cavalry. The
+      rivulet of Givonne, which flows at the bottom of the valley and crosses
+      it, for three days ran with more blood than water. Among other places of
+      carnage, Saint-Menges was appalling. For a moment it appeared possible to
+      cut a way out by Carignan towards Montmédy, and then this outlet reclosed.
+      This refuge only remained, Sedan; Sedan encumbered with carts, with
+      wagons, with carriages, with hospital huts; a heap of combustible matter.
+      This dying agony of heroes lasted ten hours. They refused to surrender,
+      they grew indignant, they wished to complete their death, so bravely
+      begun. They were delivered up to it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As we have said, three men, three dauntless soldiers, had succeeded each
+      other in the command, MacMahon, Ducrot, Wimpfen; MacMahon had only time to
+      be wounded, Ducrot had only time to commit a blunder, Wimpfen had only
+      time to conceive an heroic idea, and he conceived it; but MacMahon is not
+      responsible for his wound, Ducrot is not responsible for his blunder, and
+      Wimpfen is not responsible for the impossibility of his suggestion to cut
+      their way out. The shell which struck MacMahon withdrew him from the
+      catastrophe; Ducrot's blunder, the inopportune order to retreat given to
+      General Lebrun, is explained by the confused horror of the situation, and
+      is rather an error than a fault. Wimpfen, desperate, needed 20,000
+      soldiers to cut his way out, and could only get together 2000. History
+      exculpates these three men; in this disaster of Sedan there was but one
+      sole and fatal general, the Emperor. That which was knitted together on
+      the 2d December, 1851, came apart on the 2d September, 1870; the carnage
+      on the Boulevard Montmartre, and the capitulation of Sedan are, we
+      maintain, the two parts of a syllogism; logic and justice have the same
+      balance; it was Louis Bonaparte's dismal destiny to begin with the black
+      flag of massacres and to end with the white flag of disgrace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a href="#linknote-39" name="linknoteref-39" id="linknoteref-39_"><small>39</small></a>
+      <i>"The French were literally awakened from sleep by our attack." &mdash;Helvic.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0075" id="link2HCH0075"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VII.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      There was no alternative between death and opprobrium; either soul or
+      sword must be surrendered. Louis Bonaparte surrendered his sword.
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      He wrote to William:
+    </h3>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  "SIRE, MY BROTHER,
+
+  "Not having been able to die in the midst of my troops, it only
+  remains for me to place my sword in your Majesty's hands.
+
+  "I am, your Majesty,
+
+  "Your good Brother,
+
+  "NAPOLEON.
+
+  "Sedan, 1st September, 1870."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      William answered, "Sire, my Brother, I accept your sword."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And on the 2d of September, at six o'clock in the morning, this plain,
+      streaming with blood, and covered with dead, saw pass by a gilded open
+      carriage and four, the horses harnessed after Daumont fashion, and in this
+      carriage a man, cigarette in mouth. It was the Emperor of the French going
+      to surrender his sword to the King of Prussia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The King kept the Emperor waiting. It was too early. He sent M. de
+      Bismarck to Louis Bonaparte to say that he "would not" receive him yet
+      awhile. Louis Bonaparte entered into a hovel by the side of the road. A
+      table and two chairs were there. Bismarck and he leant their arms on the
+      table and conversed. A mournful conversation. At the hour which suited the
+      King, towards noon, the Emperor got back into his carriage, and went to
+      the castle of Bellevue, half way to the castle of Vandresse. There he
+      waited until the King came. At one o'clock William arrived from Vandresse,
+      and consented to receive Bonaparte. He received him badly. Attila has not
+      a light hand. The King, a blunt, straightforward man, showed the Emperor a
+      pity involuntarily cruel. There are pities which overwhelm. The conqueror
+      upbraided the conquered with the victory. Bluntness handles an open wound
+      badly. "Whatever was your reason for declaring this war?" The conquered
+      excused himself, accusing France. The distant hurrahs of the victorious
+      German army cut short this dialogue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The King caused the Emperor to be reconducted by a detachment of the Royal
+      Guard. This excess of ignominy is called "an escort of honor."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After the sword the Army.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the 3d of September, Louis Bonaparte handed over to Germany 88,000
+      French soldiers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "In addition" (says the Prussian report):&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "One eagle and two flags.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "419 field-guns and mitrailleuses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "139 heavy pieces.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "1079 vehicles of all kinds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "60,000 muskets.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "6000 horses, still good for service."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These German figures are not wholly to be depended upon. According to what
+      seems useful at the moment, the Aulic chancellors swell or reduce the
+      disaster. There were about 13,000 wounded amongst the prisoners. The
+      numbers vary in the official documents. A Prussian report, reckoning up
+      the French soldiers killed and wounded in the battle of Sedan, publishes
+      this total: <i>Sixteen thousand four hundred</i> men. This number causes a
+      shudder. For it is that very number, <i>Sixteen thousand four hundred</i>
+      men, which Saint Arnaud had set to work on the Boulevard Montmartre upon
+      the 4th of December, 1851.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Half a league to the north-west of Sedan, near Iges, the bend of the Meuse
+      almost forms an island. A canal crosses the isthmus, so that the peninsula
+      becomes an island. It was there that there were penned, under the stick of
+      the Prussian corporals, 83,000 French soldiers. A few sentinels watched
+      over this army.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They placed but few, insolently. These conquered men remained there ten
+      days, the wounded almost without care, the able-bodied almost without
+      nourishment. The German army sneered around them. The heavens took part
+      against them. The weather was fearful. Neither huts nor tents. Not a fire,
+      not a truss of straw. For ten days and ten nights these 83,000 prisoners
+      bivouacked with their heads beneath the rain, their feet in the mud. Many
+      died of fever, regretting the hail of bullets.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At length ox-wagons came and took them away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The King placed the Emperor in some place or other. Wilhelmshöhe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What a thing of rags and tatters, an Emperor "drawn" like a fowl!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0076" id="link2HCH0076"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VIII.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      I was there, thoughtful. I looked on these fields, these ravines,
+      thesehills, shuddering. I would willingly have insulted this terrible
+      place.
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      But sacred horror held me back.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      The station-master of Sedan came to my carriage, and explained to me what
+      I had before my eyes. I seemed to see, through his words, the pale
+      lightnings of the battle. All these distant cottages, scattered about and
+      charming in the sun, had been burnt; they were rebuilt; Nature, so quickly
+      diverted, had repaired everything, had cleaned everything, had swept
+      everything, had replaced everything. The ferocious convulsion of men had
+      vanished, eternal order had resumed its sway. But, as I have said, the sun
+      was there in vain, all this valley was smoke and darkness. In the
+      distance, upon an eminence to my left, I saw a huge castle; it was
+      Vandresse. There lodged the King of Prussia. Halfway up this height, along
+      the road, I distinguished above the trees three pointed gables; it was
+      another castle, Bellevue; there Louis Bonaparte surrendered to William;
+      there he had given and delivered up our army; it was there that, not being
+      immediately admitted, and requested to exercise a little patience, he had
+      remained for nearly an hour silent and wan before the door, bringing his
+      disgrace, and waiting until it should please William to open the door to
+      him; it was there that before receiving it the King of Prussia had made
+      the sword of France dangle about in an ante-chamber. Lower down, nearer,
+      in the valley, at the beginning of a road leading to Vandresse, they
+      pointed out to me a species of hovel. There they told me, while waiting
+      for the King of Prussia, the Emperor Napoleon III. had got down, livid; he
+      had gone into a little courtyard, which they pointed out to me, and where
+      a dog growled on the chain; he had seated himself on a stone close by a
+      dunghill, and he had said, "I am thirsty." A Prussian soldier had brought
+      him a glass of water.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Terrible end of the <i>coup d'état</i>! Blood when it is drunk does not
+      quench the thirst. An hour was to come when the unhappy one should utter
+      the cry of fever and of agony. Disgrace reserved for him this thirst, and
+      Prussia this glass of water.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fearful dregs of Destiny.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Beyond the road, at a few steps from me, five trembling and pale poplars
+      sheltered the front of the house, the single story of which was surmounted
+      by a sign. On this sign was written in great letters this name: DROUET. I
+      became haggard. <i>Drouet</i> I read <i>Varennes</i>. Tragical Chance,
+      which mingled Varennes with Sedan, seemed to wish to bring the two
+      catastrophes face to face, and to couple in a manner with the same chain
+      the Emperor a prisoner of the foreigner, to the King a prisoner of his
+      people.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The mist of reverie veiled this plain from me. The Meuse appeared to me to
+      wear a ruddy reflection, the neighboring isle, whose verdure I had
+      admired, had for its subsoil a tomb: Fifteen hundred horses, and as many
+      men, were buried there: thence the thick grass. Here and there, as far as
+      could be seen, mounds, covered with ill-favored vegetation, dotted the
+      valley; each of these patches of vegetation marked the place of a buried
+      regiment. There Guyomar's Brigade had been annihilated; there, the
+      Lhéritier Division had been exterminated; here the 7th Corps had perished;
+      there, without having even reached the enemy's infantry, had fallen
+      "beneath the cool and well-aimed firing," as the Prussian report states,
+      the whole of General Margueritte's cavalry. From these two heights, the
+      most elevated of this circle of hills, Daigny, opposite Givonne, which is
+      266 mètres high, Fleigneux, opposite Illy, 296 mètres high, the batteries
+      of the Prussian Royal Guard had crushed the French Army. It was done from
+      above, with the terrible authority of Destiny. It seemed as though they
+      had come there purposely, these to kill, the others to die. A valley for a
+      mortar, the German Army for a pestle, such is the battle of Sedan. I
+      gazed, powerless to avert my eyes, at this field of disaster, at this
+      undulating country which had proved no protection to our regiments, at
+      this ravine where all our cavalry were demolished, at all this
+      amphitheatre where the catastrophe was spread out, at the gloomy
+      escarpments of La Marphée, at these thickets, at these declivities, at
+      these precipices, at these forests filled with ambushes, and in this
+      terrible shadow, O Thou the Invisible! I saw Thee.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0077" id="link2HCH0077"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IX.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Never was there a more dismal fall. No expiation can be compared with
+      this. The unprecedented drama was in five acts, so fierce that Aeschylus
+      himself would not have dared to dream of them. "The Ambush!" "The
+      Struggle!" "The Massacre!" "The Victory!" "The Fall!" What a tangle and
+      what an unwinding! A poet who would have predicted it would have seemed a
+      traitor. God alone could permit Himself Sedan.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Everything in proportion, such is His law. Far worse than Brumaire, it
+      needed a more crushing retribution than Waterloo.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first Napoleon, as we have said elsewhere,<a href="#linknote-40"
+      name="linknoteref-40" id="linknoteref-40"><small>40</small></a> had faced his
+      destiny; he had not been dishonored by his punishment, he fell while
+      steadfastly regarding God. He came back to Paris, appraising the deserts
+      of those men who overthrew him, proudly distinguishing amongst them,
+      esteeming Lafayette and despising Dupin. He had at the last moment wished
+      to see clearly into his destiny, he had not allowed his eyes to be
+      bandaged; he had accepted the catastrophe while making his conditions with
+      it. Here there is nothing of the kind. One might almost say that the
+      traitor is struck treacherously. In this case there is a bad man who feels
+      himself in the grasp of Destiny, and who does not know what it is doing to
+      him. He was at the summit of his power, the blind master of an idiot
+      world. He had wished for a <i>plebiscitum</i>, he had had one. He had at
+      his feet this very William. It was at this moment that his crime suddenly
+      seized him. He did not struggle against it; he was the condemned man who
+      obeys his sentence. He submitted to everything which terrible Fate exacted
+      from him. Never was there a more docile patient. He had no army, he made
+      war; he had only Rouher, he provoked Bismarck; he had only Leboeuf, he
+      attacked Moltke. He confided Strasburg to Uhrich; he gave Metz to Bazaine
+      to guard. He had 120,000 men at Châlons; he had it in his power to cover
+      Paris. He felt that his crime rose up there, threatening and erect; he
+      fled, not daring to face Paris. He himself led&mdash;purposely, and yet
+      despite himself; willing and yet unwilling, knowingly and yet unknowingly,
+      a miserable mind, a prey to the abyss&mdash;he led his army into a place
+      of annihilation; he made that terrible choice, a battle-field without an
+      outlet; he was no longer conscious of anything, no more of his blunder of
+      to-day than of his crime of former days; he must finish, but he could only
+      finish as a fugitive; this condemned one was not worthy to look his end in
+      the face; he lowered his head, he turned his back. God executed him in
+      degrading him. Napoleon III. as an Emperor had a right to thunder, but for
+      this man the thunder was ignominious&mdash;he was thunderstruck in the
+      back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a href="#linknoteref-40" name="linknote-40" id="linknote-40_"><small>40</small></a>
+      <i>"L'Année Terrible."</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0078" id="link2HCH0078"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER X.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Let us forget this man, and let us look at Humanity. The invasion of
+      France by Germany, in 1870, was a night effect. The world was astonished
+      that so much gloom could come forth from a people. Five black months&mdash;such
+      was the siege of Paris. To create night may prove Power, but Glory
+      consists in the creation of daylight. France creates daylight. Thence her
+      immense human popularity. To her Civilization owes the dawn. The human
+      mind in order to see clearly turns in the direction of France. Five months
+      of darkness, that is what, in 1870, Germany succeeded in giving to the
+      Nations; France has given to them four centuries of light.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To-day the civilized world more than ever feels the need which it has of
+      France. France has proved this by her danger. The ungrateful apathy of
+      Governments only increased the anxiety of nations. At the sight of Paris
+      threatened, there arose among the peoples dread that their own heads were
+      in danger. Would they allow Germany to go on? But France saved herself
+      quite alone. She had only to rise. <i>Patuit dea</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To-day she is greater than ever. What would have killed another nation has
+      hardly wounded her. The darkening of her horizon has rendered her light
+      more visible. What she has lost in territory she has gained in radiancy.
+      Moreover, she is fraternal without an effort. Above her misfortune there
+      is her smile. It is not on her that the Gothic Empire weighs. She is a
+      nation of citizens and not a flock of subjects. Frontiers? Will there be
+      any frontiers in twenty years? Victories? France counts in her past
+      victories of war, and in her future victories of peace. The future belongs
+      to Voltaire, and not to Krupp; the future belongs to the book, and not to
+      the sword. The future belongs to life, and not to death. There is in the
+      policy opposed to France a certain amount of the tomb; to seek life in the
+      old institutions is a vain task, and to feed upon the past is to bite the
+      dust. France has the faculty of giving light; no catastrophe, political or
+      military, will deprive her of this mysterious supremacy. The cloud passes
+      away, the star is seen once more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The star possesses no anger; the dawn bears no malice. Light is satisfied
+      in being light. Light is everything; the human race has no other love.
+      France knows herself beloved because she is good, and the greatest of all
+      powers is to be loved. The French revolution is for all the world. It is a
+      battle perpetually waged for Right, and perpetually gained for Truth.
+      Right is the innermost part of man; Truth is the innermost part of God.
+      What can be done against a revolution which has so much right on its side?
+      Nothing. To love it. That is what the nations do. France offers herself,
+      the world accepts her. The whole phenomenon lies in these few words. An
+      invasion of armies can be resisted; an invasion of ideas cannot be
+      resisted. The glory of barbarians is to be conquered by humanity; the
+      glory of savages is to be conquered by civilization; the glory of darkness
+      is to be conquered by the torch. This is why France is desired and
+      assented to by all. This is why, having no hatred, she has no fear; this
+      is why she is fraternal and maternal; this is why it is impossible to
+      lessen her, impossible to humiliate her, impossible to irritate her; this
+      is why, after so many ordeals, after so many catastrophes, after so many
+      disasters, after so many calamities, after so many falls, incorruptible
+      and invulnerable she holds out her hand to all the peoples from above.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When our glance rests on this old continent, stirred to-day by a new
+      breath, certain phenomena appear, and we seem to gain a glimpse of that
+      august and mysterious problem, the formation of the future. It may be
+      said, that in the same manner as light is compounded of seven colors,
+      civilization is compounded of seven peoples. Of these peoples, three,
+      Greece, Italy, and Spain, represent the South; three, England, Germany,
+      and Russia, represent the north; the seventh, or the first, France, is at
+      the same time North and South, Celtic and Latin, Gothic and Greek. This
+      country owes to its heaven this sublime good fortune, the crossing of two
+      rays of light; the crossing of two rays of light is as though we were to
+      say the joining of two hands, that is to say Peace. Such is the privilege
+      of this France, she is at the same time solar and starry. In her heaven
+      she possesses as much dawn as the East, and as many stars as the North.
+      Sometimes her glimmer rises in the twilight, but it is in the black night
+      of revolutions and of wars that her resplendence blazes forth, and her
+      aurorean dawn becomes the Aurora Borealis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One day, before long, the seven nations, which combine in themselves the
+      whole of humanity, will join together and amalgamate like the seven colors
+      of the prism, in a radiant celestial arch; the marvel of Peace will appear
+      eternal and visible above civilization, and the world, dazzled, will
+      contemplate the immense rainbow of the United Peoples of Europe.
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      THE END.
+    </h3>
+    <div style="height: 6em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The History of a Crime, by Victor Hugo
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The History of a Crime
+       The Testimony of an Eye-Witness
+
+Author: Victor Hugo
+
+Release Date: December 4, 2003 [EBook #10381]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HISTORY OF A CRIME ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Stan Goodman, Beth Trapaga and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+THE HISTORY OF A CRIME
+
+THE TESTIMONY OF AN EYE-WITNESS
+
+
+By VICTOR HUGO
+
+
+Translated by T.H. JOYCE and ARTHUR LOCKER.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER
+
+       THE FIRST DAY--THE AMBUSH.
+
+    I. "Security"
+   II. Paris sleeps--the Bell rings
+  III. What had happened during the Night
+   IV. Other Doings of the Night
+    V. The Darkness of the Crime
+   VI. "Placards"
+  VII. No. 70, Rue Blanche
+ VIII. "Violation of the Chamber"
+   IX. An End worse than Death
+    X. The Black Door
+   XI. The High Court of Justice
+  XII. The Mairie of the Tenth Arrondissement
+ XIII. Louis Bonaparte's Side-face
+  XIV. The D'Orsay Barracks
+   XV. Mazas
+  XVI. The Episode of the Boulevard St. Martin
+ XVII. The Rebound of the 24th June, 1848, on the 2d December 1851
+XVIII. The Representatives hunted down
+  XIX. One Foot in the Tomb
+   XX. The Burial of a Great Anniversary
+
+       THE SECOND DAY--THE STRUGGLE.
+
+    I. They come to Arrest me
+   II. From the Bastille to the Rue de Cotte
+  III. The St. Antoine Barricade
+   IV. The Workmen's Societies ask us for the Order to fight
+    V. Baudin's Corpse
+   VI. The Decrees of the Representatives who remained Free
+  VII. The Archbishop
+ VIII. Mount Valerien
+   IX. The Lightning begins to flash among the People
+    X. What Fleury went to do at Mazas
+   XI. The End of the Second Day
+
+       THE THIRD DAY--THE MASSACRE.
+
+    I. Those who sleep and He who does not sleep
+   II. The Proceedings of the Committee
+  III. Inside the Elysee
+   IV. Bonaparte's Familiar Spirits
+    V. A Wavering Ally
+   VI. Denis Dussoubs
+  VII. Items and Interviews
+ VIII. The Situation
+   IX. The Porte Saint Martin
+    X. My Visit to the Barricades
+   XI. The Barricade of the Rue Meslay
+  XII. The Barricade of the Mairie of the Fifth Arrondissement
+ XIII. The Barricade of the Rue Thevenot
+  XIV. Ossian and Scipio
+   XV. The Question presents itself
+  XVI. The Massacre
+ XVII. The Appointment made with the Workmen's Societies
+XVIII. The Verification of Moral Laws
+
+       THE FOURTH DAY--THE VICTORY.
+
+    I. What happened during the Night--the Rue Tiquetonne
+   II. What happened during the Night--the Market Quarter
+  III. What happened during the Night--the Petit Carreau
+   IV. What was done during the Night--the Passage du Saumon
+    V. Other Deeds of Darkness
+   VI. The Consultative Committee
+  VII. The Other List
+ VIII. David d'Angers
+   IX. Our Last Meeting
+    X. Duty can have two Aspects
+   XI. The Combat finished, the Ordeal begins
+  XII. The Exiled
+ XIII. The Military Commissions and the mixed Commissions
+  XIV. A Religious Incident
+   XV. How they came out of Ham
+  XVI. A Retrospect
+ XVII. Conduct of the Left
+XVIII. A Page written at Brussels
+  XIX. The Infallible Benediction
+
+       CONCLUSION--THE FALL.
+
+CHAPTER    I
+CHAPTER   II
+CHAPTER  III
+CHAPTER   IV
+CHAPTER    V
+CHAPTER   VI
+CHAPTER  VII
+CHAPTER VIII
+CHAPTER   IX
+CHAPTER    X
+
+
+
+
+THE FIRST DAY--THE AMBUSH.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+"SECURITY"
+
+On December 1, 1851, Charras[1] shrugged his shoulder and unloaded his
+pistols. In truth, the belief in the possibility of a _coup d'etat_ had
+become humiliating. The supposition of such illegal violence on the part
+of M. Louis Bonaparte vanished upon serious consideration. The great
+question of the day was manifestly the Devincq election; it was clear
+that the Government was only thinking of that matter. As to a conspiracy
+against the Republic and against the People, how could any one
+premeditate such a plot? Where was the man capable of entertaining such a
+dream? For a tragedy there must be an actor, and here assuredly the actor
+was wanting. To outrage Right, to suppress the Assembly, to abolish the
+Constitution, to strangle the Republic, to overthrow the Nation, to sully
+the Flag, to dishonor the Army, to suborn the Clergy and the Magistracy,
+to succeed, to triumph, to govern, to administer, to exile, to banish, to
+transport, to ruin, to assassinate, to reign, with such complicities that
+the law at last resembles a foul bed of corruption. What! All these
+enormities were to be committed! And by whom? By a Colossus? No, by a
+dwarf. People laughed at the notion. They no longer said "What a crime!"
+but "What a farce!" For after all they reflected; heinous crimes require
+stature. Certain crimes are too lofty for certain hands. A man who would
+achieve an 18th Brumaire must have Arcola in his past and Austerlitz in
+his future. The art of becoming a great scoundrel is not accorded to the
+first comer. People said to themselves, Who is this son of Hortense? He
+has Strasbourg behind him instead of Arcola, and Boulogne in place of
+Austerlitz. He is a Frenchman, born a Dutchman, and naturalized a Swiss;
+he is a Bonaparte crossed with a Verhuell; he is only celebrated for the
+ludicrousness of his imperial attitude, and he who would pluck a feather
+from his eagle would risk finding a goose's quill in his hand. This
+Bonaparte does not pass currency in the array, he is a counterfeit image
+less of gold than of lead, and assuredly French soldiers will not give us
+the change for this false Napoleon in rebellion, in atrocities, in
+massacres, in outrages, in treason. If he should attempt roguery it would
+miscarry. Not a regiment would stir. Besides, why should he make such an
+attempt? Doubtless he has his suspicious side, but why suppose him an
+absolute villain? Such extreme outrages are beyond him; he is incapable
+of them physically, why judge him capable of them morally? Has he not
+pledged honor? Has he not said, "No one in Europe doubts my word?" Let us
+fear nothing. To this could be answered, Crimes are committed either on a
+grand or on a mean scale. In the first category there is Caesar; in the
+second there is Mandrin. Caesar passes the Rubicon, Mandrin bestrides the
+gutter. But wise men interposed, "Are we not prejudiced by offensive
+conjectures? This man has been exiled and unfortunate. Exile enlightens,
+misfortune corrects."
+
+For his part Louis Bonaparte protested energetically. Facts abounded in
+his favor. Why should he not act in good faith? He had made remarkable
+promises. Towards the end of October, 1848, then a candidate for the
+Presidency, he was calling at No. 37, Rue de la Tour d'Auvergne, on a
+certain personage, to whom he remarked, "I wish to have an explanation
+with you. They slander me. Do I give you the impression of a madman? They
+think that I wish to revivify Napoleon. There are two men whom a great
+ambition can take for its models, Napoleon and Washington. The one is a
+man of Genius, the other is a man of Virtue. It is ridiculous to say, 'I
+will be a man of Genius;' it is honest to say, 'I will be a man of
+Virtue.' Which of these depends upon ourselves? Which can we accomplish
+by our will? To be Genius? No. To be Probity? Yes. The attainment of
+Genius is not possible; the attainment of Probity is a possibility. And
+what could I revive of Napoleon? One sole thing--a crime. Truly a worthy
+ambition! Why should I be considered man? The Republic being established,
+I am not a great man, I shall not copy Napoleon; but I am an honest man.
+I shall imitate Washington. My name, the name of Bonaparte, will be
+inscribed on two pages of the history of France: on the first there will
+be crime and glory, on the second probity and honor. And the second will
+perhaps be worth the first. Why? Because if Napoleon is the greater,
+Washington is the better man. Between the guilty hero and the good
+citizen I choose the good citizen. Such is my ambition."
+
+From 1848 to 1851 three years elapsed. People had long suspected Louis
+Bonaparte; but long-continued suspicion blunts the intellect and wears
+itself out by fruitless alarms. Louis Bonaparte had had dissimulating
+ministers such as Magne and Rouher; but he had also had straightforward
+ministers such as Leon Faucher and Odilon Barrot; and these last had
+affirmed that he was upright and sincere. He had been seen to beat his
+breast before the doors of Ham; his foster sister, Madame Hortense
+Cornu, wrote to Mieroslawsky, "I am a good Republican, and I can answer
+for him." His friend of Ham, Peauger, a loyal man, declared, "Louis
+Bonaparte is incapable of treason." Had not Louis Bonaparte written the
+work entitled "Pauperism"? In the intimate circles of the Elysee Count
+Potocki was a Republican and Count d'Orsay was a Liberal; Louis
+Bonaparte said to Potocki, "I am a man of the Democracy," and to
+D'Orsay, "I am a man of Liberty." The Marquis du Hallays opposed the
+_coup d'etat_, while the Marquise du Hallays was in its favor. Louis
+Bonaparte said to the Marquis, "Fear nothing" (it is true that he
+whispered to the Marquise, "Make your mind easy"). The Assembly, after
+having shown here and there some symptoms of uneasiness, had grown calm.
+There was General Neumayer, "who was to be depended upon," and who from
+his position at Lyons would at need march upon Paris. Changarnier
+exclaimed, "Representatives of the people, deliberate in peace." Even
+Louis Bonaparte himself had pronounced these famous words, "I should see
+an enemy of my country in any one who would change by force that which
+has been established by law," and, moreover, the Army was "force," and
+the Army possessed leaders, leaders who were beloved and victorious.
+Lamoriciere, Changarnier, Cavaignac, Leflo, Bedeau, Charras; how could
+any one imagine the Army of Africa arresting the Generals of Africa? On
+Friday, November 28, 1851, Louis Bonaparte said to Michel de Bourges,
+"If I wanted to do wrong, I could not. Yesterday, Thursday, I invited to
+my table five Colonels of the garrison of Paris, and the whim seized me
+to question each one by himself. All five declared to me that the Army
+would never lend itself to a _coup de force_, nor attack the
+inviolability of the Assembly. You can tell your friends this."--"He
+smiled," said Michel de Bourges, reassured, "and I also smiled." After
+this, Michel de Bourges declared in the Tribune, "this is the man for
+me." In that same month of November a satirical journal, charged with
+calumniating the President of the Republic, was sentenced to fine and
+imprisonment for a caricature depicting a shooting-gallery and Louis
+Bonaparte using the Constitution as a target. Morigny, Minister of the
+Interior, declared in the Council before the President "that a Guardian
+of Public Power ought never to violate the law as otherwise he would
+be--" "a dishonest man," interposed the President. All these words and
+all these facts were notorious. The material and moral impossibility of
+the _coup d'etat_ was manifest to all. To outrage the National Assembly!
+To arrest the Representatives! What madness! As we have seen, Charras,
+who had long remained on his guard, unloaded his pistols. The feeling of
+security was complete and unanimous. Nevertheless there were some of us
+in the Assembly who still retained a few doubts, and who occasionally
+shook our heads, but we were looked upon as fools.
+
+
+[1] Colonel Charras was Under-Secretary of State in 1848, and Acting
+Secretary of War under the Provisional Government.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+PARIS SLEEPS--THE BELL RINGS
+
+On the 2d December, 1851, Representative Versigny, of the Haute-Saone,
+who resided at Paris, at No. 4, Rue Leonie, was asleep. He slept
+soundly; he had been working till late at night. Versigny was a young
+man of thirty-two, soft-featured and fair-complexioned, of a courageous
+spirit, and a mind tending towards social and economical studies. He had
+passed the first hours of the night in the perusal of a book by Bastiat,
+in which he was making marginal notes, and, leaving the book open on the
+table, he had fallen asleep. Suddenly he awoke with a start at the sound
+of a sharp ring at the bell. He sprang up in surprise. It was dawn. It
+was about seven o'clock in the morning.
+
+Never dreaming what could be the motive for so early a visit, and
+thinking that someone had mistaken the door, he again lay down, and was
+about to resume his slumber, when a second ring at the bell, still
+louder than the first, completely aroused him. He got up in his
+night-shirt and opened the door.
+
+Michel de Bourges and Theodore Bac entered. Michel de Bourges was the
+neighbor of Versigny; he lived at No. 16, Rue de Milan.
+
+Theodore Bac and Michel were pale, and appeared greatly agitated.
+
+"Versigny," said Michel, "dress yourself at once--Baune has just been
+arrested."
+
+"Bah!" exclaimed Versigny. "Is the Mauguin business beginning again?"
+
+"It is more than that," replied Michel. "Baune's wife and daughter came
+to me half-an-hour ago. They awoke me. Baune was arrested in bed at six
+o'clock this morning."
+
+"What does that mean?" asked Versigny.
+
+The bell rang again.
+
+"This will probably tell us," answered Michel de Bourges.
+
+Versigny opened the door. It was the Representative Pierre Lefranc. He
+brought, in truth, the solution of the enigma.
+
+"Do you know what is happening?" said he.
+
+"Yes," answered Michel. "Baune is in prison."
+
+"It is the Republic who is a prisoner," said Pierre Lefranc. "Have you
+read the placards?"
+
+"No."
+
+Pierre Lefranc explained to them that the walls at that moment were
+covered with placards which the curious crowd were thronging to read,
+that he had glanced over one of them at the corner of his street, and
+that the blow had fallen.
+
+"The blow!" exclaimed Michel. "Say rather the crime."
+
+Pierre Lefranc added that there were three placards--one decree and two
+proclamations--all three on white paper, and pasted close together.
+
+The decree was printed in large letters.
+
+The ex-Constituent Laissac, who lodged, like Michel de Bourges, in the
+neighborhood (No. 4, Cite Gaillard), then came in. He brought the same
+news, and announced further arrests which had been made during the
+night.
+
+There was not a minute to lose.
+
+They went to impart the news to Yvan, the Secretary of the Assembly, who
+had been appointed by the Left, and who lived in the Rue de Boursault.
+
+An immediate meeting was necessary. Those Republican Representatives who
+were still at liberty must be warned and brought together without delay.
+
+Versigny said, "I will go and find Victor Hugo."
+
+It was eight o'clock in the morning. I was awake and was working in bed.
+My servant entered and said, with an air of alarm,--
+
+"A Representative of the people is outside who wishes to speak to you,
+sir."
+
+"Who is it?"
+
+"Monsieur Versigny:"
+
+"Show him in."
+
+Versigny entered, and told me the state of affairs. I sprang out of bed.
+
+He told me of the "rendezvous" at the rooms of the ex-Constituent
+Laissac.
+
+"Go at once and inform the other Representatives," said I.
+
+He left me.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+WHAT HAD HAPPENED DURING THE NIGHT
+
+Previous to the fatal days of June, 1848, the esplanade of the Invalides
+was divided into eight huge grass plots, surrounded by wooden railings
+and enclosed between two groves of trees, separated by a street running
+perpendicularly to the front of the Invalides. This street was traversed
+by three streets running parallel to the Seine. There were large lawns
+upon which children were wont to play. The centre of the eight grass
+plots was marred by a pedestal which under the Empire had borne the
+bronze lion of St. Mark, which had been brought from Venice; under the
+Restoration a white marble statue of Louis XVIII.; and under Louis
+Philippe a plaster bust of Lafayette. Owing to the Palace of the
+Constituent Assembly having been nearly seized by a crowd of insurgents on
+the 22d of June, 1848, and there being no barracks in the neighborhood,
+General Cavaignac had constructed at three hundred paces from the
+Legislative Palace, on the grass plots of the Invalides, several rows of
+long huts, under which the grass was hidden. These huts, where three or
+four thousand men could be accommodated, lodged the troops specially
+appointed to keep watch over the National Assembly.
+
+On the 1st December, 1851, the two regiments hutted on the Esplanade were
+the 6th and the 42d Regiments of the Line, the 6th commanded by Colonel
+Garderens de Boisse, who was famous before the Second of December, the
+42d by Colonel Espinasse, who became famous since that date.
+
+The ordinary night-guard of the Palace of the Assembly was composed of a
+battalion of Infantry and of thirty artillerymen, with a captain. The
+Minister of War, in addition, sent several troopers for orderly service.
+Two mortars and six pieces of cannon, with their ammunition wagons, were
+ranged in a little square courtyard situated on the right of the Cour
+d'Honneur, and which was called the Cour des Canons. The Major, the
+military commandant of the Palace, was placed under the immediate control
+of the Questors.[2] At nightfall the gratings and the doors were secured,
+sentinels were posted, instructions were issued to the sentries, and the
+Palace was closed like a fortress. The password was the same as in the
+Place de Paris.
+
+The special instructions drawn up by the Questors prohibited the entrance
+of any armed force other than the regiment on duty.
+
+On the night of the 1st and 2d of December the Legislative Palace was
+guarded by a battalion of the 42d.
+
+The sitting of the 1st of December, which was exceedingly peaceable,
+and had been devoted to a discussion on the municipal law, had finished
+late, and was terminated by a Tribunal vote. At the moment when M.
+Baze, one of the Questors, ascended the Tribune to deposit his vote, a
+Representative, belonging to what was called "Les Bancs Elyseens"
+approached him, and said in a low tone, "To-night you will be carried
+off." Such warnings as these were received every day, and, as we have
+already explained, people had ended by paying no heed to them.
+Nevertheless, immediately after the sitting the Questors sent for the
+Special Commissary of Police of the Assembly, President Dupin being
+present. When interrogated, the Commissary declared that the reports of
+his agents indicated "dead calm"--such was his expression--and that
+assuredly there was no danger to be apprehended for that night. When
+the Questors pressed him further, President Dupin, exclaiming "Bah!"
+left the room.
+
+On that same day, the 1st December, about three o'clock in the afternoon,
+as General Leflo's father-in-law crossed the boulevard in front of
+Tortoni's, some one rapidly passed by him and whispered in his ear these
+significant words, "Eleven o'clock--midnight." This incident excited but
+little attention at the Questure, and several even laughed at it. It had
+become customary with them. Nevertheless General Leflo would not go to
+bed until the hour mentioned had passed by, and remained in the Offices
+of the Questure until nearly one o'clock in the morning.
+
+The shorthand department of the Assembly was done out of doors by four
+messengers attached to the _Moniteur_, who were employed to carry the
+copy of the shorthand writers to the printing-office, and to bring back
+the proof-sheets to the Palace of the Assembly, where M. Hippolyte Prevost
+corrected them. M. Hippolyte Prevost was chief of the stenographic staff,
+and in that capacity had apartments in the Legislative Palace. He was at
+the same time editor of the musical _feuilleton_ of the _Moniteur_. On
+the 1st December he had gone to the Opera Comique for the first
+representation of a new piece, and did not return till after midnight.
+The fourth messenger from the _Moniteur_ was waiting for him with a proof
+of the last slip of the sitting; M. Prevost corrected the proof, and the
+messenger was sent off. It was then a little after one o'clock, profound
+quiet reigned around, and, with the exception of the guard, all in the
+Palace slept. Towards this hour of the night, a singular incident
+occurred. The Captain-Adjutant-Major of the Guard of the Assembly came to
+the Major and said, "The Colonel has sent for me," and he added according
+to military etiquette, "Will you permit me to go?" The Commandant was
+astonished. "Go," he said with some sharpness, "but the Colonel is wrong
+to disturb an officer on duty." One of the soldiers on guard, without
+understanding the meaning of the words, heard the Commandant pacing up
+and down, and muttering several times, "What the deuce can he want?"
+
+Half an hour afterwards the Adjutant-Major returned. "Well," asked the
+Commandant, "what did the Colonel want with you?" "Nothing," answered the
+Adjutant, "he wished to give me the orders for to-morrow's duties." The
+night became further advanced. Towards four o'clock the Adjutant-Major
+came again to the Major. "Major," he said, "the Colonel has asked for
+me." "Again!" exclaimed the Commandant. "This is becoming strange;
+nevertheless, go."
+
+The Adjutant-Major had amongst other duties that of giving out the
+instructions to the sentries, and consequently had the power of
+rescinding them.
+
+As soon as the Adjutant-Major had gone out, the Major, becoming uneasy,
+thought that it was his duty to communicate with the Military Commandant
+of the Palace. He went upstairs to the apartment of the Commandant--
+Lieutenant Colonel Niols. Colonel Niols had gone to bed and the attendants
+had retired to their rooms in the attics. The Major, new to the Palace,
+groped about the corridors, and, knowing little about the various rooms,
+rang at a door which seemed to him that of the Military Commandant. Nobody
+answered, the door was not opened, and the Major returned downstairs,
+without having been able to speak to anybody.
+
+On his part the Adjutant-Major re-entered the Palace, but the Major did
+not see him again. The Adjutant remained near the grated door of the
+Place Bourgogne, shrouded in his cloak, and walking up and down the
+courtyard as though expecting some one.
+
+At the instant that five o'clock sounded from the great clock of the
+dome, the soldiers who slept in the hut-camp before the Invalides were
+suddenly awakened. Orders were given in a low voice in the huts to take
+up arms, in silence. Shortly afterwards two regiments, knapsack on back
+were marching upon the Palace of the Assembly; they were the 6th and the
+42d.
+
+At this same stroke of five, simultaneously in all the quarters of Paris,
+infantry soldiers filed out noiselessly from every barrack, with their
+colonels at their head. The _aides-de-camp_ and orderly officers of Louis
+Bonaparte, who had been distributed in all the barracks, superintended
+this taking up of arms. The cavalry were not set in motion until
+three-quarters of an hour after the infantry, for fear that the ring of
+the horses' hoofs on the stones should wake slumbering Paris too soon.
+
+M. de Persigny, who had brought from the Elysee to the camp of the
+Invalides the order to take up arms, marched at the head of the 42d, by
+the side of Colonel Espinasse. A story is current in the army, for at the
+present day, wearied as people are with dishonorable incidents, these
+occurrences are yet told with a species of gloomy indifference--the story
+is current that at the moment of setting out with his regiment one of the
+colonels who could be named hesitated, and that the emissary from the
+Elysee, taking a sealed packet from his pocket, said to him, "Colonel, I
+admit that we are running a great risk. Here in this envelope, which I
+have been charged to hand to you, are a hundred thousand francs in
+banknotes _for contingencies_." The envelope was accepted, and the
+regiment set out. On the evening of the 2d of December the colonel said
+to a lady, "This morning I earned a hundred thousand francs and my
+General's epaulets." The lady showed him the door.
+
+Xavier Durrieu, who tells us this story, had the curiosity later on to
+see this lady. She confirmed the story. Yes, certainly! she had shut the
+door in the face of this wretch; a soldier, a traitor to his flag who
+dared visit her! She receive such a man? No! she could not do that,
+"and," states Xavier Durrieu, she added, "And yet I have no character to
+lose."
+
+Another mystery was in progress at the Prefecture of Police.
+
+Those belated inhabitants of the Cite who may have returned home at a
+late hour of the night might have noticed a large number of street cabs
+loitering in scattered groups at different points round about the Rue de
+Jerusalem.
+
+From eleven o'clock in the evening, under pretext of the arrivals of
+refugees at Paris from Genoa and London, the Brigade of Surety and the
+eight hundred _sergents de ville_ had been retained in the Prefecture. At
+three o'clock in the morning a summons had been sent to the forty-eight
+Commissaries of Paris and of the suburbs, and also to the peace officers.
+An hour afterwards all of them arrived. They were ushered into a separate
+chamber, and isolated from each other as much as possible. At five
+o'clock a bell was sounded in the Prefect's cabinet. The Prefect Maupas
+called the Commissaries of Police one after another into his cabinet,
+revealed the plot to them, and allotted to each his portion of the crime.
+None refused; many thanked him.
+
+It was a question of arresting at their own homes seventy-eight Democrats
+who were influential in their districts, and dreaded by the Elysee as
+possible chieftains of barricades. It was necessary, a still more daring
+outrage, to arrest at their houses sixteen Representatives of the People.
+For this last task were chosen among the Commissaries of Police such of
+those magistrates who seemed the most likely to become ruffians. Amongst
+these were divided the Representatives. Each had his man. Sieur Courtille
+had Charras, Sieur Desgranges had Nadaud, Sieur Hubaut the elder had M.
+Thiers, and Sieur Hubaut the younger General Bedeau, General Changarnier
+was allotted to Lerat, and General Cavaignac to Colin. Sieur Dourlens
+took Representative Valentin, Sieur Benoist Representative Miot, Sieur
+Allard Representative Cholat, Sieur Barlet took Roger (Du Nord), General
+Lamoriciere fell to Commissary Blanchet, Commissary Gronfier had
+Representative Greppo, and Commissary Boudrot Representative Lagrange.
+The Questors were similarly allotted, Monsieur Baze to the Sieur
+Primorin, and General Leflo to Sieur Bertoglio.
+
+Warrants with the name of the Representatives had been drawn up in the
+Prefect's private Cabinet. Blanks had been only left for the names of the
+Commissaries. These were filled in at the moment of leaving.
+
+In addition to the armed force which was 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 police agents in plain
+clothes. As Prefect Maupas had told M. Bonaparte, the Captain of the
+Republican Guard, Baudinet, was associated with Commissary Lerat in the
+arrest of General Changarnier.
+
+Towards half-past five the _fiacres_ which were in waiting were called
+up, and all started, each with his instructions.
+
+During this time, in another corner of Paris--the old Rue du Temple--in
+that ancient Soubise Mansion which had been transformed into a Royal
+Printing Office, and is to-day a National Printing Office, another
+section of the Crime was being organized.
+
+Towards one in the morning a passer-by who had reached the old Rue du
+Temple by the Rue de Vieilles-Haudriettes, noticed at the junction of
+these two streets several long and high windows brilliantly lighted up,
+These were the windows of the work-rooms of the National Printing Office.
+He turned to the right and entered the old Rue du Temple, and a moment
+afterwards paused before the crescent-shaped entrance of the front of the
+printing-office. The principal door was shut, two sentinels guarded the
+side door. Through this little door, which was ajar, he glanced into the
+courtyard of the printing-office, and saw it filled with soldiers. The
+soldiers were silent, no sound could be heard, but the glistening of
+their bayonets could be seen. The passer-by surprised, drew nearer. One
+of the sentinels thrust him rudely back, crying out, "Be off."
+
+Like the _sergents de ville_ at the Prefecture of Police, the workmen had
+been retained at the National Printing Office under plea of night-work.
+At the same time that M. Hippolyte Prevost returned to the Legislative
+Palace, the manager of the National Printing Office re-entered his
+office, also returning from the Opera Comique, where he had been to see
+the new piece, which was by his brother, M. de St. Georges. Immediately
+on his return the manager, to whom had come an order from the Elysee
+during the day, took up a pair of pocket pistols, and went down into the
+vestibule, which communicates by means of a few steps with the courtyard.
+Shortly afterwards the door leading to the street opened, a _fiacre_
+entered, a man who carried a large portfolio alighted. The manager went
+up to the man, and said to him, "Is that you, Monsieur de Beville?"
+
+"Yes," answered the man.
+
+The _fiacre_ was put up, the horses placed in a stable, and the coachman
+shut up in a parlor, where they gave him drink, and placed a purse in his
+hand. Bottles of wine and louis d'or form the groundwork of this hind of
+politics. The coachman drank and then went to sleep. The door of the
+parlor was bolted.
+
+The large door of the courtyard of the printing-office was hardly shut
+than it reopened, gave passage to armed men, who entered in silence, and
+then reclosed. The arrivals were a company of the Gendarmerie Mobile, the
+fourth of the first battalion, commanded by a captain named La Roche
+d'Oisy. As may be remarked by the result, for all delicate expeditions
+the men of the _coup d'etat_ took care to employ the Gendarmerie Mobile
+and the Republican Guard, that it is to say the two corps almost entirely
+composed of former Municipal Guards, bearing at heart a revengeful
+remembrance of the events of February.
+
+Captain La Roche d'Oisy brought a letter from the Minister of War, which
+placed himself and his soldiers at the disposition of the manager of the
+National Printing Office. The muskets were loaded without a word being
+spoken. Sentinels were placed in the workrooms, in the corridors, at the
+doors, at the windows, in fact, everywhere, two being stationed at the
+door leading into the street. The captain asked what instructions he
+should give to the sentries. "Nothing more simple," said the man who had
+come in the _fiacre_. "Whoever attempts to leave or to open a window,
+shoot him."
+
+This man, who, in fact, was De Beville, orderly officer to M. Bonaparte,
+withdrew with the manager into the large cabinet on the first story, a
+solitary room which looked out on the garden. There he communicated to
+the manager what he had brought with him, the decree of the dissolution
+of the Assembly, the appeal to the Army, the appeal to the People, the
+decree convoking the electors, and in addition, the proclamation of the
+Prefect Maupas and his letter to the Commissaries of Police. The four
+first documents were entirely in the handwriting of the President, and
+here and there some erasures might be noticed.
+
+The compositors were in waiting. Each man was placed between two
+gendarmes, and was forbidden to utter a single word, and then the
+documents which had to be printed were distributed throughout the room,
+being cut up in very small pieces, so that an entire sentence could not
+be read by one workman. The manager announced that he would give them an
+hour to compose the whole. The different fragments were finally brought
+to Colonel Beville, who put them together and corrected the proof sheets.
+The machining was conducted with the same precautions, each press being
+between two soldiers. Notwithstanding all possible diligence the work
+lasted two hours. The gendarmes watched over the workmen. Beville watched
+over St. Georges.
+
+When the work was finished a suspicious incident occurred, which greatly
+resembled a treason within a treason. To a traitor a greater traitor.
+This species of crime is subject to such accidents. Beville and St.
+Georges, the two trusty confidants in whose hands lay the secret of the
+_coup d'etat_, that is to say the head of the President;--that secret,
+which ought at no price to be allowed to transpire before the appointed
+hour, under risk of causing everything to miscarry, took it into their
+heads to confide it at once to two hundred men, in order "to test the
+effect," as the ex-Colonel Beville said later on, rather naively. They
+read the mysterious document which had just been printed to the Gendarmes
+Mobiles, who were drawn up in the courtyard. These ex-municipal guards
+applauded. If they had hooted, it might be asked what the two
+experimentalists in the _coup d'etat_ would have done. Perhaps M.
+Bonaparte would have waked up from his dream at Vincennes.
+
+The coachman was then liberated, the _fiacre_ was horsed, and at four
+o'clock in the morning the orderly officer and the manager of the
+National Printing Office, henceforward two criminals, arrived at the
+Prefecture of Police with the parcels of the decrees. Then began for
+them the brand of shame. Prefect Maupas took them by the hand.
+
+Bands of bill-stickers, bribed for the occasion, started in every
+direction, carrying with them the decrees and proclamations.
+
+This was precisely the hour at which the Palace of the National Assembly
+was invested. In the Rue de l'Universite there is a door of the Palace
+which is the old entrance to the Palais Bourbon, and which opened into
+the avenue which leads to the house of the President of the Assembly.
+This door, termed the Presidency door, was according to custom guarded by
+a sentry. For some time past the Adjutant-Major, who had been twice sent
+for during the night by Colonel Espinasse, had remained motionless and
+silent, close by the sentinel. Five minutes after, having left the huts
+of the Invalides, the 42d Regiment of the line, followed at some distance
+by the 6th Regiment, which had marched by the Rue de Bourgogne, emerged
+from the Rue de l'Universite. "The regiment," says an eye-witness,
+"marched as one steps in a sickroom." It arrived with a stealthy step
+before the Presidency door. This ambuscade came to surprise the law.
+
+The sentry, seeing these soldiers arrive, halted, but at the moment when
+he was going to challenge them with a _qui-vive_, the Adjutant-Major
+seized his arm, and, in his capacity as the officer empowered to
+countermand all instructions, ordered him to give free passage to the
+42d, and at the same time commanded the amazed porter to open the door.
+The door turned upon its hinges, the soldiers spread themselves through
+the avenue. Persigny entered and said, "It is done."
+
+The National Assembly was invaded.
+
+At the noise of the footsteps the Commandant Mennier ran up.
+"Commandant," Colonel Espinasse cried out to him, "I come to relieve your
+battalion." The Commandant turned pale for a moment, and his eyes
+remained fixed on the ground. Then suddenly he put his hands to his
+shoulders, and tore off his epaulets, he drew his sword, broke it across
+his knee, threw the two fragments on the pavement, and, trembling with
+rage, exclaimed with a solemn voice, "Colonel, you disgrace the number of
+your regiment."
+
+"All right, all right," said Espinasse.
+
+The Presidency door was left open, but all the other entrances remained
+closed. All the guards were relieved, all the sentinels changed, and the
+battalion of the night guard was sent back to the camp of the Invalides,
+the soldiers piled their arms in the avenue, and in the Cour d'Honneur.
+The 42d, in profound silence, occupied the doors outside and inside, the
+courtyard, the reception-rooms, the galleries, the corridors, the
+passages, while every one slept in the Palace.
+
+Shortly afterwards arrived two of those little chariots which are called
+"forty sons," and two _fiacres_, escorted by two detachments of the
+Republican Guard and of the Chasseurs de Vincennes, and by several squads
+of police. The Commissaries Bertoglio and Primorin alighted from the two
+chariots.
+
+As these carriages drove up a personage, bald, but still young, was seen
+to appear at the grated door of the Place de Bourgogne. This personage
+had all the air of a man about town, who had just come from the opera,
+and, in fact, he had come from thence, after having passed through a den.
+He came from the Elysee. It was De Morny. For an instant he watched the
+soldiers piling their arms, and then went on to the Presidency door.
+There he exchanged a few words with M. de Persigny. A quarter of an hour
+afterwards, accompanied by 250 Chasseurs de Vincennes, he took possession
+of the ministry of the Interior, startled M. de Thorigny in his bed, and
+handed him brusquely a letter of thanks from Monsieur Bonaparte. Some
+days previously honest M. De Thorigny, whose ingenuous remarks we have
+already cited, said to a group of men near whom M. de Morny was passing,
+"How these men of the Mountain calumniate the President! The man who
+would break his oath, who would achieve a _coup d'etat_ must necessarily
+be a worthless wretch." Awakened rudely in the middle of the night, and
+relieved of his post as Minister like the sentinels of the Assembly, the
+worthy man, astounded, and rubbing his eyes, muttered, "Eh! then the
+President _is_ a ----."
+
+"Yes," said Morny, with a burst of laughter.
+
+He who writes these lines knew Morny. Morny and Walewsky held in the
+quasi-reigning family the positions, one of Royal bastard, the other of
+Imperial bastard. Who was Morny? We will say, "A noted wit, an intriguer,
+but in no way austere, a friend of Romieu, and a supporter of Guizot
+possessing the manners of the world, and the habits of the roulette
+table, self-satisfied, clever, combining a certain liberality of ideas
+with a readiness to accept useful crimes, finding means to wear a
+gracious smile with bad teeth, leading a life of pleasure, dissipated but
+reserved, ugly, good-tempered, fierce, well-dressed, intrepid, willingly
+leaving a brother prisoner under bolts and bars, and ready to risk his
+head for a brother Emperor, having the same mother as Louis Bonaparte,
+and like Louis Bonaparte, having some father or other, being able to call
+himself Beauharnais, being able to call himself Flahaut, and yet calling
+himself Morny, pursuing literature as far as light comedy, and politics,
+as far as tragedy, a deadly free liver, possessing all the frivolity
+consistent with assassination, capable of being sketched by Marivaux and
+treated of by Tacitus, without conscience, irreproachably elegant,
+infamous, and amiable, at need a perfect duke. Such was this malefactor."
+
+It was not yet six o'clock in the morning. Troops began to mass
+themselves on the Place de la Concorde, where Leroy-Saint-Arnaud on
+horseback held a review.
+
+The Commissaries of Police, Bertoglio and Primorin ranged two companies
+in order under the vault of the great staircase of the Questure, but did
+not ascend that way. They were accompanied by agents of police, who knew
+the most secret recesses of the Palais Bourbon, and who conducted them
+through various passages.
+
+General Leflo was lodged in the Pavilion inhabited in the time of the Duc
+de Bourbon by Monsieur Feucheres. That night General Leflo had staying
+with him his sister and her husband, who were visiting Paris, and who
+slept in a room, the door of which led into one of the corridors of the
+Palace. Commissary Bertoglio knocked at the door, opened it, and together
+with his agents abruptly burst into the room, where a woman was in bed.
+The general's brother-in-out sprang out of bed, and cried out to the
+Questor, who slept in an adjoining room, "Adolphe, the doors are being
+forced, the Palace is full of soldiers. Get up!"
+
+The General opened his eyes, he saw Commissary Bertoglio standing beside
+his bed.
+
+He sprang up.
+
+"General," said the Commissary, "I have come to fulfil a duty."
+
+"I understand," said General Leflo, "you are a traitor."
+
+The Commissary stammering out the words, "Plot against the safety of the
+State," displayed a warrant. The General, without pronouncing a word,
+struck this infamous paper with the back of his hand.
+
+Then dressing himself, he put on his full uniform of Constantine and of
+Medeah, thinking in his imaginative, soldier-like loyalty that there were
+still generals of Africa for the soldiers whom he would find on his way.
+All the generals now remaining were brigands. His wife embraced him; his
+son, a child of seven years, in his nightshirt, and in tears, said to the
+Commissary of Police, "Mercy, Monsieur Bonaparte."
+
+The General, while clasping his wife in his arms, whispered in her ear,
+"There is artillery in the courtyard, try and fire a cannon."
+
+The Commissary and his men led him away. He regarded these policemen with
+contempt, and did not speak to them, but when he recognized Colonel
+Espinasse, his military and Breton heart swelled with indignation.
+
+"Colonel Espinasse," said he, "you are a villain, and I hope to live long
+enough to tear the buttons from your uniform."
+
+Colonel Espinasse hung his head, and stammered, "I do not know you."
+
+A major waved his sword, and cried, "We have had enough of lawyer
+generals." Some soldiers crossed their bayonets before the unarmed
+prisoner, three _sergents de ville_ pushed him into a _fiacre_, and a
+sub-lieutenant approaching the carriage, and looking in the face of the
+man who, if he were a citizen, was his Representative, and if he were a
+soldier was his general, flung this abominable word at him, "Canaille!"
+
+Meanwhile Commissary Primorin had gone by a more roundabout way in order
+the more surely to surprise the other Questor, M. Baze.
+
+Out of M. Baze's apartment a door led to the lobby communicating with the
+chamber of the Assembly. Sieur Primorin knocked at the door. "Who is
+there?" asked a servant, who was dressing. "The Commissary of Police,"
+replied Primorin. The servant, thinking that he was the Commissary of
+Police of the Assembly, opened the door.
+
+At this moment M. Baze, who had heard the noise, and had just awakened,
+put on a dressing-gown, and cried, "Do not open the door."
+
+He had scarcely spoken these words when a man in plain clothes and three
+_sergents de ville_ in uniform rushed into his chamber. The man, opening
+his coat, displayed his scarf of office, asking M. Baze, "Do you
+recognize this?"
+
+"You are a worthless wretch," answered the Questor.
+
+The police agents laid their hands on M. Baze. "You will not take me
+away," he said. "You, a Commissary of Police, you, who are a magistrate,
+and know what you are doing, you outrage the National Assembly, you
+violate the law, you are a criminal!" A hand-to-hand struggle
+ensued--four against one. Madame Baze and her two little girls giving
+vent to screams, the servant being thrust back with blows by the
+_sergents de ville_. "You are ruffians," cried out Monsieur Baze. They
+carried him away by main force in their arms, still struggling, naked,
+his dressing-gown being torn to shreds, his body being covered with
+blows, his wrist torn and bleeding.
+
+The stairs, the landing, the courtyard, were full of soldiers with fixed
+bayonets and grounded arms. The Questor spoke to them. "Your
+Representatives are being arrested, you have not received your arms to
+break the laws!" A sergeant was wearing a brand-new cross. "Have you been
+given the cross for this?" The sergeant answered, "We only know one
+master." "I note your number," continued M. Baze. "You are a dishonored
+regiment." The soldiers listened with a stolid air, and seemed still
+asleep. Commissary Primorin said to them, "Do not answer, this has
+nothing to do with you." They led the Questor across the courtyard to the
+guard-house at the Porte Noire.
+
+This was the name which was given to a little door contrived under the
+vault opposite the treasury of the Assembly, and which opened upon the
+Rue de Bourgogne, facing the Rue de Lille.
+
+Several sentries were placed at the door of the guard-house, and at the
+top of the flight of steps which led thither, M. Baze being left there in
+charge of three _sergents de ville_. Several soldiers, without their
+weapons, and in their shirt-sleeves, came in and out. The Questor
+appealed to them in the name of military honor. "Do not answer," said the
+_sergent de ville_ to the soldiers.
+
+M. Baze's two little girls had followed him with terrified eyes, and when
+they lost sight of him the youngest burst into tears. "Sister," said the
+elder, who was seven years old, "let us say our prayers," and the two
+children, clasping their hands, knelt down.
+
+Commissary Primorin, with his swarm of agents, burst into the Questor's
+study, and laid hands on everything. The first papers which he perceived
+on the middle of the table, and which he seized, were the famous decrees
+which had been prepared in the event of the Assembly having voted the
+proposal of the Questors. All the drawers were opened and searched. This
+overhauling of M. Baze's papers, which the Commissary of Police termed a
+domiciliary visit, lasted more than an hour.
+
+M. Baze's clothes had been taken to him, and he had dressed. When the
+"domiciliary visit" was over, he was taken out of the guard-house. There
+was a _fiacre_ in the courtyard, into which he entered, together with the
+three _sergents de ville_. The vehicle, in order to reach the Presidency
+door, passed by the Cour d'Honneur and then by the Courde Canonis. Day
+was breaking. M. Baze looked into the courtyard to see if the cannon were
+still there. He saw the ammunition wagons ranged in order with their
+shafts raised, but the places of the six cannon and the two mortars were
+vacant.
+
+In the avenue of the Presidency the _fiacre_ stopped for a moment. Two
+lines of soldiers, standing at ease, lined the footpaths of the avenue.
+At the foot of a tree were grouped three men: Colonel Espinasse, whom M.
+Baze knew and recognized, a species of Lieutenant-Colonel, who wore a
+black and orange ribbon round his neck, and a Major of Lancers, all three
+sword in hand, consulting together. The windows of the _fiacre_ were
+closed; M. Baze wished to lower them to appeal to these men; the
+_sergents de ville_ seized his arms. The Commissary Primorin then came
+up, and was about to re-enter the little chariot for two persons which
+had brought him.
+
+"Monsieur Baze," said he, with that villainous kind of courtesy which the
+agents of the _coup d'etat_ willingly blended with their crime, "you must
+be uncomfortable with those three men in the _fiacre_. You are cramped;
+come in with me."
+
+"Let me alone," said the prisoner. "With these three men I am cramped;
+with you I should be contaminated."
+
+An escort of infantry was ranged on both sides of the _fiacre_. Colonel
+Espinasse called to the coachman, "Drive slowly by the Quai d'Orsay until
+you meet a cavalry escort. When the cavalry shall have assumed the
+charge, the infantry can come back." They set out.
+
+As the _fiacre_ turned into the Quai d'Orsay a picket of the 7th Lancers
+arrived at full speed. It was the escort: the troopers surrounded the
+_fiacre_, and the whole galloped off.
+
+No incident occurred during the journey. Here and there, at the noise of
+the horses' hoofs, windows were opened and heads put forth; and the
+prisoner, who had at length succeeded in lowering a window heard startled
+voices saying, "What is the matter?"
+
+The _fiacre_ stopped. "Where are we?" asked M. Baze.
+
+"At Mazas," said a _sergent de ville_.
+
+The Questor was taken to the office of the prison. Just as he entered he
+saw Baune and Nadaud being brought out. There was a table in the centre,
+at which Commissary Primorin, who had followed the _fiacre_ in his
+chariot, had just seated himself. While the Commissary was writing, M.
+Baze noticed on the table a paper which was evidently a jail register, on
+which were these names, written in the following order: Lamoriciere,
+Charras, Cavaignac, Changarnier, Leflo, Thiers, Bedeau, Roger (du Nord),
+Chambolle. This was probably the order in which the Representatives had
+arrived at the prison.
+
+When Sieur Primorin had finished writing, M. Baze said, "Now, you will be
+good enough to receive my protest, and add it to your official report."
+"It is not an official report," objected the Commissary, "it is simply an
+order for committal." "I intend to write my protest at once," replied M.
+Baze. "You will have plenty of time in your cell," remarked a man who
+stood by the table. M. Baze turned round. "Who are you?" "I am the
+governor of the prison," said the man. "In that case," replied M. Baze,
+"I pity you, for you are aware of the crime you are committing." The man
+turned pale, and stammered a few unintelligible words.
+
+The Commissary rose from his seat; M. Baze briskly took possession of his
+chair, seated himself at the table, and said to Sieur Primorin, "You are
+a public officer; I request you to add my protest to your official
+report." "Very well," said the Commissary, "let it be so." Baze wrote the
+protest as follows:--
+
+  "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,
+  protest in the name of the National Assembly and in my own name against
+  the outrage on national representation committed upon my colleagues and
+  upon myself.
+
+  "Given at Mazas on the 2d December 1851, at eight o'clock in the
+  morning.
+
+  "BAZE."
+
+While this was taking place at Mazas, the soldiers were laughing and
+drinking in the courtyard of the Assembly. They made their coffee in the
+saucepans. They had lighted enormous fires in the courtyard; the flames,
+fanned by the wind, at times reached the walls of the Chamber. A
+superior official of the Questure, an officer of the National Guard,
+Ramond de la Croisette, ventured to say to them, "You will set the
+Palace on fire;" whereupon a soldier struck him a blow with his fist.
+
+Four of the pieces taken from the Cour de Canons were ranged in battery
+order against the Assembly; two on the Place de Bourgogne were pointed
+towards the grating, and two on the Pont de la Concorde were pointed
+towards the grand staircase.
+
+As side-note to this instructive tale let us mention a curious fact. The
+42d Regiment of the line was the same which 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 beauty of passive obedience.
+
+
+[2] The Questors were officers elected by the Assembly, whose special
+duties were to keep and audit the accounts, and who controlled all
+matters affecting the social economy of the House.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+OTHER DOINGS OF THE NIGHT
+
+During the same night in all parts of Paris acts of brigandage took
+place. Unknown men leading armed troops, and themselves armed with
+hatchets, mallets, pincers, crow-bars, life-preservers, swords hidden
+under their coats, pistols, of which the butts could be distinguished
+under the folds of their cloaks, arrived in silence before a house,
+occupied the street, encircled the approaches, picked the lock of the
+door, tied up the porter, invaded the stairs, and burst through the doors
+upon a sleeping man, and when that man, awakening with a start, asked of
+these bandits, "Who are you?" their leader answered, "A Commissary of
+Police." So it happened to Lamoriciere who was seized by Blanchet, who
+threatened him with the gag; to Greppo, who was brutally treated and
+thrown down by Gronfier, assisted by six men carrying a dark lantern and
+a pole-axe; to Cavaignac, who was secured by Colin, a smooth-tongued
+villain, who affected to be shocked on hearing him curse and swear; to M.
+Thiers, who was arrested by Hubaut (the elder); who professed that he had
+seen him "tremble and weep," thus adding falsehood to crime; to Valentin,
+who was assailed in his bed by Dourlens, taken by the feet and shoulders,
+and thrust into a padlocked police van; to Miot, destined to the tortures
+of African casemates; to Roger (du Nord), who with courageous and witty
+irony offered sherry to the bandits. Charras and Changarnier were taken
+unawares.
+
+They lived in the Rue St. Honore, nearly opposite to each other,
+Changarnier at No. 3, Charras at No. 14. Ever since the 9th of September
+Changarnier had dismissed the fifteen men armed to the teeth by whom he
+had hitherto been guarded during the night, and on the 1st December, as
+we have said, Charras had unloaded his pistols. These empty pistols were
+lying on the table when they came to arrest him. The Commissary of Police
+threw himself upon them. "Idiot," said Charras to him, "if they had been
+loaded, you would have been a dead man." These pistols, we may note, had
+been given to Charras upon the taking of Mascara by General Renaud, who
+at the moment of Charras' arrest was on horseback in the street helping
+to carry out the _coup d'etat_. If these pistols had remained loaded, and
+if General Renaud had had the task of arresting Charras, it would have
+been curious if Renaud's pistols had killed Renaud. Charras assuredly
+would not have hesitated. We have already mentioned the names of these
+police rascals. It is useless to repeat them. It was Courtille who
+arrested Charras, Lerat who arrested Changarnier, Desgranges who arrested
+Nadaud. The men thus seized in their own houses were Representatives of
+the people; they were inviolable, so that to the crime of the violation
+of their persons was added this high treason, the violation of the
+Constitution.
+
+There was no lack of impudence in the perpetration of these outrages. The
+police agents made merry. Some of these droll fellows jested. At Mazas
+the under-jailors jeered at Thiers, Nadaud reprimanded them severely. The
+Sieur Hubaut (the younger) awoke General Bedeau. "General, you are a
+prisoner."--"My person is inviolable."--"Unless you are caught red-handed,
+in the very act."--"Well," said Bedeau, "I am caught in the act, the
+heinous act of being asleep." They took him by the collar and dragged him
+to a _fiacre_.
+
+On meeting together at Mazas, Nadaud grasped the hand of Greppo, and
+Lagrange grasped the hand of Lamoriciere. This made the police gentry
+laugh. A colonel, named Thirion, wearing a commander's cross round his
+neck, helped to put the Generals and the Representatives into jail. "Look
+me in the face," said Charras to him. Thirion moved away.
+
+Thus, without counting other arrests which took place later on, there
+were imprisoned during the night of the 2d of December, sixteen
+Representatives and seventy-eight citizens. The two agents of the crime
+furnished a report of it to Louis Bonaparte. Morny wrote "Boxed up;"
+Maupas wrote "Quadded." The one in drawing-room slang, the other in the
+slang of the galleys. Subtle gradations of language.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+THE DARKNESS OF THE CRIME
+
+Versigny had just left me.
+
+While I dressed hastily there came in a man 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 carver of wood, and
+not illiterate. He came in from the street; he was trembling.
+
+"Well," I asked, "what do the people say?"
+
+Girard answered me,--
+
+"People are dazed. The blow has been struck in such a manner that it
+is not realized. Workmen read the placards, say nothing, and go to
+their work. Only one in a hundred speaks. It is to say, 'Good!' This
+is how it appears to them. The law of the 31st May is abrogated--'Well
+done!' Universal suffrage is re-established--'Also well done!' The
+reactionary majority has been driven away--'Admirable!' Thiers is
+arrested--'Capital!' Changarnier is seized--'Bravo!' Round each placard
+there are _claqueurs_. Ratapoil explains his _coup d'etat_ to Jacques
+Bonhomme, Jacques Bonhomme takes it all in. Briefly, it is my impression
+that the people give their consent."
+
+"Let it be so," said I.
+
+"But," asked Girard of me, "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
+Mieroslawsky in the Sicilian insurrection. He has, in a few moving and
+enthusiastic pages, 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 in this century has two fatherlands--the Rome of
+yesterday and the Paris of to-day.
+
+"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 invested. I
+have come from thence. The Place de la Revolution, the Quays, the
+Tuileries, the boulevards, are crowded with troops. The soldiers have
+their knapsacks. The batteries are harnessed. If fighting takes place it
+will be desperate work."
+
+I answered him, "There will be fighting."
+
+And I added, laughing, "You have proved that the colonels write like
+poets; now it is the turn of the poets 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. I put on my wife's bed
+a box containing nine hundred francs, all the money which remained to me,
+and I told her what had happened.
+
+She turned pale, and said to me, "What are you going to do?"
+
+"My duty."
+
+She embraced me, and only said two words:--
+
+"Do it."
+
+My breakfast was ready. I ate a cutlet in two mouthfuls. As I finished,
+my daughter came in. She was startled by the manner in which I kissed
+her, and asked me, "What is the matter?"
+
+"Your mother will explain to you."
+
+And I left them.
+
+The Rue de la Tour d'Auvergne was as quiet and deserted as usual. Four
+workmen were, however, chatting near my door; they wished me "Good
+morning."
+
+I cried out to them, "You know what is going on?"
+
+"Yes," said they.
+
+"Well. It is treason! Louis Bonaparte is strangling the Republic. The
+people are attacked. The people must defend themselves."
+
+"They will defend themselves."
+
+"You promise me that?"
+
+"Yes," they answered.
+
+One of them added, "We swear it."
+
+They kept their word. Barricades were constructed in my street (Rue de la
+Tour d'Auvergne), in the Rue des Martyrs, in the Cite Rodier, in the Rue
+Coquenard, and at Notre-Dame de Lorette.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+"PLACARDS"
+
+On leaving these brave men I could read at the corner of the Rue de la
+Tour d'Auvergne and the Rue des Martyrs, the three infamous placards
+which 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. Every day which
+  passes enhances the dangers of the country. The Assembly, which ought
+  to be the firmest support of order, has become a focus of conspiracies.
+  The patriotism of three hundred of its members has been unable to check
+  its fatal tendencies. Instead of making laws in the public interest it
+  forges arms for civil war; it attacks the power which I hold directly
+  from the People, it encourages all bad passions, it compromises the
+  tranquillity of France; I have dissolved it, and I constitute the whole
+  People a judge between it and me.
+
+  "The Constitution, as you know, was constructed with the object of
+  weakening beforehand the power which you were about to confide to me.
+  Six millions of votes formed an emphatic protest against it, and yet
+  I have faithfully respected it. Provocations, calumnies, outrages,
+  have found me unmoved. Now, however, that the fundamental compact is
+  no longer respected by those very men who incessantly invoke it, and
+  that the men who have ruined two monarchies wish to tie my hands in
+  order to overthrow the Republic, my duty is to frustrate their
+  treacherous schemes, to maintain the Republic, and to save the Country
+  by appealing to the solemn judgment of the only Sovereign whom I
+  recognize in France--the People.
+
+  "I therefore make a loyal appeal to the whole nation, and I say to
+  you: If you wish to continue this condition of uneasiness which
+  degrades us and compromises our future, choose another in my place,
+  for I will no longer retain a power which is impotent to do good,
+  which renders me responsible for actions which I cannot prevent, and
+  which binds me to the helm when I see the vessel driving towards the
+  abyss.
+
+  "If on the other hand you still place confidence in me, give me the
+  means of accomplishing the great mission which I hold from you.
+
+  "This mission consists in closing the era of revolutions, by satisfying
+  the legitimate needs of the People, and by protecting them from
+  subversive passions. It consists, above all, in creating institutions
+  which survive men, and which shall in fact form the foundations on
+  which something durable may be established.
+
+  "Persuaded that the instability of power, that the preponderance of a
+  single Assembly, are the permanent causes of trouble and discord, I
+  submit to your suffrage the following fundamental bases of a
+  Constitution which will be developed by the Assemblies later on:--
+
+  "1. A responsible Chief appointed for ten years.
+
+  "2. Ministers dependent upon the Executive Power alone.
+
+  "3. A Council of State composed of the most distinguished men, who shall
+  prepare laws and shall support them in debate before the Legislative
+  Body.
+
+  "4. A Legislative Body which shall discuss and vote the laws, and which
+  shall be elected by universal suffrage, without _scrutin de liste_,
+  which falsifies the elections.
+
+  "5. A Second Assembly composed of the most illustrious men of the
+  country, a power of equipoise the guardian of the fundamental compact,
+  and of the public liberties.
+
+  "This system, created by the first Consul at the beginning of the
+  century, has already given repose and prosperity to France; it would
+  still insure them to her.
+
+  "Such is my firm conviction. If you share it, declare it by your votes.
+  If, on the contrary, you prefer a government without strength,
+  Monarchical or Republican, borrowed I know not from what past, or from
+  what chimerical future, answer in the negative.
+
+  "Thus for the first time since 1804, you will vote with a full knowledge
+  of the circumstances, knowing exactly for whom and for what.
+
+  "If I do not obtain the majority of your suffrages I shall call together
+  a New Assembly and shall place in its hands the commission which I have
+  received from you.
+
+  "But if you believe that the cause of which my name is the symbol,--that
+  is to say, France regenerated by the Revolution of '89, and organized by
+  the Emperor, is to be still your own, proclaim it by sanctioning the
+  powers which I ask from you.
+
+  "Then France and Europe will be preserved from anarchy, obstacles will
+  be removed, rivalries will have disappeared, for all will respect, in
+  the decision of the People, the decree of Providence.
+
+  "Given at the Palace of the Elysee, 2d December, 1851.
+
+  "LOUIS NAPOLEON BONAPARTE."
+
+
+
+  PROCLAMATION OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC TO THE ARMY.
+
+  "Soldiers! Be proud of your mission, you will save the country, for I
+  count upon you not to violate the laws, but to enforce respect for the
+  first law of the country, the national Sovereignty, of which I am the
+  Legitimate Representative.
+
+  "For a long time past, like myself, you have suffered from obstacles
+  which have opposed themselves both to the good that I wished to do and
+  to the demonstrations of your sympathies in my favor. These obstacles
+  have been broken down.
+
+  "The Assembly has tried to attack the authority which 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 give me the means of insuring your prosperity, or choose another
+  in my place.
+
+  "In 1830, as in 1848, you were treated as vanquished men. After having
+  branded your heroic disinterestedness, they disdained to consult your
+  sympathies and your wishes, and yet you are the flower of the Nation.
+  To-day, at this solemn moment, I am resolved that the voice of the Army
+  shall be heard.
+
+  "Vote, therefore, freely as citizens; but, as soldiers do not forget
+  that passive obedience to the orders of the Chief of the State is the
+  rigorous duty of the Army, from the general to the private soldier.
+
+  "It is for me, responsible for my actions both to the People and to
+  posterity, to take those measures which may seem to me indispensable for
+  the public welfare.
+
+  "As for you, remain immovable within the rules of discipline and of
+  honor. By your imposing attitude help the country to manifest its will
+  with calmness and reflection.
+
+  "Be ready to repress every attack upon the free exercise of the
+  sovereignty of the People.
+
+  "Soldiers, I do not speak to you of the memories which my name recalls.
+  They are engraven in your hearts. We are united by indissoluble ties.
+  Your history is mine. There is between us, in the past, a community of
+  glory and of misfortune.
+
+  "There will be in the future community of sentiment and of resolutions
+  for the repose and the greatness of France.
+
+  "Given at the Palace of the Elysee, December 2d, 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 are convoked in their electoral
+  districts from the 14th December to the 21st December following.
+
+  "ARTICLE IV. The State of Siege is decreed 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 of the Elysee, 2d December, 1851.
+
+  "LOUIS NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.
+
+  "DE MORNY, Minister of the Interior."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+NO. 70, RUE BLANCHE
+
+The Cite 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, lived there. It was not in his rooms, however, that
+the meeting was to take place.
+
+The porter of No. 70 told me to go up to the first floor. The door was
+opened, and a handsome, gray-haired woman of some forty summers, the
+Baroness Coppens, whom I recognized as having seen in society and at my
+own house, ushered me into a drawing-room.
+
+Michel de Bourges and Alexander Rey were there, the latter an
+ex-Constituent, an eloquent writer, a brave man. At that time Alexander
+Rey edited the _National_.
+
+We shook hands.
+
+Michel said to me,--
+
+"Hugo, what will you do?"
+
+I answered him,--
+
+"Everything."
+
+"That also is my opinion," said he.
+
+Numerous representatives arrived, and amongst others Pierre Lefranc,
+Labrousse, Theodore Bac, Noel Parfait, Arnauld (de l'Ariege), Demosthenes
+Ollivier, an ex-Constituent, and Charamaule. There was deep and
+unutterable indignation, but no useless words were spoken.
+
+All were imbued with that manly anger whence issue great resolutions.
+
+They talked. They set forth the situation. Each brought forward the news
+which he had learnt.
+
+Theodore Bac came from Leon Faucher, who lived in the Rue Blanche. It
+was he who had awakened Leon Faucher, and had announced the news to him.
+The first words of Leon Faucher were, "It is an infamous deed."
+
+From the first moment Charamaule displayed a courage which, during
+the four days of the struggle, never flagged for a single instant.
+Charamaule is a very tall man, possessed of vigorous features and
+convincing eloquence; he voted with the Left, but sat with the Right.
+In the Assembly he was the neighbor of Montalembert and of Riancey.
+He sometimes had warm disputes with them, which we watched from afar
+off, and which amused us.
+
+Charamaule had come to the meeting at No. 70 dressed in a sort of blue
+cloth military cloak, and armed, as we found out later on.
+
+The situation was grave; sixteen Representatives arrested, all the
+generals of the Assembly, and he who was more than a general, Charras.
+All the journals suppressed, all the printing offices occupied by
+soldiers. On the side of Bonaparte an army of 80,000 men which could be
+doubled in a few hours; on our side nothing. The people deceived, and
+moreover disarmed. The telegraph at their command. All the walls covered
+with their placards, and at our disposal not a single printing case, not
+one sheet of paper. No means of raising the protest, no means of
+beginning the combat. The _coup d'etat_ was clad with mail, the Republic
+was naked; the _coup d'etat_ had a speaking trumpet, the Republic wore a
+gag.
+
+What was to be done?
+
+The raid against the Republic, against the Assembly, against Right,
+against Law, against Progress, against Civilization, was commanded by
+African generals. These heroes had just proved that they were cowards.
+They had taken their precautions well. Fear alone can engender so much
+skill. They had arrested all the men of war of the Assembly, and all the
+men of action of the Left, Baune, Charles Lagrange, Miot, Valentin,
+Nadaud, Cholat. Add to this that all the possible chiefs of the
+barricades were in prison. The organizers of the ambuscade had carefully
+left at liberty Jules Favre, Michel de Bourges, and myself, judging us
+to be less men of action than of the Tribune; wishing to leave the Left
+men capable of resistance, but incapable of victory, hoping to dishonor
+us if we did not fight, and to shoot us if we did fight.
+
+Nevertheless, no one hesitated. The deliberation began. Other
+representatives arrived every minute, Edgar Quinet, Doutre, Pelletier,
+Cassal, Bruckner, Baudin, Chauffour. The room was full, some were
+seated, most were standing, in confusion, but without tumult.
+
+I was the first to speak.
+
+I said that the struggle ought to be begun at once. Blow for blow.
+
+That it was my opinion that the hundred and fifty Representatives of the
+Left should put on their scarves of office, should march in procession
+through the streets and the boulevards as far as the Madeleine, and
+crying "Vive la Republique! Vive la Constitution!" should appear before
+the troops, and alone, calm and unarmed, should summon Might to obey
+Right. If the soldiers yielded, they should go to the Assembly and make
+an end of Louis Bonaparte. If the soldiers fired upon their legislators,
+they should disperse throughout Paris, cry "To Arms," and resort to
+barricades. Resistance should be begun constitutionally, and if that
+failed, should be continued revolutionarily. There was no time to be
+lost.
+
+"High treason," said I, "should be seized red-handed, is a great mistake
+to suffer such an outrage to be accepted by the hours as they elapse.
+Each minute which passes is an accomplice, and endorses the crime.
+Beware of that calamity called an 'Accomplished fact.' To arms!"
+
+Many warmly supported this advice, among others Edgar Quinet, Pelletier,
+and Doutre.
+
+Michel de Bourges seriously
+objected. My instinct was to begin at once, his advice was to wait and
+see. According to him there was danger in hastening the catastrophe. The
+_coup d'etat_ was organized, and the People were not. They had been
+taken unawares. We must not indulge in illusion. The masses could not
+stir yet. Perfect calm reigned in the faubourgs; Surprise existed, yes;
+Anger, no. The people of Paris, although so intelligent, did not
+understand.
+
+Michel added, "We are not in 1830. Charles X., in turning out the 221,
+exposed himself to this blow, the re-election of the 221. We are not in
+the same situation. The 221 were popular. The present Assembly is not: a
+Chamber which has been insultingly dissolved is always sure to conquer,
+if the People support it. Thus the People rose in 1830. To-day they
+wait. They are dupes until they shall be victims." Michel de Bourges
+concluded, "The People must be given time to understand, to grow angry,
+to rise. As for us, Representative, we should be rash to precipitate the
+situation. If we were to march immediately straight upon the troops, we
+should only be shot to no purpose, and the glorious insurrection for
+Right would thus be beforehand deprived of its natural leaders--the
+Representatives of the People. We should decapitate the popular army.
+Temporary delay, on the contrary, would be beneficial. Too much zeal
+must be guarded against, self-restraint is necessary, to give way would
+be to lose the battle before having begun it. Thus, for example, we must
+not attend the meeting announced by the Right for noon, all those who
+went there would be arrested. We must remain free, we must remain in
+readiness, we must remain calm, and must act waiting the advent of the
+People. Four days of this agitation without fighting would weary the
+army." Michel, however, advised a beginning, but simply by placarding
+Article 68 of the Constitution. But where should a printer be found?
+
+Michel de Bourges spoke with an experience of revolutionary procedure
+which was wanting in me. For many years past he had acquired a certain
+practical knowledge of the masses. His council was wise. It must be
+added that all the information which came to us seconded him, and
+appeared conclusive against me. Paris was dejected.
+
+The army of the _coup d'etat_ invaded her peaceably. Even the placards
+were not torn down. Nearly all the Representatives present, even the
+most daring, agreed with Michel's counsel, to wait and see what would
+happen. "At night," said they, "the agitation will begin," and they
+concluded, like Michel de Bourges, that the people must be given time
+to understand. There would be a risk of being alone in too hasty a
+beginning. We should not carry the people with us in the first moment.
+Let us leave the indignation to increase little by little in their
+hearts. If it were begun prematurely our manifestation would miscarry.
+These were the sentiments of all. For myself, while listening to them, I
+felt shaken. Perhaps they were right. It would be a mistake to give the
+signal for the combat in vain. What good is the lightning which is not
+followed by the thunderbolt?
+
+To raise a voice, to give vent to a cry, to find a printer, there was
+the first question. But was there still a free Press?
+
+The brave old ex-chief of the 6th Legion, Colonel Forestier, came in. He
+took Michel de Bourges and myself aside.
+
+"Listen," said he to us. "I come to you. I have been dismissed. I no
+longer command my legion, but appoint me in the name of the Left,
+Colonel of the 6th. Sign me an order and I will go at once and call them
+to arms. In an hour the regiment will be on foot."
+
+"Colonel," answered I, "I will do more than sign an order, I will
+accompany you."
+
+And I turned towards Charamaule, who had a carriage in waiting.
+
+"Come with us," said I.
+
+Forestier was sure of two majors of the 6th. We decided to drive to them
+at once, while Michel and the other Representatives should await us at
+Bonvalet's, in the Boulevard du Temple, near the Cafe Turc. There they
+could consult together.
+
+We started.
+
+We traversed Paris, where people were already beginning to swarm in a
+threatening manner. The boulevards were thronged with an uneasy crowd.
+People walked to and fro, passers-by accosted each other without any
+previous acquaintance, a noteworthy sign of public anxiety; and groups
+talked in loud voices at the corners of the streets. The shops were
+being shut.
+
+"Come, this looks better," cried Charamaule.
+
+He had been wandering about the town since the morning, and he had
+noticed with sadness the apathy of the masses.
+
+We found the two majors at home upon whom Colonel Forestier counted.
+They were two rich linendrapers, who received us with some
+embarrassment. The shopmen had gathered together at the windows, and
+watched us pass by. It was mere curiosity.
+
+In the meanwhile one of the two majors countermanded a journey which he
+was going to undertake on that day, and promised us his co-operation.
+
+"But," added he, "do not deceive yourselves, one can foresee that we
+shall be cut to pieces. Few men will march out."
+
+Colonel Forestier said to us, "Watrin, the present colonel of the 6th,
+does not care for fighting; perhaps he will resign me the command
+amicably. I will go and find him alone, so as to startle him the less,
+and will join you at Bonvalet's."
+
+Near the Porte St. Martin we left our carriage, and Charamaule and
+myself proceeded along the boulevard on foot, in order to observe the
+groups more closely, and more easily to judge the aspect of the crowd.
+
+The recent levelling of the road had converted the boulevard of the
+Porte St. Martin into a deep cutting, commanded by two embankments. On
+the summits of these embankments were the footways, furnished with
+railings. The carriages drove along the cutting, the foot passengers
+walked along the footways.
+
+Just as we reached the boulevard, a long column of infantry filed into
+this ravine with drummers at their head. The thick waves of bayonets
+filled the square of St. Martin, and lost themselves in the depths of
+the Boulevard Bonne Nouvelle.
+
+An enormous and compact crowd covered the two pavements of the Boulevard
+St. Martin. Large numbers of workmen, in their blouses, were there,
+leaning upon the railings.
+
+At the moment when the head of the column entered the defile before the
+Theatre of the Porte St. Martin a tremendous shout of "Vive la
+Republique!" came forth from every mouth as though shouted by one man.
+The soldiers continued to advance in silence, but it might have been
+said that their pace slackened, and many of them regarded the crowd with
+an air of indecision. What did this cry of "Vive la Republique!" mean?
+Was it a token of applause? Was it a shout of defiance?
+
+It seemed to me at that moment that the Republic raised its brow, and
+that the _coup d'etat_ hung its head.
+
+Meanwhile Charamaule said to me, "You are recognized."
+
+In fact, near the Chateau d'Eau the crowd surrounded me. Some young men
+cried out, "Vive Victor Hugo!" One of them asked me, "Citizen Victor
+Hugo, what ought we to do?"
+
+I answered, "Tear down the seditious placards of the _coup d'etat_, and
+cry 'Vive la Constitution!'"
+
+"And suppose they fire on us?" said a young workman.
+
+"You will hasten to arms."
+
+"Bravo!" shouted the crowd.
+
+I added, "Louis Bonaparte is a rebel, he has steeped himself to-day in
+every crime. We, Representatives of the People, declare him an outlaw,
+but there is no need for our declaration, since he is an outlaw by the
+mere fact of his treason. Citizens, you have two hands; take in one your
+Right, and in the other your gun and fall upon Bonaparte."
+
+"Bravo! Bravo!" again shouted the people.
+
+A tradesman who was shutting up his shop said to me, "Don't speak so
+loud, if they heard you talking like that, they would shoot you."
+
+"Well, then," I replied, "you would parade my body, and my death would
+be a boon if the justice of God could result from it."
+
+All shouted "Long live Victor Hugo!"
+
+"Shout 'Long live the Constitution,'" said I.
+
+A great cry of "Vive la Constitution! Vive la Republique;" came forth
+from every breast.
+
+Enthusiasm, indignation, anger flashed in the faces of all. I thought
+then, and I still think, that this, perhaps, was the supreme moment. I
+was tempted to carry off all that crowd, and to begin the battle.
+
+Charamaule restrained me. He whispered to me,--
+
+"You will bring about a useless fusillade. Every one is unarmed. The
+infantry is only two paces from us, and see, here comes the artillery."
+
+I looked round; in truth several pieces of cannon emerged at a quick
+trot from the Rue de Bondy, behind the Chateau d'Eau.
+
+The advice to abstain, given by Charamaule, made a deep impression on
+me. Coming from such a man, and one so dauntless, it was certainly not
+to be distrusted. Besides, I felt myself bound by the deliberation which
+had just taken place at the meeting in the Rue Blanche.
+
+I shrank before the responsibility which I should have incurred. To have
+taken advantage of such a moment might have been victory, it might also
+have been a massacre. Was I right? Was I wrong?
+
+The crowd thickened around us, and it became difficult to go forward. We
+were anxious, however, to reach the _rendezvous_ at Bonvalet's.
+
+Suddenly some one touched me on the arm. It was Leopold Duras, of the
+_National_.
+
+"Go no further," he whispered, "the Restaurant Bonvalet is surrounded.
+Michel de Bourges has attempted to harangue the People, but the soldiers
+came up. He barely succeeded in making his escape. Numerous
+Representatives who came to the meeting have been arrested. Retrace your
+steps. We are returning to the old _rendezvous_ in the Rue Blanche. I
+have been looking for you to tell you this."
+
+A cab was passing; Charamaule hailed the driver. We jumped in, followed
+by the crowd, shouting, "Vive la Republique! Vive Victor Hugo!"
+
+It appears that just at that moment a squadron of _sergents de ville_
+arrived on the Boulevard to arrest me. The coachman drove off at full
+speed. A quarter of an hour afterwards 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 free.
+The large grated gate of the Palace of the Assembly was closed; through
+the bars might be seen the flight of steps, that flight of steps whence
+the Republic had been proclaimed on the 4th May, 1848, covered with
+soldiers; and their piled arms might be distinguished upon the platform
+behind those high columns, which, during the time of the Constituent
+Assembly, after the 15th of May and the 23d June, masked small mountain
+mortars, loaded and pointed.
+
+A porter with a red collar, wearing the livery of the Assembly, stood by
+the little door of the grated gate. From time to time Representatives
+arrived. The porter said, "Gentlemen, are you Representatives?" and
+opened the door. Sometimes he asked their names.
+
+M. Dupin's quarters could be entered without hindrance. In the great
+gallery, in the dining-room, in the _salon d'honneur_ of the Presidency,
+liveried attendants silently opened the doors as usual.
+
+Before daylight, immediately after the arrest of the Questors MM. Baze
+and Leflo, M. de Panat, the only Questor who remained free, having been
+spared or disdained as a Legitimist, awoke M. Dupin and begged him to
+summon immediately the Representatives from their own homes. M. Dupin
+returned this unprecedented answer, "I do not see any urgency."
+
+Almost at the same time as M. Panat, the Representative Jerome Bonaparte
+had hastened thither. He had summoned M. Dupin to place himself at the
+head of the Assembly. M. Dupin had answered, "I cannot, I am guarded."
+Jerome Bonaparte burst out laughing. In fact, no one had deigned to
+place a sentinel at M. Dupin's door; they knew that it was guarded by
+his meanness.
+
+It was only later on, towards noon, that they took pity on him. They
+felt that the contempt was too great, and allotted him two sentinels.
+
+At half-past seven, fifteen or twenty Representatives, among whom were
+MM. Eugene Sue, Joret, de Resseguier, and de Talhouet, met together in
+M. Dupin's room. They also had vainly argued with M. Dupin. In the
+recess of a window a clever member of the Majority, M. Desmousseaux de
+Givre, who was a little deaf and exceedingly exasperated, almost
+quarrelled with a Representative of the Right like himself whom he
+wrongly supposed to be favorable to the _coup d'etat_.
+
+M. Dupin, apart from the group of Representatives, alone dressed in
+black, his hands behind his back, his head sunk on his breast, walked up
+and down before the fire-place, where a large fire was burning. In his
+own room, and in his very presence, they were talking loudly about
+himself, yet he seemed not to hear.
+
+Two members of the Left came in, Benoit (du Rhone), and Crestin. Crestin
+entered the room, went straight up to M. Dupin, and said to him,
+"President, you know what is going on? How is it that the Assembly has
+not yet been convened?"
+
+M. Dupin halted, and answered, with a shrug which was habitual with him,--
+
+"There is nothing to be done."
+
+And he resumed his walk.
+
+"It is enough," said M. de Resseguier.
+
+"It is too much," said Eugene Sue.
+
+All the Representatives left the room.
+
+In the meantime the Pont de la Concorde became covered with troops.
+Among them General Vast-Vimeux, lean, old, and little; his lank white
+hair plastered over his temples, in full uniform, with his laced hat on
+his head. He was laden with two huge epaulets, and displayed his scarf,
+not that of a Representative, but of a general, which scarf, being too
+long, trailed on the ground. He crossed the bridge on foot, shouting to
+the soldiers inarticulate cries of enthusiasm for the Empire and the
+_coup d'etat_. Such figures as these were seen in 1814. Only instead of
+wearing a large tri-colored, cockade, they wore a large white cockade.
+In the main the same phenomenon; old men crying, "Long live the Past!"
+Almost at the same moment M. de Larochejaquelein crossed the Place de la
+Concorde, surrounded by a hundred men in blouses, who followed him in
+silence, and with an air of curiosity. Numerous regiments of cavalry
+were drawn up in the grand avenue of the Champs Elysees.
+
+At eight o'clock a formidable force invested the Legislative Palace.
+All the approaches were guarded, all the doors were shut. Some
+Representatives nevertheless succeeded in penetrating into the interior
+of the Palace, not, as has been wrongly stated, by the passage of the
+President's house on the side of the Esplanade of the Invalides, but by
+the little door of the Rue de Bourgogne, called the Black Door. This
+door, by what omission or what connivance I do not know, remained open
+till noon on the 2d December. The Rue de Bourgogne was nevertheless full
+of troops. Squads of soldiers scattered here and there in the Rue de
+l'Universite allowed passers-by, who were few and far between, to use it
+as a thoroughfare.
+
+The Representatives who entered by the door in Rue de Bourgogne,
+penetrated as far as the Salle des Conferences, where they met their
+colleagues coming out from M. Dupin.
+
+A numerous group of men, representing every shade of opinion in the
+Assembly, was speedily assembled in this hall, amongst whom were MM.
+Eugene Sue, Richardet, Fayolle, Joret, Marc Dufraisse, Benoit (du
+Rhone), Canet, Gambon, d'Adelsward, Crequ, Repellin, Teillard-Laterisse,
+Rantion, General Leydet, Paulin Durrieu, Chanay, Brilliez, Collas (de la
+Gironde), Monet, Gaston, Favreau, and Albert de Resseguier.
+
+Each new-comer accosted M. de Panat.
+
+"Where are the vice-Presidents?"
+
+"In prison."
+
+"And the two other Questors?"
+
+"Also in prison. And I beg you to believe, gentlemen," added M. de
+Panat, "that I have had nothing to do with the insult which has been
+offered me, in not arresting me."
+
+Indignation was at its height; every political shade was blended in the
+same sentiment of contempt and anger, and M. de Resseguier was no less
+energetic than Eugene Sue. For the first time the Assembly seemed only
+to have one heart and one voice. Each at length said what he thought of
+the man of the Elysee, and it was then seen that for a long time past
+Louis Bonaparte had imperceptibly created a profound unanimity in the
+Assembly--the unanimity of contempt.
+
+M. Collas (of the Gironde) gesticulated and told his story. He came from
+the Ministry of the Interior. He had seen M. de Morny, he had spoken to
+him; and he, M. Collas, was incensed beyond measure at M. Bonaparte's
+crime. Since then, that Crime has made him Councillor of State.
+
+M. de Panat went hither and thither among the groups, announcing to the
+Representatives that he had convened the Assembly for one o'clock. But it
+was impossible to wait until that hour. Time pressed. At the Palais
+Bourbon, as in the Rue Blanche, it was the universal feeling that each
+hour which passed by helped to accomplish the _coup d'etat_. Every one
+felt as a reproach the weight of his silence or of his inaction; the
+circle of iron was closing in, the tide of soldiers rose unceasingly,
+and silently invaded the Palace; at each instant a sentinel the more was
+found at a door, which a moment before had been free. Still, the group of
+Representatives assembled together in the Salle des Conferences was as
+yet respected. It was necessary to act, to speak, to deliberate, to
+struggle, and not to lose a minute.
+
+Gambon said, "Let us try Dupin once more; he is our official man, we
+have need of him." They went to look for him. They could not find him.
+He was no longer there, he had disappeared, he was away, hidden,
+crouching, cowering, concealed, he had vanished, he was buried. Where?
+No one knew. Cowardice has unknown holes.
+
+Suddenly a man entered the hall. A man who was a stranger to the Assembly,
+in uniform, wearing the epaulet of a superior officer and a sword by his
+side. He was a major of the 42d, who came to summon the Representatives
+to quit their own House. All, Royalists and Republicans alike, rushed
+upon him. Such was the expression of an indignant eye-witness. General
+Leydet addressed him in language such as leaves an impression on the
+cheek rather than on the ear.
+
+"I do my duty, I fulfil my instructions," stammered the officer.
+
+"You are an idiot, if you think you are doing your duty," cried Leydet
+to him, "and you are a scoundrel if you know that you are committing a
+crime. Your name? What do you call yourself? Give me your name."
+
+The officer refused to give his name, and replied, "So, gentlemen, you
+will not withdraw?"
+
+"No."
+
+"I shall go and obtain force."
+
+"Do so."
+
+He left the room, and in actual fact went to obtain orders from the
+Ministry of the Interior.
+
+The Representatives waited in that kind of indescribable agitation which
+might be called the Strangling of Right by Violence.
+
+In a short time one of them who had gone out came back hastily, and warned
+them that two companies of the _Gendarmerie Mobile_ were coming with
+their guns in their hands.
+
+Marc Dufraisse cried out, "Let the outrage be thorough. Let the _coup
+d'etat_ find us on our seats. Let us go to the Salle des Seances," he
+added. "Since things have come to such a pass, let us afford the genuine
+and living spectacle of an 18th Brumaire."
+
+They all repaired to the Hall of Assembly. The passage was free. The
+Salle Casimir-Perier was not yet occupied by the soldiers.
+
+They numbered about sixty. Several were girded with their scarves of
+office. They entered the Hall meditatively.
+
+There, M. de Resseguier, undoubtedly with a good purpose, and in order
+to form a more compact group, urged that they should all install
+themselves on the Right side.
+
+"No," said Marc Dufraisse, "every one to his bench." They scattered
+themselves about the Hall, each in his usual place.
+
+M. Monet, who sat on one of the lower benches of the Left Centre, held
+in his hand a copy of the Constitution.
+
+Several minutes elapsed. No one spoke. It was the silence of expectation
+which precedes decisive deeds and final crises, and during which every
+one seems respectfully to listen to the last instructions of his
+conscience.
+
+Suddenly the soldiers of the _Gendarmerie Mobile_, headed by a captain
+with his sword drawn, appeared on the threshold. The Hall of Assembly
+was violated. The Representatives rose from their seats simultaneously,
+shouting "Vive la Republique!"
+
+The Representative Monet alone remained standing, and in a loud and
+indignant voice, which resounded through the empty hall like a trumpet,
+ordered the soldiers to halt.
+
+The soldiers halted, looking at the Representatives with a bewildered
+air.
+
+The soldiers as yet only blocked up the lobby of the Left, and had not
+passed beyond the Tribune.
+
+Then the Representative Monet read the Articles 36, 37, and 68 of the
+Constitution.
+
+Articles 36 and 37 established the inviolability of the
+Representatives. Article 68 deposed the President in the event of
+treason.
+
+That moment was a solemn one. The soldiers listened in silence.
+
+The Articles having been read, Representative d'Adelsward, who sat on
+the first lower bench of the Left, and who was nearest to the soldiers,
+turned towards them and said,--
+
+"Soldiers, you see that the President of the Republic is a traitor, and
+would make traitors of you. You violate the sacred precinct of rational
+Representation. In the name of the Constitution, in the name of the Law,
+we order you to withdraw."
+
+While Adelsward was speaking, the major commanding the _Gendarmerie
+Mobile_ had entered.
+
+"Gentlemen," said he, "I have orders to request you to retire, and, if
+you do not withdraw of your own accord, to expel you."
+
+"Orders to expel us!" exclaimed Adelsward; and all the Representatives
+added, "Whose orders; Let us see the orders. Who signed the orders?"
+
+The major drew forth a paper and unfolded it. Scarcely had he unfolded
+it than he attempted to replace it in his pocket, but General Leydet
+threw himself upon him and seized his arm. Several Representatives leant
+forward, and read the order for the expulsion of the Assembly, signed
+"Fortoul, Minister of the Marine."
+
+Marc Dufraisse turned towards the _Gendarmes Mobiles_, and cried out to
+them,--
+
+"Soldiers, your very presence here is an act of treason. Leave the
+Hall!"
+
+The soldiers seemed undecided. Suddenly a second column emerged from the
+door on the right, and at a signal from the commander, the captain
+shouted,--
+
+"Forward! Turn them all out!"
+
+Then began an indescribable hand-to-hand fight between the gendarmes and
+the legislators. The soldiers, with their guns in their hands, invaded
+the benches of the Senate. Repellin, Chanay, Rantion, were forcibly torn
+from their seats. Two gendarmes rushed upon Marc Dufraisse, two upon
+Gambon. A long struggle took place on the first bench of the Right, the
+same place where MM. Odilon Barrot and Abbatucci were in the habit of
+sitting. Paulin Durrieu resisted violence by force, it needed three men
+to drag him from his bench. Monet was thrown down upon the benches of the
+Commissaries. They seized Adelsward by the throat, and thrust him outside
+the Hall. Richardet, a feeble man, was thrown down and brutally treated.
+Some were pricked with the points of the bayonets; nearly all had their
+clothes torn.
+
+The commander shouted to the soldiers, "Rake them out."
+
+It was thus that sixty Representatives of the People were taken by the
+collar by the _coup d'etat_, and driven from their seats. The manner in
+which the deed was executed completed the treason. The physical
+performance was worthy of the moral performance.
+
+The three last to come out were Fayolle, Teillard-Laterisse, and Paulin
+Durrieu.
+
+They were allowed to pass by the great door of the Palace, and they
+found themselves in the Place Bourgogne.
+
+The Place Bourgogne was occupied by the 42d Regiment of the Line, under
+the orders of Colonel Garderens.
+
+Between the Palace and the statue of the Republic, which occupied the
+centre of the square, a piece of artillery was pointed at the Assembly
+opposite the great door.
+
+By the side of the cannon some Chasseurs de Vincennes were loading their
+guns and biting their cartridges.
+
+Colonel Garderens was on horseback near a group of soldiers, which
+attracted the attention of the Representatives Teillard-Laterisse,
+Fayolle, and Paulin Durrieu.
+
+In the middle of this group three men, who had been arrested, were
+struggling crying, "Long live the Constitution! Vive la Republique!"
+
+Fayolle, Paulin Durrieu, and Teillard-Laterisse approached, and
+recognized in the three prisoners three members of the majority,
+Representatives Toupet-des-Vignes Radoubt, Lafosse, and Arbey.
+
+Representative Arbey was warmly protesting. As he raised his voice,
+Colonel Garderens cut him short with these words, which are worthy of
+preservation,--
+
+"Hold your tongue! One word more, and I will have you thrashed with the
+butt-end of a musket."
+
+The three Representatives of the Left indignantly called on the Colonel
+to release their colleagues.
+
+"Colonel," said Fayolle, "You break the law threefold."
+
+"I will break it sixfold," answered the Colonel, and he arrested
+Fayolle, Durrieu, and Teillard-Laterisse.
+
+The soldiery were ordered to conduct them to the guard house of the
+Palace then being built for the Minister of Foreign Affairs.
+
+On the way the six prisoners, marching between a double file of bayonets,
+met three of their colleagues Representatives Eugene Sue, Chanay, and
+Benoist (du Rhone).
+
+Eugene Sue placed himself before the officer who commanded the detachment,
+and said to him,--
+
+"We summon you to set our colleagues at liberty."
+
+"I cannot do so," answered the officer.
+
+"In that case complete your crimes," said Eugene Sue, "We summon you to
+arrest us also."
+
+The officer arrested them.
+
+They were taken to the guard-house of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs,
+and, later on, to the barracks of the Quai d'Orsay. It was not till
+night that two companies of the line came to transfer them to this
+ultimate resting-place.
+
+While placing them between his soldiers the commanding officer bowed
+down to the ground, politely remarking, "Gentlemen, my men's guns are
+loaded."
+
+The clearance of the hall was carried out, as we have said, in a
+disorderly fashion, the soldiers pushing the Representatives before them
+through all the outlets.
+
+Some, and amongst the number those of whom we have just spoken, wens out
+by the Rue de Bourgogne, others were dragged through the Salle des Pas
+Perdus towards the grated door opposite the Pont de la Concorde.[3]
+
+The Salle des Pas Perdus has an ante-chamber, a sort of crossway room,
+upon which opened the staircase of the High Tribune, and several doors,
+amongst others the great glass door of the gallery which leads to the
+apartments of the President of the Assembly.
+
+As soon as they had reached this crossway room which adjoins the little
+rotunda, where the side door of exit to the Palace is situated, the
+soldiers set the Representatives free.
+
+There, in a few moments, a group was formed, in which the
+Representatives Canet and Favreau began to speak. One universal cry was
+raised, "Let us search for Dupin, let us drag him here if it is
+necessary."
+
+They opened the glass door and rushed into the gallery. This time M.
+Dupin was at home. M. Dupin, having learnt that the gendarmes had
+cleared out the Hall, had come out of his hiding-place. The Assembly
+being thrown prostrate, Dupin stood erect. The law being made prisoner,
+this man felt himself set free.
+
+The group of Representatives, led by MM. Canet and Favreau, found him in
+his study.
+
+There a dialogue ensued. The Representatives summoned the President to
+put himself at their head, and to re-enter the Hall, he, the man of the
+Assembly, with them, the men of the Nation.
+
+M. Dupin refused point-blank, maintained his ground, was very firm, and
+clung bravely to his nonentity.
+
+"What do you want me to do?" said he, mingling with his alarmed protests
+many law maxims and Latin quotations, an instinct of chattering jays,
+who pour forth all their vocabulary when they are frightened. "What do
+you want me to do? Who am I? What can I do? I am nothing. No one is any
+longer anything. _Ubi nihil, nihil_. Might is there. Where there is
+Might the people lose their Rights. _Novus nascitur ordo_. Shape your
+course accordingly. I am obliged to submit. _Dura lex, sed lex_. A law
+of necessity we admit, but not a law of right. But what is to be done? I
+ask to be let alone. I can do nothing. I do what I can. I am not wanting
+in good will. If I had a corporal and four men, I would have them
+killed."
+
+"This man only recognizes force," said the Representatives. "Very well,
+let us employ force."
+
+They used violence towards him, they girded him with a scarf like a cord
+round his neck, and, as they had said, they dragged him towards the
+Hall, begging for his "liberty," moaning, kicking--I would say
+wrestling, if the word were not too exalted.
+
+Some minutes after the clearance, this Salle des Pas Perdus, which had
+just witnessed Representatives pass by in the clutch of gendarmes, saw
+M. Dupin in the clutch of the Representatives.
+
+They did not get far. Soldiers barred the great green folding-doors.
+Colonel Espinasse hurried thither, the commander of the gendarmerie came
+up. The butt-ends of a pair of pistols were seen peeping out of the
+commander's pocket.
+
+The colonel was pale, the commander was pale, M. Dupin was livid. Both
+sides were afraid. M. Dupin was afraid of the colonel; the colonel
+assuredly was not afraid of M. Dupin, but behind this laughable and
+miserable figure he saw a terrible phantom rise up--his crime, and he
+trembled. In Homer there is a scene where Nemesis appears behind
+Thersites.
+
+M. Dupin remained for some moments stupefied, bewildered and speechless.
+
+The Representative Gambon exclaimed to him,--
+
+"Now then, speak, M. Dupin, the Left does not interrupt you."
+
+Then, with the words of the Representatives at his back, and the
+bayonets of the soldiers at his breast, the unhappy man spoke. What
+his mouth uttered at this moment, what the President of the Sovereign
+Assembly of France stammered to the gendarmes at this intensely critical
+moment, no one could gather.
+
+Those who heard the last gasps of this moribund cowardice, hastened
+to purify their ears. It appears, however, that he stuttered forth
+something like this:--
+
+"You are Might, you have bayonets; I invoke Right and I leave you. I
+have the honor to wish you good day."
+
+He went away.
+
+They let him go. At the moment of leaving he turned round and let fall a
+few more words. We will not gather them up. History has no rag-picker's
+basket.
+
+
+[3] This grated door was closed on December 2, and was not reopened
+until the 12th March, when M. Louis Bonaparte came to inspect the works
+of the Hall of the Corps Legislatif.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+AN END WORSE THAN DEATH
+
+We should have been glad to have put aside, never to have spoken of him
+again, this man who had borne for three years this most honorable title,
+President of the National Assembly of France, and who had only known how
+to be lacquey to the majority. He contrived in his last hour to sink
+even lower than could have been believed possible even for him. His
+career in the Assembly had been that of a valet, his end was that of a
+scullion.
+
+The unprecedented attitude that M. Dupin assumed before the gendarmes
+when uttering with a grimace his mockery of a protest, even engendered
+suspicion. Gambion exclaimed, "He resists like an accomplice. He knew
+all."
+
+We believe these suspicions to be unjust. M. Dupin knew nothing. Who
+indeed amongst the organizers of the _coup d'etat_ would have taken the
+trouble to make sure of his joining them? Corrupt M. Dupin? was it
+possible? and, further, to what purpose? To pay him? Why? It would be
+money wasted when fear alone was enough. Some connivances are secured
+before they are sought for. Cowardice is the old fawner upon felony. The
+blood of the law is quickly wiped up. Behind the assassin who holds the
+poniard comes the trembling wretch who holds the sponge.
+
+Dupin took refuge in his study. They followed him. "My God!" he cried,
+"can't they understand that I want to be left in peace."
+
+In truth they had tortured him ever since the morning, in order to
+extract from him an impossible scrap of courage.
+
+"You ill-treat me worse than the gendarmes," said he.
+
+The Representatives installed themselves in his study, seated themselves
+at his table, and, while he groaned and scolded in an arm-chair, they
+drew up a formal report of what had just taken place, as they wished to
+leave an official record of the outrage in the archives.
+
+When the official report was ended Representative Canet read it to the
+President, and offered him a pen.
+
+"What do you want me to do with this?" he asked.
+
+"You are the President," answered Canet. "This is our last sitting. It
+is your duty to sign the official report."
+
+This man refused.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+
+THE BLACK DOOR
+
+M. Dupin is a matchless disgrace.
+
+Later on he had his reward. It appears that he became some sort of an
+Attorney-General at the Court of Appeal.
+
+M. Dupin renders to Louis Bonaparte the service of being in his place
+the meanest of men.
+
+To continue this dismal history.
+
+The Representatives of the Right, in their first bewilderment caused
+by the _coup d'etat_, hastened in large numbers to M. Daru, who was
+Vice-President of the Assembly, and at the same time one of the
+Presidents of the Pyramid Club. This Association had always supported
+the policy of the Elysee, but without believing that a _coup d'etat_
+was premeditated. M. Daru lived at No. 75, Rue de Lille.
+
+Towards ten o'clock in the morning about a hundred of these
+Representatives had assembled at M. Daru's home. They resolved to
+attempt to penetrate into the Hall where the Assembly held its sittings.
+The Rue de Lille opens out into the Rue de Bourgogne, almost opposite
+the little door by which the Palace is entered, and which is called the
+Black Door.
+
+They turned their steps towards this door, with M. Daru at their head.
+They marched arm in arm and three abreast. Some of them had put on their
+scarves of office. They took them off later on.
+
+The Black Door, half-open as usual, was only guarded by two sentries.
+
+Some of the most indignant, and amongst them M. de Kerdrel, rushed
+towards this door and tried to pass. The door, however, was violently
+shut, and there ensued between the Representatives and the _sergents de
+ville_ who hastened up, a species of struggle, in which a Representative
+had his wrist sprained.
+
+At the same time a battalion which was drawn up on the Place de
+Bourgogne moved on, and came at the double towards the group of
+Representatives. M. Daru, stately and firm, signed to the commander
+to stop; the battalion halted, and M. Daru, in the name of the
+Constitution, and in his capacity as Vice-President of the Assembly,
+summoned the soldiers to lay down their arms, and to give free passage
+to the Representatives of the Sovereign People.
+
+The commander of the battalion replied by an order to clear the street
+immediately, declaring that there was no longer an Assembly; that as for
+himself, he did not know what the Representatives of the People were,
+and that if those persons before him did not retire of their own accord,
+he would drive them back by force.
+
+"We will only yield 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 order.
+
+There was a moment of confusion; almost a collision. The Representatives,
+forcibly driven back, ebbed into the Rue de Lille. Some of them fell
+down. Several members of the Right were rolled in the mud by the
+soldiers. One of them, M. Etienne, received a blow on the shoulder from
+the butt-end of a musket. We may here add that a week afterwards M.
+Etienne was a member of that concern which they styled the Consultative
+Committee. He found the _coup d'etat_ to his taste, the blow with the
+butt-end of a musket included.
+
+They went back to M. Daru's house, and on the way the scattered group
+reunited, and was even strengthened by some new-comers.
+
+"Gentlemen," said M. Daru, "the President has failed us, the Hall is
+closed against us. I am the Vice-President; my house is the Palace of
+the Assembly."
+
+He opened a large room, and there the Representatives of the Right
+installed themselves. At first the discussions were somewhat noisy. M.
+Daru, however, observed that the moments were precious, and silence was
+restored.
+
+The first measure to be taken was evidently the deposition of the
+President of the Republic by virtue of Article 68 of the Constitution.
+Some Representatives of the party which was called _Burgraves_ sat round
+a table and prepared the deed of deposition.
+
+As they were about to read it aloud a Representative who came in from
+out of doors appeared at the door of the room, and announced to the
+Assembly that the Rue de Lille was becoming filled with troops, and that
+the house was being surrounded.
+
+There was not a moment to lose.
+
+M. Benoist-d'Azy said, "Gentlemen, let us go to the Mairie of the tenth
+arrondissement; there we shall be able to deliberate under the protection
+of the tenth legion, of which our colleague, General Lauriston, is the
+colonel."
+
+M. Daru's house had a back entrance by a little door which was at the
+bottom of the garden. Most of the Representatives went out that way.
+
+M. Daru was about to follow them. Only himself, M. Odilon Barrot, and
+two or three others remained in the room, when the door opened. A
+captain entered, and said to M. Daru,--
+
+"Sir, you are my prisoner."
+
+"Where am I to follow you?" asked M. Daru.
+
+"I have orders to watch over you in your own house."
+
+The house, in truth, was militarily occupied, and it was thus that M.
+Daru was prevented from taking part in the sitting at the Mairie of the
+tenth arrondissement.
+
+The officer allowed M. Odilon Barrot to go out.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+
+THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
+
+While all this was taking place on the left bank of the river, towards
+noon a man was noticed walking up and down the great Salles des Pas
+Perdus of the Palace of Justice. This man, carefully buttoned up in an
+overcoat, appeared to be attended at a distance by several possible
+supporters--for certain police enterprises employ assistants whose
+dubious appearance renders the passers-by uneasy, so much so that they
+wonder whether they are magistrates or thieves. The man in the
+buttoned-up overcoat loitered from door to door, from lobby to lobby,
+exchanging signs of intelligence with the myrmidons who followed him;
+then came back to the great Hall, stopping on the way the barristers,
+solicitors, ushers, clerks, and attendants, and repeating to all in a low
+voice, so as not to be heard by the passers-by, the same question. To
+this question some answered "Yes," others replied "No." And the man set
+to work again, prowling about the Palace of Justice with the appearance
+of a bloodhound seeking the trail.
+
+He was a Commissary of the Arsenal Police.
+
+What was he looking for?
+
+The High Court of Justice.
+
+What was the High Court of Justice doing?
+
+It was hiding.
+
+Why? To sit in Judgment?
+
+Yes and no.
+
+The Commissary of the Arsenal Police had that morning received from the
+Prefect Maupas the order to search everywhere for the place where the
+High Court of Justice might be sitting, if perchance it thought it its
+duty to meet. Confusing the High Court with the Council of State, the
+Commissary of Police had first gone to the Quai d'Orsay. Having found
+nothing, not even the Council of State, he had come away empty-handed, at
+all events had turned his steps towards the Palace of Justice, thinking
+that as he had to search for justice he would perhaps find it there.
+
+Not finding it, he went away.
+
+The High Court, however, had nevertheless met together.
+
+Where, and how? We shall see.
+
+At the period whose annals we are now chronicling, before the present
+reconstruction of the old buildings of Paris, when the Palace of Justice
+was reached by the Cour de Harlay, a staircase the reverse of majestic
+led thither by turning out into a long corridor called the Gallerie
+Merciere. Towards the middle of this corridor there were two doors; one
+on the right, which led to the Court of Appeal, the other on the left,
+which led to the Court of Cassation. The folding-doors to the left opened
+upon an old gallery called St. Louis, recently restored, and which serves
+at the present time for a Salle des Pas Perdus to the barristers of the
+Court of Cassation. A wooden statue of St. Louis stood opposite the
+entrance door. An entrance contrived in a niche to the right of this
+statue led into a winding lobby ending in a sort of blind passage, which
+apparently was closed by two double doors. On the door to the right might
+be read "First President's Room;" on the door to the left, "Council
+Chamber." Between these two doors, for the convenience of the barristers
+going from the Hall to the Civil Chamber, which formerly was the Great
+Chamber of Parliament, had been formed a narrow and dark passage, in
+which, as one of them remarked, "every crime could be committed with
+impunity."
+
+Leaving on one side the First President's Room and opening the door which
+bore the inscription "Council Chamber," a large room was crossed,
+furnished with a huge horse-shoe table, surrounded by green chairs. At
+the end of this room, which in 1793 had served as a deliberating hall for
+the juries of the Revolutionary Tribunal, there was a door placed in the
+wainscoting, which led into a little lobby where were two doors, on the
+right the door of the room appertaining to the President of the Criminal
+Chamber, on the left the door of the Refreshment Room. "Sentenced to
+death!--Now let us go and dine!" These two ideas, Death and Dinner, have
+jostled against each other for centuries. A third door closed the
+extremity of this lobby. This door was, so to speak, the last of the
+Palace of Justice, the farthest off, the least known, the most hidden; it
+opened into what was called the Library of the Court of Cassation, a
+large square room lighted by two windows overlooking the great inner yard
+of the Conciergerie, furnished with a few leather chairs, a large table
+covered with green cloth, and with law books lining the walls from the
+floor to the ceiling.
+
+This room, as may be seen, is the most secluded and the best hidden of
+any in the Palace.
+
+It was here,--in this room, that there arrived successively on the 2d
+December, towards eleven o'clock in the morning, numerous men dressed in
+black, without robes, without badges of office, affrighted, bewildered,
+shaking their heads, and whispering together. These trembling men were
+the High Court of Justice.
+
+The High Court of Justice, according to the terms of the Constitution,
+was composed of seven magistrates; a President, four Judges, and two
+Assistants, chosen by the Court of Cassation from among its own members
+and renewed every year.
+
+In December, 1851, these seven judges were named Hardouin, Pataille,
+Moreau, Delapalme, Cauchy, Grandet, and Quesnault, the two last-named
+being Assistants.
+
+These men, almost unknown, had nevertheless some antecedents. M. Cauchy,
+a few years previously President of the Chamber of the Royal Court of
+Paris, an amiable man and easily frightened, was the brother of the
+mathematician, member of the Institute, to whom we owe the computation of
+waves of sound, and of the ex-Registrar Archivist of the Chamber of
+Peers. M. Delapalme had been Advocate-General, and had taken a prominent
+part in the Press trials under the Restoration; M. Pataille had been
+Deputy of the Centre under the Monarchy of July; M. Moreau (de la Seine)
+was noteworthy, inasmuch he had been nicknamed "de la Seine" to
+distinguish him from M. Moreau (de la Meurthe), who on his side was
+noteworthy, inasmuch as he had been nicknamed "de la Meurthe" to
+distinguish him from M. Moreau (de la Seine). The first Assistant, M.
+Grandet, had been President of the Chamber at Paris. I have read this
+panegyric of him: "He is known to possess no individuality or opinion of
+his own whatsoever." The second Assistant, M. Quesnault, a Liberal, a
+Deputy, a Public Functionary, Advocate-General, a Conservative, learned,
+obedient, had attained by making a stepping-stone of each of these
+attributes, to the Criminal Chamber of the Court of Cassation, where he
+was known as one of the most severe members. 1848 had shocked his notion
+of Right, he had resigned after the 24th of February; he did not resign
+after the 2d December.
+
+M. Hardouin, who presided over the High Court, was an ex-President of
+Assizes, a religious man, a rigid Jansenist, noted amongst his colleagues
+as a "scrupulous magistrate," living in Port Royal, a diligent reader of
+Nicolle, belonging to the race of the old Parliamentarians of the Marais,
+who used to go to the Palais de Justice mounted on a mule; the mule had
+now gone out of fashion, and whoever visited President Hardouin would
+have found no more obstinacy in his stable than in his conscience.
+
+On the morning of the 2d December, at nine o'clock, two men mounted the
+stairs of M. Hardouin's house, No. 10, Rue de Conde, and met together at
+his door. One was M. Pataille; the other, one of the most prominent
+members of the bar of the Court of Cassation, was the ex-Constituent
+Martin (of Strasbourg). M. Pataille had just placed himself at M.
+Hardouin's disposal.
+
+Martin's first thought, while reading the placards of the _coup d'etat_,
+had been for the High Court. M. Hardouin ushered M. Pataille into a room
+adjoining his study, and received Martin (of Strasbourg) as a man to
+whom he did not wish to speak before witnesses. Being formally requested
+by Martin (of Strasbourg) to convene the High Court, he begged that he
+would leave him alone, declared that the High Court would "do its duty,"
+but that first he must "confer with his colleagues," concluding with
+this expression, "It shall be done to-day or to-morrow." "To-day or
+to-morrow!" exclaimed Martin (of Strasbourg); "Mr. President, the safety
+of the Republic, the safety of the country, perhaps, depends on what the
+High Court will or will not do. Your responsibility is great; bear that
+in mind. The High Court of Justice does not do its duty to-day or
+to-morrow; it does it at once, at the moment, without losing a minute,
+without an instant's hesitation."
+
+Martin (of Strasbourg) was right, Justice always belongs to To-day.
+
+Martin (of Strasbourg) added, "If you want a man for active work, I am at
+your service." M. Hardouin declined the offer; declared that he would not
+lose a moment, and begged Martin (of Strasbourg) to leave him to "confer"
+with his colleague, M. Pataille.
+
+In fact, he called together the High Court for eleven o'clock, and it was
+settled that the meeting should take place in the Hall of the Library.
+
+The Judges were punctual. At a quarter-past eleven they were all
+assembled. M. Pataille arrived the last.
+
+They sat at the end of the great green table. They were alone in the
+Library.
+
+There was no ceremonial. President Hardouin thus opened the debate:
+"Gentlemen, there is no need to explain the situation, we all know what
+it is."
+
+Article 68 of the Constitution was imperative. It was necessary that the
+High Court should meet _under penalty of high treason_. They gained time,
+they swore themselves in, they appointed as Recorder of the High Court M.
+Bernard, Recorder of the Court of Cassation, and they sent to fetch him,
+and while waiting requested the librarian, M. Denevers, to hold his pen
+in readiness. They settled the time and place for an evening meeting.
+They talked of the conduct of the Constituent Martin (of Strasbourg),
+with which they were offended, regarding it almost as a nudge of the
+elbow given by Politics to Justice. They spoke a little of Socialism, of
+the Mountain, and of the Red Republic, and a little also of the judgment
+which they had to pronounce. They chatted, they told stories, they found
+fault, they speculated, they spun out the time.
+
+What were they waiting for?
+
+We have related what the Commissary of police was doing for his part in
+his department.
+
+And, in reference to this design, when the accomplices of the _coup
+d'etat_ considered that the people in order to summon the High Court to
+do its duty, could invade the Palace of Justice, and that they would
+never look for it where it was assembled, they felt that this room had
+been excellently chosen. When, however, they considered that the police
+would also doubtless come to expel the High Court, and that perhaps they
+would not succeed in finding it, each one regretted to himself the choice
+of the room. They wished to hide the High Court, they had succeeded too
+well. It was grievous to think that perhaps when the police and the armed
+force should arrive, matters would have gone too far, and the High Court
+would be too deeply compromised.
+
+They had appointed a Recorder, now they must organize a Court. A second
+step, more serious than the first.
+
+The judges delayed, hoping that fortune would end by deciding on one side
+or the other, either for the Assembly or for the President, either
+against the _coup d'etat_ or for it, and that there might thus be a
+vanquished party, so that the High Court could then with all safety lay
+its hands upon somebody.
+
+They lengthily argued the question, whether they should immediately
+decree the accusation of the President, or whether they should draw up a
+simple order of inquiry. The latter course was adopted.
+
+They drew up a judgment, not the honest and outspoken judgment which
+was placarded by the efforts of the Representatives of the Left and
+published, in which are found these words of bad taste, _Crime_ and
+_High Treason_; this judgment, a weapon of war, has never existed
+otherwise than as a projectile. Wisdom in a judge sometimes consists in
+drawing up a judgment which is not one, one of those judgments which has
+no binding force, in which everything is conditional; in which no one is
+incriminated, and nothing, is called by its right name. There are species
+of intermediate courses which allow of waiting and seeing; in delicate
+crises men who are in earnest must not inconsiderately mingle with
+possible events that bluntness which is called Justice. The High Court
+took advantage of this, it drew up a prudent judgment; this judgment is
+not known; it is published here for the first time. Here it is. It is a
+masterpiece of equivocal style:--
+
+  EXTRACT FROM THE REGISTRY OF THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE.
+
+  "The High Court of Justice.
+
+  "According to Article 68 of the Constitution, considering that
+  printed placards beginning with these words, 'The President of the
+  Republic' and ending with the signatures, 'Louis Napoleon Bonaparte'
+  and 'De Morny, Minister of the Interior,' the said placards ordaining
+  amongst other measures the dissolution of the National Assembly, have
+  been posted to-day on the walls of Paris, that this fact of the
+  dissolution of the National Assembly by the President of the Republic
+  would be of the nature to constitute the case provided for by Article
+  68 of the Constitution, and renders, in the terms of the aforesaid
+  article, the meeting of the High Court indispensable.
+
+  "It is declared that the High Court of Justice is organized, that it
+  appoints[4] ... to fulfil with it the functions of the Public
+  Ministry; that M. Bernard, the Recorder of the Court of Cassation,
+  should fulfil the duties of Recorder, and in order to proceed
+  further, according to the terms of the aforesaid Article 68 of the
+  Constitution, the Court will adjourn until to-morrow, the 3d of
+  December, at noon.
+
+  "Drawn up and discussed in the Council Chamber, where were sitting
+  MM. Hardouin, president, Pataille, Moreau, Delapalme, and Cauchy,
+  judges, December 2, 1851."
+
+The two Assistants, MM. Grandet and Quesnault, offered to sign the
+decree, but the President ruled that it would be more correct only to
+accept the signatures of the titular judges, the Assistants not being
+qualified when the Court was complete.
+
+In the meantime it was one o'clock, the news began to spread through the
+palace that a decree of deposition against Louis Bonaparte had been drawn
+up by a part of the Assembly; one of the judges who had gone out during
+the debate, brought back this rumor to his colleagues. This coincided
+with an outburst of energy. The President observed that it would be to
+the purpose to appoint a Procureur-General.
+
+There was a difficulty. Whom should they appoint? In all preceding trials
+they had always chosen for a Procureur-General at the High Court the
+Procureur-General at the Court of Appeal of Paris. Why should they
+introduce an innovation? They determined upon this Procureur-General of
+the Court of Appeal. This Procureur-General was at the time M. de Royer,
+who had been keeper of the Seals for M. Bonaparte. Thence a new
+difficulty and a long debate.
+
+Would M. de Royer consent? M. Hardouin undertook to go and make the offer
+to him. He had only to cross the Merciere Gallery.
+
+M. de Royer was in his study. The proposal greatly embarrassed him. He
+remained speechless from the shock. To accept was serious, to refuse was
+still more serious.
+
+There was risk of treason. On the 2d December, an hour after noon, the
+_coup d'etat_ was still a crime. M. de Royer, not knowing whether the
+high treason would succeed, ventured to stigmatize the deed as such in
+private, and cast down his eyes with a noble shame before this violation
+of the laws which, three months later, numerous purple robes, including
+his own, endorsed with their oaths. But his indignation did not go to
+the extent of supporting the indictment. An indictment speaks aloud. M.
+de Royer as yet only murmured. He was perplexed.
+
+M. Hardouin understood this state of conscience. Persistence would have
+been unreasonable. He withdrew.
+
+He returned to the room where his colleagues were awaiting him.
+
+In the meantime the Commissary of the Arsenal Police had come back.
+
+He had ended by succeeding in "unearthing"--such was his expression--the
+High Court. He penetrated as far as the Council Chamber of the Civil
+Chamber; at that moment he had still no other escort than the few police
+agents of the morning. A boy was passing by. The Commissary asked him
+the whereabouts of the High Court. "The High Court?" answered the boy;
+"what is that?" Nevertheless the boy told the Librarian, who came up. A
+few words were exchanged between M. Denevers and the Commissary.
+
+"What are you asking for?"
+
+"The High Court."
+
+"Who are you?"
+
+"I want the high Court."
+
+"It is in session."
+
+"Where is it sitting?"
+
+"Here."
+
+And the Librarian pointed to the door.
+
+"Very well," said the Commissary.
+
+He did not add another word, and returned into the Merciere Gallery.
+
+We have just said that he was only accompanied at that time by a few
+police agents.
+
+The High Court was, in truth, in session. The President was relating to
+the judges his visit to the Procureur General. Suddenly a tumultuous
+sound of footsteps is heard in the lobby which leads from the Council
+Chamber to the room where they were deliberating. The door opens
+abruptly. Bayonets appear, and in the midst of the bayonets a man in a
+buttoned-up overcoat, with a tricolored sash upon his coat.
+
+The magistrates stare, stupefied.
+
+"Gentlemen," said the man, "dissolve your meeting immediately."
+
+President Hardouin rises.
+
+"What does this mean? Who are you? Are you aware to whom you are
+speaking?"
+
+"I am aware. You are the High Court, and I am the Commissary of the
+Police."
+
+"Well, then?"
+
+"Be off."
+
+There were there thirty-five municipal guards, commanded by a lieutenant,
+and with a drum at their head.
+
+"But----" said the President.
+
+The Commissary interrupted him with these words, which are literally
+given,--
+
+"Mr. President, I am not going to enter upon an oratorical combat with
+you. I have my orders, and I transmit them to you. Obey."
+
+"Whom?"
+
+"The Prefect of Police."
+
+The President asked this strange question, which implied the acceptance
+of an order,--
+
+"Have you a warrant?"
+
+The Commissary answered,--
+
+"Yes."
+
+And he handed a paper to the President.
+
+The judges turned pale.
+
+The President unfolded the paper; M. Cauchy put his head over M.
+Hardouin's shoulder. The President read but,--
+
+"You are ordered to dissolve the High Court, and, in case of refusal, to
+arrest MM. Beranger, Rocher, De Boissieux, Pataille, and Hello."
+
+And, turning towards the judges, the President added,--
+
+"Signed, Maupas."
+
+Then, addressing himself to the Commissary, he resumed,--
+
+"There is some mistake, these are not our names. MM. Beranger, Rocher,
+and De Boissieux have served their time and are no longer judges of the
+High Court; as for M. Hello, he is dead."
+
+The High Court, in reality, was temporary and renewable; the _coup
+d'etat_ overthrew the Constitution, but did not understand it. The
+warrant signed "Maupas" was applicable to the preceding High Court. The
+_coup d'etat_ had been misled by an old list. Such is the heedlessness of
+assassins.
+
+"Mr. Commissary of Police," continued the President, "you see that these
+names are not ours."
+
+"That does not matter to me," replied the Commissary. "Whether this
+warrant does or does not apply to you, disperse, or I shall arrest all of
+you."
+
+And he added,--
+
+"At once."
+
+The judges were silenced; one of them picked up from the table a loose
+sheet of paper, which was the judgment they had drawn up, and put the
+paper in his pocket.
+
+Then they went away.
+
+The Commissary pointed to the door where the bayonets were, and said,--
+
+"That way."
+
+They went out by the lobby between two ranks of soldiers. The detachment
+of Republican Guards escorted them as far as the St. Louis Gallery.
+
+There they set them free; their heads bowed down.
+
+It was about three o'clock.
+
+While these events were taking place in the Library, close by, in the
+former great Chamber of the Parliament, the Court of Cassation was
+sitting in judgment as usual, without noticing what was happening so near
+at hand. It would appear, then, that the police exhaled no odor.
+
+Let us at once have done with this High Court.
+
+In the evening at half-past seven the seven judges met together at the
+house of one of their number, he who had taken away the decree; they
+framed an official report, drew up a protest, and recognizing the
+necessity of filling in the line left blank in their decree, on the
+proposition of M. Quesnault, appointed as Procureur-General M. Renouard,
+their colleague at the Court of Cessation. M. Renouard, who was
+immediately informed, consented.
+
+They met together for the last time on the next day, the 3d, at eleven
+o'clock in the morning, an hour before the time mentioned in the judgment
+which we have read above,--again in the Library of the Court of
+Cassation. M. Renouard was present. An official minute was given to him,
+recording his appointment, as well as certain details with which he asked
+to be supplied. The judgment which had been drawn up was taken by M.
+Quesnault to the Recorder's Office, and immediately entered upon the
+Register of the Secret Deliberations of the Court of Cassation, the High
+Court not having a Special Register, and having decided, from its
+creation, to use the Register of the Court of Cassation. After the decree
+they also transcribed the two documents described as follows on the
+Register:--
+
+I. An official report recording the interference of the police during the
+discussion upon the preceding decree.
+
+II. A minute of the appointment of M. Renouard to the office of
+Procureur-General.
+
+In addition seven copies of these different documents drawn up by the
+hands of the judges themselves, and signed by them all, were put in a
+place of safety, as also, it is said, a note-book, in which were written
+five other secret decisions relating to the _coup d'etat_.
+
+Does this page of the Register of the Court of Cassation exist at the
+present time? Is it true, as has been stated, that the prefect Maupas
+sent for the Register and tore out the leaf containing the decree? We
+have not been able to clear up this point. The Register now is shown to
+no one, and those employed at the Recorder's Office are dumb.
+
+Such are the facts, let us summarize them. If this Court so called
+"High," had been of a character to conceive such an idea as that of doing
+its duty--when it had once met together the mere organization of itself
+was a matter of a few minutes--it would have proceeded resolutely and
+rapidly, it would have appointed as Procureur-General some energetic man
+belonging to the Court of Cassation, either from the body of magistrates,
+such as Freslon, or from the bar, like Martin (of Strasbourg). By virtue
+of Article 68, and without waiting the initiative of the Assembly, it
+would have drawn up a judgment stigmatizing the crime, it would have
+launched an order of arrest against the President and his accomplices and
+have ordered the removal of the person of Louis Bonaparte to jail. As for
+the Procureur-General he would have issued a warrant of arrest. All this
+could have been done by half-past eleven, and at that time no attempt had
+been made to dissolve the High Court. These preliminary proceedings
+concluded, the High Court, by going out through a nailed-up door leading
+into the Salle des Pas Perdus, could have descended into the street, and
+there have proclaimed its judgment to the people. At this time it would
+have met with no hindrance. Finally, and this in any case, it should have
+sat robed on the Judges' Bench, with all magisterial state, and when the
+police agent and his soldiers appeared should have ordered the soldiers,
+who perhaps would have obeyed them, to arrest the agent, and if the
+soldiers had disobeyed, should have allowed themselves to be formally
+dragged to prison, so that the people could see, under their own eyes,
+out in the open street, the filthy hoof of the _coup d'etat_ trampling
+upon the robe of Justice.
+
+Instead of this, what steps did the High Court take? We have just seen.
+
+"Be off with you!"
+
+"We are going."
+
+We can imagine, after a very different fashion, the dialogue between
+Mathieu Mole and Vidocq.
+
+
+[4] This line was left blank. It was filled in later on with the name of
+M. Renouard, Councillor of the Court of Cassation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+
+THE MAIRIE OF THE TENTH ARRONDISSEMENT
+
+The Representatives, having come out from M. Daru, rejoined each other
+and assembled in the street. There they consulted briefly, from group to
+group. There were a large number of them. In less than an hour, by
+sending notices to the houses on the left bank of the Seine alone, on
+account of the extreme urgency, more than three hundred members could be
+called together. But where should they meet? At Lemardelay's? The Rue
+Richelieu was guarded. At the Salle Martel? It was a long way off. They
+relied upon the Tenth Legion, of which General Lauriston was colonel.
+They showed a preference for the Mairie of the Tenth Arrondissement.
+Besides, the distance was short, and there was no need to cross any
+bridges.
+
+They formed themselves into column, and set forth.
+
+M. Daru, as we have said, lived in the Rue de Lille, close by the
+Assembly. The section of the Rue de Lille lying between his house and
+the Palais Bourbon was occupied by infantry. The last detachment
+barred his door, but it only barred it on the right, not on the left.
+The Representatives, on quitting M. Daru, bent their steps on the side
+of the Rue des Saints-Peres, and left the soldiers behind them. At
+that moment the soldiers had only been instructed to prevent their
+meeting in the Palace of the Assembly; they could quietly form
+themselves into a column in the street, and set forth. If they had
+turned to the right instead of to the left, they would have been
+opposed. But there were no orders for the other alternative; they
+passed through a gap in the instructions.
+
+An hour afterwards this threw St. Arnaud into a fit of fury.
+
+On their way fresh Representatives came up and swelled the column. As the
+members of the Right lived for the most part in the Faubourg St. Germain,
+the column was composed almost entirely of men belonging to the majority.
+
+At the corner of the Quai d'Orsay they met a group of members of the
+Left, who had reunited after their exit from the Palace of the Assembly,
+and who were consulting together. There were the Representatives
+Esquiros, Marc Dufraisse, Victor Hennequin, Colfavru, and Chamiot.
+
+Those who were marching at the head of the column left their places, went
+up to the group, and said, "Come with us."
+
+"Where are you going?" asked Marc Dufraisse.
+
+To the Mairie of the Tenth Arrondissement."
+
+"What do you intend to do there?"
+
+"To decree the deposition of Louis Bonaparte."
+
+"And afterwards?"
+
+"Afterwards we shall go in a body to the Palace of the Assembly; we will
+force our way in spite of all resistance, and from the top of the steps
+we will read out the decree of deposition to the soldiers."
+
+"Very good, we will join you," said Mare Dufraisse.
+
+The five members of the Left marched at some distance from the column.
+Several of their friends who were mingled with the members of the Right
+rejoined them; and we may here mention a fact without giving it more
+importance than it possesses, namely, that the two fractions of the
+Assembly represented in this unpremeditated gathering marched towards the
+Mairie without being mingled together; one on each side of the street. It
+chanced that the men of the majority kept on the right side of the
+street, and the men of the minority on the left.
+
+No one had a scarf of office. No outward token caused them to be
+recognized. The passers-by stared at them with surprise, and did not
+understand what was the meaning of this procession of silent men through
+the solitary streets of the Faubourg St. Germain. One district of Paris
+was as yet unaware of the _coup d'etat_.
+
+Strategically speaking, from a defensive point of view, the Mairie of
+the tenth Arrondissement was badly chosen. Situated in a narrow street
+in that short section of the Rue de Grenelle-St.-Germain which lies
+between the Rue des Saints-Peres and the Rue du Sepulcre, close by the
+cross-roads of the Croix-Rouge, where the troops could arrive from so
+many different points, the Mairie of the Tenth Arrondissement, confined,
+commanded, and blockaded on every side, was a pitiful citadel for the
+assailed National Representation. It is true that they no longer had the
+choice of a citadel, any more than later on they had the choice of a
+general.
+
+Their arrival at the Mairie might have seemed a good omen. The great
+gate which leads into a square courtyard was shut; it opened. The post
+of the National Guards, composed of some twenty men, took up their arms
+and rendered military honors to the Assembly. The Representatives
+entered, a Deputy Mayor received them with respect on the threshold of
+the Mairie. "The Palace of the Assembly is closed by the troops," said
+the Representatives, "we have come to deliberate here." The Deputy Mayor
+led them to the first story, and admitted them to the Great Municipal
+Hall. The National Guard cried, "Long live the National Assembly!"
+
+The Representatives having entered, the door was shut. A crowd began to
+gather in the street and shouted "Long live the Assembly!" A certain
+number of strangers to the Assembly entered the Mairie at the same time
+as the Representatives. Overcrowding was feared, and two sentries were
+placed at a little side-door, which was left open, with orders only to
+allow members of the Assembly who might come afterwards to enter. M.
+Howyn Tranchere stationed himself at this door, and undertook to identify
+them.
+
+On their arrival at the Mairie, the Representatives numbered somewhat
+under three hundred. They exceeded this number later on. It was about
+eleven o'clock in the morning. All did not go up at once into the hall
+where the meeting was to take place. Several, those of the Left in
+particular, remained in the courtyard, mingling with the National Guards
+and citizens.
+
+They talked of what they were going to do.
+
+This was the first difficulty.
+
+The Father of the meeting was M. de Keratry.
+
+Was he going to preside?
+
+The Representatives who were assembled in the Great Hall were in his
+favor.
+
+The Representatives remaining in the courtyard hesitated.
+
+Marc Dufraisse went up to MM. Jules de Lasteyrie and Leon de Maleville,
+who had stayed behind with the Representatives of the Left, and said to
+them, "What are they thinking of upstairs? To make Keratry President? The
+name of Keratry would frighten the people as thoroughly as mine would
+frighten the middle classes."
+
+A member of the Right, M. de Keranflech, came up, and intending to
+support the objection, added, "And then, think of Keratry's age. It is
+madness to pit a man of eighty against this hour of danger."
+
+But Esquiros exclaimed,--
+
+"That is a bad reason! Eighty years! They constitute a force."
+
+"Yes; where they are well borne," said Colfavru. "Keratry bears them
+badly."
+
+"Nothing is greater," resumed Esquiros, "than great octogenarians."
+
+"It is glorious," added Chamiot, "to be presided over by Nestor."
+
+"No, by Gerontes,"[5] said Victor Hennequin.
+
+These words put an end to the debate. Keratry was thrown out. MM. Leon
+de Maleville and Jules de Lasteyrie, two men respected by all parties,
+undertook to make the members of the Right listen to reason. It was
+decided that the "bureau"[6] should preside. Five members of the "bureau"
+were present; two Vice-Presidents, MM. Benoist d'Azy and Vitet, and three
+Secretaries, MM. Griumult, Chapot, and Moulin. Of the two other
+Vice-Presidents, one, General Bedrau, was at Mazas; the other, M. Daru,
+was under guard in his own house. Of the three other Secretaries, two,
+MM. Peapin and Lacaze, men of the Elysee, were absentees; the other, M.
+Yvan, a member of the Left, was at the meeting of the Left, in the Rue
+Blanche, which was taking place almost at the same moment.
+
+In the meantime an usher appeared on the steps of the Mairie, and cried
+out, as on the most peaceful days of the Assembly, "Representatives, to
+the sitting!"
+
+This usher, who belonged to the Assembly, and who had followed it, shared
+its fortunes throughout this day, the sequestration on the Quai d'Orsay
+included.
+
+At the summons of the usher all the Representatives in the courtyard, and
+amongst whom was one of the Vice-Presidents, M. Vitei, went upstairs to
+the Hall, and the sitting was opened.
+
+This sitting was the last which the Assembly held under regular
+conditions. The Left, which, as we have seen, had on its side boldly
+recaptured the Legislative power, and had added to it that which
+circumstances required--as was the duty of Revolutionists; the Left,
+without a "bureau," without an usher, and without secretaries, held
+sittings in which the accurate and passionless record of shorthand was
+wanting, but which live in our memories and which History will gather up.
+
+Two shorthand writers of the Assembly, MM. Grosselet and Lagache, were
+present at the sitting at the Mairie of the Tenth Arrondissement. They
+have been able to record it. The censorship of the victorious _coup
+d'etat_ has mutilated their report and has published through its
+historians this mangled version as the true version. One lie more. That
+does not matter. This shorthand recital belongs to the brief of the 2d
+December, it is one of the leading documents in the trial which the
+future will institute. In the notes of this book will be found this
+document complete. The passages in inverted commas are those which the
+censorship of M. Bonaparte has suppressed. This suppression is a proof of
+their significance and importance.
+
+Shorthand reproduces everything except life. Stenography is an ear. It
+hears and sees not. It is therefore necessary to fill in here the
+inevitable blanks of the shorthand account.
+
+In order to obtain a complete idea of this sitting of the Tenth
+Arrondissement, we must picture the great Hall of the Mairie, a sort of
+parallelogram, lighted on the right by four or five windows overlooking
+the courtyard; on the left, along the wall, furnished with several rows
+of benches which had been hastily brought thither, on which were piled up
+the three hundred Representatives, assembled together by chance. No one
+was sitting down, those in front were standing, those behind were mounted
+on the benches. Here and there were a few small tables. In the centre
+people walked to and fro. At the bottom, at the end opposite the door,
+was a long table furnished with benches, which occupied the whole width
+of the wall, behind which sat the "bureau." "Sitting" is merely the
+conventional term. The "bureau" did not "sit;" like the rest of the
+Assembly it was on its feet. The secretaries, M.M. Chapot, Moulin, and
+Grimault wrote standing. At certain moments the two Vice-Presidents
+mounted on the benches so as to be better seen from all points of the
+room. The table was covered by an old green tablecloth, stained with ink,
+three or four inkstands had been brought in, and a quire of paper was
+scattered about. There the decrees were written as soon as they were
+drawn up. They multiplied the copies, some Representatives became
+secretaries on the spur of the moment, and helped the official
+secretaries.
+
+This great hall was on a level with the landing. It was situated, as we
+have said, on the first floor; it was reached by a very narrow staircase.
+
+We must recollect that nearly the whole of the members present were
+members of the Right.
+
+The first moment was a serious one. Berryer came out to advantage.
+Berryer, like all those extemporizers without style, will only be
+remembered as a name, and a much disputed name, Berryer having been
+rather a special pleader than an orator who believed what he said. On
+that day Berryer was to the point, logical and earnest. They began by
+this cry, "What shall we do?" "Draw up a declaration," said M. de
+Falloux. "A protest," said M. de Flavigny. "A decree," said Berryer.
+
+In truth a declaration was empty air, a protest was noise, a decree was
+action. They cried out, "What decree?" "Deposition," said Berryer.
+Deposition was the extreme limit of the energy of the Right. Beyond
+deposition, there was outlawry; deposition was practicable for the Right,
+outlawry was only possible for the Left. In fact it was the Left who
+outlawed Louis Bonaparte. They did it at their first meeting in the Rue
+Blanche. We shall see this later on. At deposition, Legality came to an
+end; at outlawry, the Revolution began. The recurrence of Revolutions are
+the logical consequences of _coups d'etat_. The deposition having been
+voted, a man who later on turned traitor, Quentin Bauchart, exclaimed,
+"Let us all sign it." All signed it. Odilon Barrot came in and signed it.
+Antony Thouret came in and signed it. Suddenly M. Piscatory announced
+that the Mayor was refusing to allow Representatives who had arrived to
+enter the Hall. "Order him to do so by decree," said Berryer. And the
+decree was voted. Thanks to this decree, MM. Favreau and Monet entered;
+they came from the Legislative Palace; they related the cowardice of
+Dupin. M. Dahirel, one of the leaders of the Right, was exasperated, and
+said, "We have received bayonet thrusts." Voices were raised, "Let us
+summon the Tenth Legion. Let the call to arms be beaten. Lauriston
+hesitates. Let us order him to protect the Assembly." "Let us order him
+by decree," said Berryer. This decree was drawn up, which, however, did
+not prevent Lauriston from refusing. Another decree, again proposed by
+Berryer, pronounced any one who had outraged the Parliamentary
+inviolability to be a traitor, and ordered the immediate release of those
+Representatives who had been wrongfully made prisoners. All this was
+voted at once without debate, in a sort of great unanimous confusion, and
+in the midst of a storm of fierce conversations. From time to time
+Berryer imposed silence. Then the angry outcries broke forth again. "The
+_coup d'etat_ will not dare to come here." "We are masters here." "We are
+at home." "It would be impossible to attack us here." "These wretches
+will not dare to do so." If the uproar had been less violent, the
+Representatives might have heard through the open windows close at hand,
+the sound of soldiers loading their guns.
+
+A regiment of Chasseurs of Vincennes had just entered silently into the
+garden of the Mairie, and, while waiting for orders, were loading their
+guns.
+
+Little by little the sitting, at first disorderly and tumultuous, had
+assumed an ordinary aspect. The uproar had relapsed into a murmur. The
+voice of the usher, crying "Silence, gentlemen," had succeeded in
+overcoming the hubbub. Every moment fresh Representatives came in, and
+hastened to sign the decree of deposition at the "bureau." As there was
+a great crowd round the "bureau" waiting to sign, a dozen loose sheets
+of paper to which the Representatives affixed their signatures were
+circulated in the great Hall and the two adjoining rooms.
+
+The first to sign the decree of deposition was M. Dufaure, the last was
+M. Betting de Lancastel. Of the two Presidents, one, M. Benoist d'Azy,
+was addressing the Assembly; the other, M. Vitet, pale, but calm and
+resolute, distributed instructions and orders. M. Benoist d'Azy
+maintained a decorous countenance, but a certain hesitation in his
+speech revealed an inner agitation. Divisions, even in the Right, had not
+disappeared at this critical moment. A Legitimist member was overheard
+saying in a low voice, while speaking of one of the Vice-Presidents,
+"This great Vitet looks like a whited sepulchre." Vitet was an Orleanist.
+
+Given this adventurer with whom they had to deal, this Louis Bonaparte,
+capable of everything, the hour and the man being wrapt in mystery, some
+Legitimist personages of a candid mind were seriously but comically
+frightened. The Marquis of ----, who acted the fly on the coach-wheel
+to the Right, went hither and thither, harangued, shouted, declaimed,
+remonstrated, proclaimed, and trembled. Another, M. A---- N----,
+perspiring, red-faced, out of breath, rushed about distractedly. "Where
+is the guard? How many men are there? Who commands them? The officer!
+send me the officer! Long live the Republic! National Guard, stand firm!
+Long live the Republic!" All the Right shouted this cry. "You wish then
+to kill it," said Esquiros. Some of them were dejected; Bourbousson
+maintained the silence of a vanquished placeman. Another, the Viscount of
+----, a relative of the Duke of Escars, was so alarmed that every moment
+he adjourned to a corner of the courtyard. In the crowd which filled the
+courtyard there was a _gamin_ of Paris, a child of Athens, who has since
+become am elegant and charming poet, Albert Glatigny. Albert Glatigny
+cried out to this frightened Viscount, "Hulloa there! Do you think that
+_coups d'etat_ are extinguished in the way Gulliver put out the fire?"
+
+Oh, Laughter, how gloomy you are when attended with Tragedy!
+
+The Orleanists were quieter, and maintained a more becoming attitude.
+This arose from the fact that they ran greater danger.
+
+Pascal Duprat replaced at the top of the decrees the words, "Republique
+Francaise," which had been forgotten.
+
+From time to time men who were not speaking on the subject of the moment
+mentioned this strange word, "Dupin," open which there ensued shouts of
+derision and bursts of laughter. "Utter the name of that coward no more,"
+cried Antony Thouret.
+
+There were motions and counter-motions; it was a continual uproar
+interrupted by deep and solemn silences. Alarmist phrases circulated from
+group to group. "We are in a blind alley." "We are caught here as in a
+rat trap;" and then on each motion voices were raised: "That is it!" "It
+is right!" "It is settled!" They agreed in a low voice upon a rendezvous
+at No. 19, Rue de la Chaussee-d'Antin, in case they should be expelled
+from the Mairie. M. Bixio carried off the decree of deposition to get it
+printed. Esquiros, Marc Dufraisse, Pascal Duprat, Rigal, Lherbette,
+Chamiot, Latrade, Colfavru, Antony Thouret, threw in here and there
+energetic words of advice. M. Dufaure, resolute and indignant, protested
+with authority. M. Odilon Barrot, motionless in a corner, maintained the
+silence of stupefied silliness.
+
+MM. Passy and de Tocqueville, in the midst of the groups, described that
+when they were Ministers they had always entertained an uneasy suspicion
+of a _coup d'etat_, and that they clearly perceived this fixed idea in
+the brain of Louis Bonaparte. M. de Tocqueville added, "I said to myself
+every night, 'I lie down to sleep a Minister; what if I should awake a
+prisoner?'" Some of those men who were termed "men of order," muttered
+while signing the degree of deposition, "Beware of the Red Republic!" and
+seemed to entertain an equal fear of failure and of success. M. de
+Vatimesnil pressed the hands of the men of the Left, and thanked them for
+their presence. "You make us popular," said he. And Antony Thouret
+answered him, "I know neither Right nor Left to-day; I only see the
+Assembly."
+
+The younger of the two shorthand writers handed their written sheets
+to the Representatives who had spoken, and, asked them to revise them at
+once, saying, "We shall not have the time to read them over." Some
+Representatives went down into the street, and showed the people copies
+of the decree of deposition, signed by the members of the "bureau." One
+of the populace took one of these copies, and cried out, "Citizens! the
+ink is still quite wet! Long live the Republic!"
+
+The Deputy-Mayor stood at the door of the Hall; the staircase was crowded
+with National Guards and spectators. In the Assembly several had
+penetrated into the Hall, and amongst them the ex-Constituent Beslay, a
+man of uncommon courage. It was at first wished to turn them out, but
+they resisted, crying, "This is our business. You are the Assembly, but
+we are the People." "They are right," said M. Berryer.
+
+M. de Falloux, accompanied by M. de Keranflech, came up the Constituent
+Beslay, and leaned by his side on the stove, saying to him, "Good-day,
+colleague;" and reminded him that they both had formed part of the
+Committee of the National Workshops, and that they had together visited
+the Workmen at the Parc Monceaux. The Right felt themselves falling; they
+became affectionate towards Republicans. The Republic is called
+To-morrow.
+
+Each spoke from his place; this member upon a bench, that member on a
+chair, a few on the tables. All contradictory opinions burst forth at
+once. In a corner some ex-leaders of "order" were scared at the possible
+triumph of the "Reds." In another the men of the Right surrounded the men
+of the Left, and asked them: "Are not the faubourgs going to rise?"
+
+The narrator has but one duty, to tell his story; he relates everything,
+the bad as well as the good. Whatever may have taken place, however, and
+notwithstanding all these details of which it was our duty to speak,
+apart from the exceptions which we had mentioned, the attitude of the
+men of the Right who composed the large majority of this meeting was in
+many respects honorable and worthy. Some of them, as we have just
+mentioned, even prided themselves upon their resolution and their energy,
+almost as though they had wished to rival the members of the Left.
+
+We may here remark--for in the course of this narrative we shall more
+than once see the gaze of some members of the Right turned towards the
+people, and in this no mistake should be made--that these monarchical men
+who talked of popular insurrection and who invoked the faubourgs were a
+minority in the majority,--an imperceptible minority. Antony Thouret
+proposed to those who were leaders there to go in a body through the
+working-class neighborhoods with the decree of deposition in their
+hands. Brought to bay, they refused. They declared that they would only
+protect themselves by organized powers, not by the people. It is a
+strange thing to say, but it must be noted, that with their habits of
+political shortsightedness, the popular armed resistance, even in the
+name of the Law, seemed sedition to them. The utmost appearance of
+revolution which they could endure was a regiment of the National Guard,
+with their drums at their head; they shrank from the barricade; Right in
+a blouse was no longer Right, Truth armed with a pike was no longer
+Truth, Law unpaving a street gave them the impression of a Fury. In the
+main, however, and taking them for what they were, and considering their
+position as politicians, these members of the Right were well-advised.
+What would they have done with the people? And what would the people have
+done with them? How would they have proceeded to set fire to the masses?
+Imagine Falloux as a tribune, fanning the Faubourg St. Antoine into a
+flame!
+
+Alas! in the midst of this dense gloom, in these fatal complications of
+circumstances by which the _coup d'etat_ profited so odiously and so
+perfidiously, in that mighty misunderstanding which comprised the whole
+situation, for kindling the revolutionary spark in the heart of the
+people, Danton himself would not have sufficed.
+
+The _coup d'etat_ entered into this meeting impudently, with its
+convict's cap on its head. It possessed an infamous assurance there, as
+well as everywhere else. There were in this majority three hundred
+Representatives of the People. Louis Napoleon sent a sergeant to drive
+them away. The Assembly, having resisted the sergeant, he sent an
+officer, the temporary commander of the sixth battalion of the Chasseurs
+de Vincennes. This officer, young, fair-haired, a scoffer, half laughing,
+half threatening, pointed with his finger to the stairs filled with
+bayonets, and defied the Assembly. "Who is this young spark?" asked a
+member of the Right. A National Guard who was there said, "Throw him out
+of the window!" "Kick him downstairs!" cried one of the people.
+
+This Assembly, grievous as were its offences against the principles of
+the Revolution--and with these wrongs Democracy alone had the right to
+reproach it--this Assembly, I repeat, was the National Assembly, that is
+to say, the Republic incarnate, the living Universal Suffrage, the
+Majesty of the Nation, upright and visible. Louis Bonaparte assassinated
+this Assembly, and moreover insulted it. A slap on the face is worse than
+a poniard thrust.
+
+The gardens of the neighborhood occupied by the troops were full of
+broken bottles. They had plied the soldiers with drink. They obeyed the
+"epaulettes" unconditionally, and according to the expression of
+eyewitnesses, appeared "dazed-drunk." The Representatives appealed to
+them, and said to them, "It is a crime!" They answered, "We are not aware
+of it."
+
+One soldier was heard to say to another, "What have you done with your
+ten francs of this morning?"
+
+The sergeants hustled the officers. With the exception of the commander,
+who probably earned his cross of honor, the officers were respectful, the
+sergeants brutal.
+
+A lieutenant showing signs of flinching, a sergeant cried out to him,
+"You are not the only one who commands here! Come, therefore, march!"
+
+M. de Vatimesnil asked a soldier, "Will you dare to arrest us--us, the
+Representatives of the People?"
+
+"Assuredly!" said the soldier.
+
+Several soldiers hearing some Representatives say that they had eaten
+nothing since the morning, offered them their ration bread. Some
+Representatives accepted. M. de Tocqueville, who was unwell, and who was
+noticed to be pale and leaning on the sill of a window, received from a
+soldier a piece of this bread, which he shared with M. Chambolle.
+
+Two Commissaries of Police appeared in "full dress," in black coats
+girded with their sash-girdles and their black corded hats. One was an
+old man, the other a young man. The first was named Lemoine-Tacherat, and
+not Bacherel, as has been wrongly printed: the second was named Barlet.
+These names should be noted. The unprecedented assurance of this Barlet
+was remarked. Nothing was wanting in him,--cynical speech, provoking
+gesture, sardonic intonation. It was with an inexpressible air of
+insolence that Barlet, when summoning the meeting to dissolve itself,
+added, "Rightly or Wrongly." They murmured on the benches of the
+Assembly, "Who is this scoundrel?" The other, compared to him, seemed
+moderate and inoffensive. Emile Pean exclaimed, "The old man is simply
+working in his profession, but the young man is working out his
+promotion."
+
+Before this Tacherat and this Barlet entered, before the butts of the
+muskets had been heard ringing on the stones of the staircase, this
+Assembly had talked of resistance. Of what kind of resistance? We have
+just stated. The majority could only listen to a regular organized
+resistance, a military resistance in uniform and in epaulets. Such a
+resistance was easy to decree, but it was difficult to organize. The
+Generals on whom the Assembly were accustomed to rely having been
+arrested, there only remained two possible Generals, Oudinot and
+Lauriston. General Marquis de Lauriston, ex-peer of France, and at the
+same time Colonel of the Tenth Legion and Representative of the People,
+drew a distinction between his duty as Representative and his duty as
+Colonel. Summoned by some of his friends of the Right to beat to arms and
+call together the Tenth Legion, he answered, "As Representative of the
+People I ought to indict the Executive Power, but as Colonel I ought to
+obey it." It appears that he obstinately shut himself up in this singular
+reasoning, and that it was impossible to draw him out of it.
+
+"How stupid he is!" said Piscatory.
+
+"How sharp he is!" said Falloux.
+
+The first officer of the National Guard who appeared in uniform, seemed
+to be recognized by two members of the Right, who said, "It is M. de
+Perigord!" They made a mistake, it was M. Guilbot, major of the third
+battalion of the Tenth Legion. He declared that he was ready to march on
+the first order from his Colonel, General Lauriston. General Lauriston
+went down into the courtyard, and came up a moment afterwards, saying,
+"They do not recognize my authority. I have just resigned," Moreover, the
+name of Lauriston was not familiar to the soldiers. Oudinot was better
+known in the army. But how?
+
+At the moment when the name of Oudinot was pronounced, a shudder ran
+through this meeting, almost exclusively composed of members of the
+Right. In fact at this critical time, at this fatal name of Oudinot,
+reflections crowded upon each other in every mind.
+
+What was the _coup d'etat_?
+
+It was the "Roman expedition at home." Which was undertaken against whom?
+Against those who had undertaken the "Roman expedition abroad." The
+National Assembly of France, dissolved by violence, could find only one
+single General to defend it in its dying hour. And whom? Precisely he,
+who in the name of the National Assembly of France had dissolved by
+violence the National Assembly of Rome. What power could Oudinot, the
+strangler of a Republic, possess to save a Republic? Was it not evident
+that his own soldiers would answer him, "What do you want with us? That
+which we have done at Rome we now do at Paris." What a story is this
+story of treason! The French Legislature had written the first chapter
+with the blood of the Roman Constituent Assembly: Providence wrote the
+second chapter with the blood of the French Legislature, Louis Bonaparte
+holding the pen.
+
+In 1849, Louis Bonaparte had assassinated the sovereignty of the People
+in the person of its Roman Representatives; in 1851 he assassinated it in
+the person of its French Representatives. It was logical, and although it
+was infamous, it was just. The Legislative Assembly bore at the same time
+the weight of two crimes; it was the accomplice of the first, the victim
+of the second. All these men of the majority felt this, and were humbled.
+Or rather it was the same crime, the crime of the Second of July, 1849,
+ever erect, ever alive, which had only changed its name, which now called
+itself the Second of December, and which, the offspring of this Assembly,
+stabbed it to the heart. Nearly all crimes are parricidal. On a certain
+day they recoil upon those who have committed them, and slay them.
+
+At this moment, so full of anxiety, M. de Falloux must have glanced round
+for M. de Montalembert. M. de Montalembert was at the Elysee.
+
+When Tamisier rose and pronounced this terrifying word, "The Roman
+Question?" distracted M. de Dampierre shouted to him, "Silence! You kill
+us!"
+
+It was not Tamisier who was killing them--it was Oudinot.
+
+M. de Dampierre did not perceive that he cried "Silence!" to history.
+
+And then without even reckoning the fatal remembrance which at such a
+moment would have crushed a man endowed in the highest degree with great
+military qualities, General Oudinot, in other respects an excellent
+officer, and a worthy son of his brave father, possessed none of those
+striking qualities which in the critical hour of revolution stir the
+soldier and carry with them the people. At that instant to win back an
+army of a hundred thousand men, to withdraw the balls from the cannons'
+mouths, to find beneath the wine poured out to the Praetorians the true
+soul of the French soldier half drowned and nearly dead, to tear the flag
+from the _coup d'etat_ and restore it to the Law, to surround the
+Assembly with thunders and lightnings, it would have needed one of those
+men who exist no longer; it would have needed the firm hand, the calm
+oratory, the cold and searching glance of Desaix, that French Phocion; it
+would have needed the huge shoulders, the commanding stature, the
+thundering voice, the abusive, insolent, cynical, gay, and sublime
+eloquence of Kleber, that military Mirabeau. Desaix, the countenance of a
+just man, or Kleber, the face of the lion! General Oudinot, little,
+awkward, embarrassed, with an indecisive and dull gaze, red cheeks, low
+forehead, with grizzled and lank hair, polite tone of voice, a humble
+smile, without oratory, without gesture, without power, brave before the
+enemy, timid before the first comer, having assuredly the bearing of a
+soldier, but having also the bearing of a priest; he caused the mind to
+hesitate between the sword and the taper; he had in his eyes a sort of
+"Amen!"
+
+He had the best intentions in the world, but what could he do? Alone,
+without prestige, without true glory, without personal authority, and
+dragging Rome after him! He felt all this himself, and he was as it were
+paralyzed by it. As soon as they had appointed him he got upon a chair
+and thanked the Assembly, doubtless with a firm heart, but with
+hesitating speech. When the little fair-haired officer dared to look him
+in the face and insult him, he, holding the sword of the people, he,
+General of the sovereign Assembly, he only knew how to stammer out such
+wretched phrases as these, "I have just declared to you that we are
+unable, 'unless compelled and constrained,' to obey the order which
+prohibits us from remaining assembled together." He spoke of obeying, he
+who ought to command. They had girded him with his scarf, and it seemed
+to make him uncomfortable. He inclined his head alternately first to one
+shoulder and then to the other; he held his hat and cane in his hand, he
+had a benevolent aspect. A Legitimist member muttered in a low voice to
+his neighbor, "One might imagine he was a bailiff speechifying at a
+wedding." And his neighbor, a Legitimist also, replied, "He reminds me of
+the Duc d'Angouleme."
+
+What a contrast to Tamisier! Tamisier, frank, earnest confident, although
+a mere Captain of Artillery, had the bearing of a General. Had Tamisier,
+with his grave and gentle countenance, high intelligence, and dauntless
+heart, a species of soldier-philosopher, been better known, he could have
+rendered decisive services. No one can tell what would have happened if
+Providence had given the soul of Tamisier to Oudinot, or the epaulets of
+Oudinot to Tamisier.
+
+In this bloody enterprise of December we failed to find a General's
+uniform becomingly worn. A book might be written on the part which gold
+lace plays in the destiny of nations.
+
+Tamisier, appointed Chief of the Staff some instants before the invasion
+of the hall, placed himself at the disposal of the Assembly. He was
+standing on a table. He spoke with a resonant and hearty voice. The most
+downcast became reassured by this modest, honest, devoted attitude.
+Suddenly he drew himself up, and looking all that Royalist majority in
+the face, exclaimed, "Yes, I accept the charge you offer me. I accept the
+charge of defending the Republic! Nothing but the Republic! Do you
+perfectly understand?"
+
+A unanimous shout answered him. "Long live the Republic!"
+
+"Ah!" said Beslay, "the voice comes back to you as on the Fourth of May."
+
+"Long live the Republic! Nothing but the Republic!" repeated the men of
+the Right, Oudinot louder than the others. All arms were stretched
+towards Tamisier, every hand pressed his. Oh Danger! irresistible
+converter! In his last hour the Atheist invokes God, and the Royalist the
+Republic. They cling to that which they have repudiated.
+
+The official historians of the _coup d'etat_ have stated that at the
+beginning of the sitting two Representatives had been sent by the
+Assembly to the Ministry of the Interior to "negotiate." What is certain
+is that these two Representatives had no authority. They presented
+themselves, not on behalf of the Assembly, but in their own name. They
+offered themselves as intermediaries to procure a peaceable termination
+of the catastrophe which had begun. With an honesty which bordered on
+simplicity they summoned Morny to yield himself a prisoner, and to return
+within the law, declaring that in case of refusal the Assembly would do
+its duty, and call the people to the defence of the Constitution and of
+the Republic. Marny answered them with a smile, accompanied by these
+plain words, "If you appeal to arms, and if I find any Representatives on
+the barricades, I will have them all shot to the last man."
+
+The meeting in the Tenth Arrondissement yielded to force. President Vitet
+insisted that they should forcibly arrest him. A police agent who seized
+him turned pale and trembled. In certain circumstances, to lay violent
+hands upon a man is to lay them upon Right, and those who dare to do so
+are made to tremble by outraged Law. The exodus from the Mairie was long
+and beset with obstructions. Half-an-hour elapsed while the soldiers were
+forming a line, and while the Commissaries of Police, all the time
+appearing solely occupied with the care of driving back the crowd in the
+street, sent for orders to the Ministry of the Interior. During that time
+some of the Representatives, seated round a table in the great Hall,
+wrote to their families, to their wives, to their friends. They snatched
+up the last leaves of paper; the pens failed; M. de Luynes wrote to his
+wife a letter in pencil. There were no wafers; they were forced to send
+the letters unsealed; some soldiers offered to post them. M. Chambolle's
+son, who had accompanied his father thus far, undertook to take the
+letters addressed to Mesdames de Luynes, de Lasteyrie, and Duvergier de
+Hauranne. General Forey--the same who had refused a battalion to the
+President of the Constituent Assembly, Marrast, who had promoted him from
+a colonel to a general--General Forey, in the centre of the courtyard of
+the Mairie, his face inflamed, half drunk, coming out, they said, from
+breakfast at the Elysee, superintended the outrage. A member, whose name
+we regret we do not know, dipped his boot into the gutter and wiped it
+along the gold stripe of the regimental trousers of General Forey.
+Representative Lherbette came up to General Forey, and said to him,
+"General, you are a coward." Then turning to his colleagues, he
+exclaimed, "Do you hear? I tell this general that he is a coward."
+General Forey did not stir. He kept the mud on his uniform and the
+epithet on his cheek.
+
+The meeting did not call the people to arms. We have just explained that
+it was not strong enough to do so; nevertheless, at the last moment, a
+member of the Left, Latrade, made a fresh effort. He took M. Berryer
+aside, and said to him, "Our official measures of resistance have come to
+an end; let us not allow ourselves now to be arrested. Let us disperse
+throughout the streets crying, 'To arms!'" M. Berryer consulted a few
+seconds on the matter with the Vice-President, M. Benoist d'Azy, who
+refused.
+
+The Deputy Mayor, hat in hand, reconducted the members of the Assembly as
+far as the gate of the Mairie. As soon as they appeared in the courtyard
+ready to go out between two lines of soldiers, the post of National
+Guards presented arms, acid shouted, "Long live the Assembly! Long live
+the Representatives of the People!" The National Guards were at once
+disarmed, almost forcibly, by the Chasseurs de Vincennes.
+
+There was a wine-shop opposite the Mairie. As soon as the great folding
+gates of the Mairie opened, and the Assembly appeared in the street, led
+by General Forey on horseback, and having at its head the Vice-President
+Vitet, grasped by the necktie by a police agent, a few men in white
+blouses, gathered at the windows of this wine-shop, clapped their hands
+and shouted, "Well done! down with the 'twenty-five francs!'"[7]
+
+They set forth.
+
+The Chasseurs de Vincennes, who marched in a double line on each side of
+the prisoners, cast at them looks of hatred. General Oudinot said in a
+whisper, "These little infantry soldiers are terrible fellows. At the
+siege of Rome they flung themselves at the assault like madmen. These
+lads are very devils." The officers avoided the gaze of the
+Representatives. On leaving the Mairie, M. de Coislin passed by an
+officer and exclaimed, "What a disgrace for the uniform!" the officer
+retaliated with angry words, and incensed M. de Coislin. Shortly
+afterwards, during the march, he came up to M. de Coislin and said to
+him, "Sir, I have reflected; it is I who am wrong."
+
+They proceeded on the way slowly. At a few steps from the Mairie the
+precession met M. Chegaray. The Representatives called out to him,
+"Come!" He answered, while making an expressive gesture with his hands
+and his shoulders, "Oh! I dare say! As they have not arrested me...." and
+he feigned as though he would pass on. He was ashamed, however, and went
+with them. His name is found in the list of the roll-call at the
+barracks.
+
+A little further on M. de Lesperut passed them. They cried out to him.
+"Lesperut! Lesperut!" "I am with you," answered he. The soldiers pushed
+him back. He seized the butt-ends of the muskets, and forced his way into
+the column.
+
+In one of the streets through which they went a window was opened.
+Suddenly a woman appeared with a child; the child, recognizing its father
+amongst the prisoners, held out its arms and called to him, the mother
+wept in the background.
+
+It was at first intended to take the Assembly in a body straight to
+Mazas, but this was counter-ordered by the Ministry of the Interior. It
+was feared that this long walk, in broad daylight, through populous and
+easily aroused streets, might prove dangerous; the D'Orsay barracks were
+close at hand. They selected these as a temporary prison.
+
+One of the commanders insolently pointed out with his sword the arrested
+Representatives to the passers-by, and said in a fond voice, "These are
+the Whites, we have orders to spare them. Now it is the turn of the Red
+Representatives, let them look out for themselves!"
+
+Wherever the procession passed, the populace shouted from the pavements,
+at the doors, at the windows, "Long live the National Assembly!" When
+they perceived a few Representatives of the Left sprinkled in the column
+they cried, "Vive la Republique!" "Vive la Constitution!" and "Vive la
+Loi!" The shops were not shut, and passers-by went to and fro. Some
+people said, "Wait until the evening; this is not the end of it."
+
+A staff-officer on horseback, in full uniform, met the procession,
+recognized M. de Vatimesnil, and came up to greet him. In the Rue de
+Beaune, as they passed the house of the _Democratic Pacifique_ a group
+shouted, "Down with the Traitor of the Elysee!"
+
+On the Quai d'Orsay, the shouting was redoubled. There was a great crowd
+there. On either side of the quay a file of soldiers of the Line, elbow
+to elbow, kept back the spectators. In the middle of the space left
+vacant, the members of the Assembly slowly advanced between a double file
+of soldiers, the one stationary, which threatened the people, the other
+on the march, which threatened tire Representatives.
+
+Serious reflections arise in the presence of all the details of the great
+crime which this book is designed to relate. Every honest man who sets
+himself face to face with the _coup d'etat_ of Louis Bonaparte hears
+nothing but a tumult of indignant thoughts in his conscience. Whoever
+reads our work to the end will assuredly not credit us with the intention
+of extenuating this monstrous deed. Nevertheless, as the deep logic of
+actions ought always to be italicized by the historian, it is necessary
+here to call to mind and to repeat, even to satiety, that apart from the
+members of the Left, of whom a very small number were present, and whom
+we have mentioned by name, the three hundred Representatives who thus
+defiled before the eyes of the crowd, constituted the old Royalists and
+reactionary majority of the Assembly. If it were possible to forget,
+that--whatever were their errors, whatever were their faults, and, we
+venture to add, whatever were their illusions--these persons thus treated
+were the Representatives of the leading civilized nation, were sovereign
+Legislators, senators of the people, inviolable Deputies, and sacred by
+the great law of Democracy, and that in the same manner as each man bears
+in himself something of the mind of God, so each of these nominees of
+universal suffrage bore something of the soul of France; if it were
+possible to forget this for a moment, it assuredly would be a spectacle
+perhaps more laughable than sad, and certainly more philosophical than
+lamentable to see, on this December morning, after so many laws of
+repression, after so many exceptional measures, after so many votes of
+censure and of the state of siege, after so many refusals of amnesty,
+after so many affronts to equity, to justice, to the human conscience, to
+the public good faith, to right, after so many favors to the police,
+after so many smiles bestowed on absolution, the entire Party of Order
+arrested in a body and taken to prison by the _sergents de ville_!
+
+One day, or rather, one night, the moment having come to save society,
+the _coup d'etat_ abruptly seizes the Demagogues, and finds that it holds
+by the collar, Whom? the Royalists.
+
+They arrived at the barracks, formerly the barracks of the Royal Guard,
+and on the pediment of which is a carved escutcheon, whereon are still
+visible the traces of the three _fleurs de lis_ effaced in 1830. They
+halted. The door was opened. "Why!" said M. de Broglie, "here we are."
+
+At that moment a great placard posted on the barrack wall by the side of
+the door bore in big letters--
+
+  "REVISION OF THE CONSTITUTION."
+
+It was the advertisement of a pamphlet, published two or three days
+previous to the _coup d'etat_, without any author's name, demanding the
+Empire, and was attributed to the President of the Republic.
+
+The Representatives entered and the doors were closed upon them. The
+shouts ceased; the crowd, which occasionally has its meditative moments,
+remained for some time on the quay, dumb, motionless, gazing alternately
+at the closed gate of the Barracks, and at the silent front of the
+Palace of the Assembly, dimly visible in the misty December twilight,
+two hundred paces distant.
+
+The two Commissaries of Police went to report their "success" to M. de
+Morny. M. de Morny said, "Now the struggle has begun. Excellent! These
+are the last Representatives who will be made prisoners."
+
+
+[5] The Gerontes, or Gerontia, were the Elders of Sparta, who constituted
+the Senate.
+
+[6] The "bureau" of the Assembly consists of the President, for the time
+being of the Assembly, assisted by six secretaries, whose duties mainly
+lie in deciding in what sense the Deputies have voted. The "bureau" of
+the Assembly should not be confounded with the fifteen "bureaux" of the
+Deputies, which answer to our Select Committees of the House of Commons,
+and are presided over by self-chosen Presidents.
+
+[7] An allusion to the twenty-five francs a day officially payable to the
+members of the Assembly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+
+LOUIS BONAPARTE'S SIDE-FACE
+
+The minds of all these men, we repeat, were very differently affected.
+
+The extreme Legitimist party, which represents the White of the flag, was
+not, it must be said, highly exasperated at the _coup d'etat_. Upon many
+faces might be read the saying of M. de Falloux: "I am so satisfied that
+I have considerable difficulty in affecting to be only resigned." The
+ingenuous spirits cast down their eyes--that is becoming to purity; more
+daring spirits raised their heads. They felt an impartial indignation
+which permitted a little admiration. How cleverly these generals have
+been ensnared! The Country assassinated,--it is a horrible crime; but
+they were enraptured at the jugglery blended with the parricide. One of
+the leaders said, with a sigh of envy and regret, "We do not possess a
+man of such talent." Another muttered, "It is Order." And he added,
+"Alas!" Another exclaimed, "It is a frightful crime, but well carried
+out." Some wavered, attracted on one side by the lawful power which
+rested in the Assembly, and on the other by the abomination which was in
+Bonaparte; honest souls poised between duty and infamy. There was a M.
+Thomines Desmazures who went as far as the door of the Great Hall of the
+Mairie, halted, looked inside, looked outside, and did not enter. It
+would be unjust not to record that others amongst the pure Royalists, and
+above all M. de Vatimesnil, had the sincere intonation and the upright
+wrath of justice.
+
+Be it as it may, the Legitimist party, taken as a whole, entertained no
+horror of the _coup d'etat_. It feared nothing. In truth, should the
+Royalists fear Louis Bonaparte? Why?
+
+Indifference does not inspire fear. Louis Bonaparte was indifferent. He
+only recognized one thing, his object. To break through the road in order
+to reach it, that was quite plain; the rest might be left alone. There
+lay the whole of his policy, to crush the Republicans, to disdain the
+Royalists.
+
+Louis Bonaparte had no passion. He who writes these lines, talking one
+day about Louis Bonaparte with the ex-king of Westphalia, remarked, "In
+him the Dutchman tones down the Corsican."--"If there be any Corsican,"
+answered Jerome.
+
+Louis Bonaparte has never been other than a man who has lain wait for
+fortune, a spy trying to dupe God. He had that livid dreaminess of the
+gambler who cheats. Cheating admits audacity, but excludes anger. In his
+prison at Ham he only read one book, "The Prince." He belonged to no
+family, as he could hesitate between Bonaparte and Verhuell; he had no
+country, as he could hesitate between France and Holland.
+
+This Napoleon had taken St. Helena in good part. He admired England.
+Resentment! To what purpose? For him on earth there only existed his
+interests. He pardoned, because he speculated; he forgot everything,
+because he calculated upon everything. What did his uncle matter to him?
+He did not serve him; he made use of him. He rested his shabby enterprise
+upon Austerlitz. He stuffed the eagle.
+
+Malice is an unproductive outlay. Louis Bonaparte only possessed as much
+memory as is useful. Hudson Lowe did not prevent him from smiling upon
+Englishmen; the Marquis of Montchenu did not prevent him from smiling
+upon the Royalists.
+
+He was a man of earnest politics, of good company, wrapped in his own
+scheming, not impulsive, doing nothing beyond that which he intended,
+without abruptness, without hard words, discreet, accurate, learned,
+talking smoothly of a necessary massacre, a slaughterer, because it
+served his purpose.
+
+All this, we repeat, without passion, and without anger. Louis Bonaparte
+was one of those men who had been influenced by the profound iciness of
+Machiavelli.
+
+It was through being a man of that nature that he succeeded in submerging
+the name of Napoleon by superadding December upon Brumaire.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+
+THE D'ORSAY BARRACKS
+
+It was half-past three.
+
+The arrested Representatives entered into the courtyard of the barracks,
+a huge parallelogram closed in and commanded by high walls. These walls
+are pierced by three tiers of windows, and posses that dismal appearance
+which distinguishes barracks, schools, and prisons.
+
+This courtyard is entered by an arched portal which extends through all
+the breadth of the front of the main building. This archway, under which
+the guard-house has been made, is close on the side of the quay by large
+solid folding doors, and on one side of the courtyard by an iron grated
+gateway. They closed the door and the grated gateway upon the
+Representatives. They "set them at liberty" in the bolted and guarded
+courtyard.
+
+"Let them stroll about," said an officer.
+
+The air was cold, the sky was gray. Some soldiers, in their shirt-sleeves
+and wearing foraging caps, busy with fatigue duty, went hither and
+thither amongst the prisoners.
+
+First M. Grimault and then M. Antony Thouret instituted a roll-call. The
+Representatives made a ring around them. Lherbette said laughingly, "This
+just suits the barracks. We look like sergeant-majors who have come to
+report." They called over the seven hundred and fifty names of the
+Representatives. To each name they answered "Absent" or "Present," and
+the secretary jotted down with a pencil those who were present. When the
+name of Morny was reached, some one cried out, "At Clichy!" At the name
+of Persigny, the same voice exclaimed, "At Poissy!" The inventor of these
+two jokes, which by the way are very poor, has since allied himself to
+the Second of December, to Morny and Persigny; he has covered his
+cowardice with the embroidery of a senator.
+
+The roll-call verified the presence of two hundred and twenty
+Representatives, whose names were as follows:--
+
+Le Duc de Luynes, d'Andigne de la Chasse, Antony Thouret, Arene, Audren
+de Kerdrel (Ille-et-Vilaine), Audren de Kerdrel (Morbihan), de Balzac,
+Barchou de Penhoen, Barillon, O. Barrot, Barthelemy Saint-Hilaire,
+Quentin Bauchard, G. deBeaumont, Bechard, Behaghel, de Belevze,
+Benoist-d'Azy, de Benardy, Berryer, de Berset, Basse, Betting de
+Lancastel, Blavoyer, Bocher, Boissie, de Botmillan, Bouvatier, le Duc de
+Broglie, de la Broise, de Bryas, Buffet, Caillet du Tertre, Callet, Camus
+de la Guibourgere, Canet, de Castillon, de Cazalis, Admiral Cecile,
+Chambolle, Chamiot, Champannet, Chaper, Chapot, de Charencey, Chasseigne,
+Chauvin, Chazant, de Chazelles, Chegaray, Comte de Coislin, Colfavru,
+Colas de la Motte, Coquerel, de Corcelles, Cordier, Corne, Creton,
+Daguilhon, Pujol, Dahirel, Vicomte Dambray, Marquis de Dampierre, de
+Brotonne, de Fontaine, de Fontenay, Vicomte de Seze, Desmars, de la
+Devansaye, Didier, Dieuleveult, Druet-Desvaux, A. Dubois, Dufaure,
+Dufougerais, Dufour, Dufournel, Marc Dufraisse, P. Duprat, Duvergier de
+Hauranne, Etienne, Vicomte de Falloux, de Faultrier, Faure (Rhone),
+Favreau, Ferre, des Ferres, Vicomte de Flavigny, de Foblant, Frichon,
+Gain, Gasselin, Germoniere, de Gicquiau, de Goulard, de Gouyon, de
+Grandville, de Grasset, Grelier-Dufougerais, Grevy, Grillon, Grimault,
+Gros, Guislier de la Tousche, Harscouet de Saint-Georges, Marquis
+d'Havrincourt, Hennequin, d'Hespel, Houel, Hovyn-Tranchere, Huot, Joret,
+Jouannet, de Keranflech, de Keratry, de Keridec, de Kermazec, de
+Kersauron Penendreff, Leo de Laborde, Laboulie, Lacave, Oscar Lafayette,
+Lafosse, Lagarde, Lagrenee Laime, Laine, Comte Lanjuinais, Larabit, de
+Larcy, J. de Lasteyrie, Latrade, Laureau, Laurenceau, General Marquis de
+Lauriston, de Laussat, Lefebvre de Grosriez, Legrand, Legros-Desvaux,
+Lemaire, Emile Leroux, Lesperut, de l'Espinoy, Lherbette, de Linsaval, de
+Luppe, Marechal, Martin de Villers, Maze-Saunay, Meze, Arnauld de Melun,
+Anatole de Melun, Merentie, Michaud, Mispoulet, Monet, Duc de Montebello,
+de Montigny, Moulin, Murat-Sistriere, Alfred Nettement, d'Olivier,
+General Oudinot, Duc de Reggio, Paillat, Duparc, Passy, Emile Pean,
+Pecoul, Casimir Perier, Pidoux, Pigeon, de Pioge, Piscatory, Proa,
+Prudhomme, Querhoent, Randoing, Raudot, Raulin, de Ravinel, de Remusat,
+Renaud, Rezal, Comte de Resseguier, Henri de Riancey, Rigal, de la
+Rochette, Rodat, de Roquefeuille des Rotours de Chaulieu, Rouget-Lafosse,
+Rouille, Roux-Carbonel, Saint-Beuve, de Saint-Germain, General Comte de
+Saint-Priest, Salmon (Meuse), Marquis Sauvaire-Barthelemy, de Serre,
+Comte de Sesmaisons, Simonot, de Staplande, de Surville, Marquis de
+Talhouet, Talon, Tamisier, Thuriot de la Rosiere, de Tinguy, Comte de
+Tocqueville, de la Tourette, Comte de Treveneue, Mortimer-Ternaux, de
+Vatimesnil, Baron de Vandoeuvre, Vernhette (Herault), Vernhette
+(Aveyron), Vezin, Vitet, Comte de Vogue.
+
+After this list of names may be read as follows in the shorthand report:--
+
+"The roll-call having been completed, General Oudinot asked the
+Representatives who were scattered about in the courtyard to come round
+him, and made the following announcement to them,--
+
+"'The Captain-Adjutant-Major, who has remained here to command the
+barracks, has just received an order to have rooms prepared for us, where
+we are to withdraw, as we are considered to be in custody. (Hear! hear!)
+Do you wish me to bring the Adjutant-Major here! (No, no; it is useless.)
+I will tell him that he had better execute his orders.' (Yes, yes, that
+is right.)"
+
+The Representatives remained "penned" and "strolling" about in this yard
+for two long hours. They walked about arm in arm. They walked quickly, so
+as to warm themselves. The men of the Right said to the men of the Left,
+"Ah! if you had only voted the proposals of the Questors!" They also
+exclaimed: "Well, how about the _invisible sentry_!"[8] And they laughed.
+Then Marc Dufraisse answered, "Deputies of the People! deliberate in
+peace!" It was then the turn of the Left to laugh. Nevertheless, there
+was no bitterness. The cordiality of a common misfortune reigned amongst
+them.
+
+They questioned his ex-ministers about Louis Bonaparte. They asked
+Admiral Cecile, "Now, really, what does this mean?" The Admiral answered
+by this definition: "It is a small matter." M. Vezin added, "He wishes
+History to call him 'Sire.'" "Poor Sire, then," said M. de Camas de la
+Guibourgere. M. Odilon Barrot exclaimed, "What a fatality, that we should
+have been condemned to employ this man!"
+
+This said, these heights attained, political philosophy was exhausted,
+and they ceased talking.
+
+On the right, by the side of the door, there was a canteen elevated a few
+steps above the courtyard. "Let us promote this canteen to the dignity of
+a refreshment room," said the ex-ambassador to China, M. de Lagrenee.
+They entered, some went up to the stove, others asked for a basin of
+soup. MM. Favreau, Piscatory, Larabit, and Vatimesnil took refuge in a
+corner. In the opposite corner drunken soldiers chatted with the maids of
+the barracks. M. de Keratry, bent with his eighty years, was seated near
+the stove on an old worm-eaten chair; the chair tottered; the old man
+shivered.
+
+Towards four o'clock a regiment of Chasseurs de Vincennes arrived in the
+courtyard with their platters, and began to eat, singing, with loud
+bursts of merriment. M. de Broglie looked at them and said to M.
+Piscatory, "It is a strange spectacle to see the porringers of the
+Janissaries vanished from Constantinople reappearing at Paris!"
+
+Almost at the same moment a staff officer informed the Representatives on
+behalf of General Forey that the apartments assigned to them were ready,
+and requested them to follow him. They were taken into the eastern
+building, which is the wing of the barracks farthest from the Palace of
+the Council of State; they were conducted to the third floor. They
+expected chambers and beds. They found long rooms, vast garrets with
+filthy walls and low ceilings, furnished with wooden tables and benches.
+These were the "apartments." These garrets, which adjoin each other, all
+open on the same corridor, a narrow passage, which runs the length of the
+main building. In one of these rooms they saw, thrown into a corner,
+side-drums, a big drum, and various instruments of military music. The
+Representatives scattered themselves about in these rooms. M. de
+Tocqueville, who was ill, threw his overcoat on the floor in the recess
+of a window, and lay down. He remained thus stretched upon the ground for
+several hours.
+
+These rooms were warmed very badly by cast-iron stoves, shaped like
+hives. A Representative wishing to poke the fire, upset one, and nearly
+set fire to the wooden flooring.
+
+The last of these rooms looked out on the quay. Antony Thouret opened a
+window and leaned out. Several Representatives joined him. The soldiers
+who were bivouacking below on the pavement, caught sight of them and
+began to shout, "Ah! there they are, those rascals at 'twenty-five francs
+a day,' who wish to cut down our pay!" In fact, on the preceding evening,
+the police had spread this calumny through the barracks that a
+proposition had been placed on the Tribune to lessen the pay of the
+troops. They had even gone so far as to name the author of this
+proposition. Antony Thouret attempted to undeceive the soldiers. An
+officer cried out to him, "It is one of your party who made the proposal.
+It is Lamennais!"
+
+In about an hour and a half there were ushered into these rooms MM.
+Vallette, Bixio, and Victor Lefranc, who had come to join their
+colleagues and constitute themselves prisoners.
+
+Night came. They were hungry. Several had not eaten since the morning. M.
+Howyn de Tranchere, a man of considerable kindness and devotion, who had
+acted as porter at the Mairie, acted as forager at the barracks. He
+collected five francs from each Representative, and they sent and ordered
+a dinner for two hundred and twenty from the Cafe d'Orsay, at the corner
+of the Quay, and the Rue du Bac. They dined badly, but merrily. Cookshop
+mutton, bad wine, and cheese. There was no bread. They ate as they best
+could, one standing, another on a chair, one at a table, another astride
+on his bench, with his plate before him, "as at a ball-room supper," a
+dandy of the Right said laughingly, Thuriot de la Rosiere, son of the
+regicide Thuriot. M. de Remusat buried his head in his hands. Emile Pean
+said to him, "We shall get over it." And Gustave de Beaumont cried out,
+addressing himself to the Republicans, "And your friends of the Left!
+Will they preserve their honor? Will there be an insurrection at least?"
+They passed each other the dishes and plates, the Right showing marked
+attention to the Left. "Here is the opportunity to bring about a fusion,"
+said a young Legitimist. Troopers and canteen men waited upon them. Two
+or three tallow candles burnt and smoked on each table. There were few
+glasses. Right and Left drank from the same. "Equality, fraternity,"
+exclaimed the Marquis Sauvaire-Barthelemy, of the Right. And Victor
+Hannequin answered him, "But not Liberty."
+
+Colonel Feray, the son-in-law of Marshal Bugeaud, was in command at the
+barracks; he offered the use of his drawing-room to M. de Broglie and to
+M. Odilon Barrot, who accepted it. The barrack doors were opened to M. de
+Keratry, on account of his great age, to M. Dufaure, as his wife had just
+been confined, and to M. Etienne, on account of the wound which he had
+received that morning in the Rue de Bourgogne. At the same time there
+were added to the two hundred and twenty MM. Eugene Sue, Benoist (du
+Rhone), Fayolle, Chanay, Toupet des Vignes, Radoubt-Lafosse, Arbey, and
+Teillard-Laterisse, who up to that time had been detained in the new
+Palace of Foreign Affairs.
+
+Towards eight o'clock in the evening, when dinner was over, the
+restrictions were a little relaxed, and the intermediate space between
+the door and the barred gate of the barracks began to be littered with
+carpet bags and articles of toilet sent by the families of the imprisoned
+Representatives.
+
+The Representatives were summoned by their names. Each went down in turn,
+and briskly remounted with his cloak, his coverlet, or his foot-warmer. A
+few ladies succeeded in making their way to their husbands. M.M. Chambolle
+was able to press his son's hand through the bars.
+
+Suddenly a voice called out, "Oho! We are going to spend the night here."
+Mattresses were brought in, which were thrown on the tables, on the
+floor, anywhere.
+
+Fifty or sixty Representatives found resting-places on them. The greater
+number remained on their benches. Marc Dufraisse settled himself to pass
+the night on a footstool, leaning on a table. Happy was the man who had a
+chair.
+
+Nevertheless, cordiality and gaiety did not cease to prevail. "Make room
+for the 'Burgraves!'" said smilingly a venerable veteran of the Right. A
+young Republican Representative rose, and offered him his mattress. They
+pressed on each offers of overcoats, cloaks, and coverlets.
+
+"Reconciliation," said Chamiot, while offering the half of his mattress
+to the Duc de Luynes. The Duc de Luynes, who had 80,000 francs a year,
+smiled, and replied to Chamiot, "You are St. Martin, and I am the beggar."
+
+M. Paillet, the well-known barrister, who belonged to the "Third Estate,"
+used to say, "I passed the night on a Bonapartist straw mattress, wrapped
+in a burnouse of the Mountain, my feet in a Democratic and Socialist
+sheepskin, and my head in a Legitimist cotton nightcap." The
+Representatives, although prisoners in the barracks, could stroll about
+freely. They were allowed to go down into the courtyard. M. Cordier (of
+Calvados) came upstairs again, saying, "I have just spoken to the
+soldiers. They did not know that their generals had been arrested. They
+appeared surprised and discontented." This incident raised the prisoners'
+hopes.
+
+Representative Michel Renaud of the Basses-Pyrenees, found several of his
+compatriots of the Basque country amongst the Chasseurs de Vincennes who
+occupied the courtyard. Some had voted for him, and reminded him of the
+fact. They added, "Ah! We would again vote for the 'Red' list." One of
+them, quite a young man, took him aside, and said to him. "Do you want
+any money, sir? I have a forty-sous piece in my pocket."
+
+Towards ten o'clock in the evening a great hubbub arose in the courtyard.
+The doors and the barred gate turned noisily upon their hinges. Something
+entered which rumbled like thunder. They leaned out of window, and saw at
+the foot of the steps a sort of big, oblong chest, painted black, yellow,
+red, and green, on four wheels, drawn by post-horses, and surrounded by
+men in long overcoats, and with fierce-looking faces, holding torches. In
+the gloom, and with the help of imagination, this vehicle appeared
+completely black. A door could be seen, but no other opening. It
+resembled a great coffin on wheels. "What is that? Is it a hearse?" "No,
+it is a police-van." "And those people, are they undertakers?" "No, they
+are jailers." "And for whom has this come?"
+
+"For you, gentlemen!" cried out a voice.
+
+It was the voice of an officer; and the vehicle which had just entered
+was in truth a police-van.
+
+At the same time a word of command was heard: "First squadron to horse."
+And five minutes afterwards the Lancers who were to escort the vehicle
+formed in line in the courtyard.
+
+Then arose in the barracks the buzz of a hive of angry bees. The
+Representatives ran up and down the stairs, and went to look at the
+police-van close at hand. Some of them touched it, and could not believe
+their eyes. M. Piscatory met M. Chambolle, and cried out to him, "I am
+leaving in it!" M. Berryer met Eugene Sue, and they exchanged these
+words: "Where are you going?" "To Mount Valerien. And you?" "I do not
+know."
+
+At half-past ten the roll-call of those who were to leave began. Police
+agents stationed themselves at a table between two candles in a parlor at
+the foot of the stairs, and the Representatives were summoned two by two.
+The Representatives agreed not to answer to their names, and to reply to
+each name which should be called out, "He is not here." But those
+"Burgraves" who had accepted the hospitality of Colonel Feray considered
+such petty resistance unworthy of them, and answered to the calling out
+of their names. This drew the others after them. Everybody answered.
+Amongst the Legitimists some serio-comic scenes were enacted. They who
+alone were not threatened insisted on believing that they were in danger.
+They would not let one of their orators go. They embraced him, and held
+him back, almost with tears, crying out, "Do not go away! Do you know
+where they are taking you? Think of the trenches of Vincennes!"
+
+The Representatives, having been summoned two by two, as we have just
+said, filed in the parlor before the police agents, and then they were
+ordered to get into the "robbers' box." The stowage was apparently made
+at haphazard and promiscuously; nevertheless, later, by the difference
+of the treatment accorded to the Representatives in the various prisons,
+it was apparent that this promiscuous loading had perhaps been somewhat
+prearranged. When the first vehicle was full, a second, of a similar
+construction drew up. The police agents, pencil and pocket-book in
+hand, noted down the contents of each vehicle. These men knew the
+Representatives. When Marc Dufraisse, called in his turn, entered the
+parlor, he was accompanied by Benoist (du Rhone). "Ah! here is Marc
+Dufraisse," said the attendant who held the pencil. When asked for his
+name, Benoist replied "Benoist." "Du Rhone," added the police agent; and
+he continued, "for there are also Benoist d'Azy and Benoist-Champy."
+
+The loading of each vehicle occupied nearly half an hour. The successive
+arrivals had raised the number of imprisoned Representatives to two
+hundred and thirty-two Their embarkation, or, to use the expression of M.
+de Vatimesnil, their "barrelling up," which began a little after ten in
+the evening, was not finished until nearly seven o'clock in the morning.
+When there were no more police-vans available omnibuses were brought in.
+These various vehicles were portioned off into three detachments, each
+escorted by Lancers. The first detachment left towards one o'clock in the
+morning, and was driven to Mont Valerien; the second towards five
+o'clock, and was driven to Mazas; the third towards half-past six, to
+Vincennes.
+
+As this business occupied a long time, those who had not yet been called
+benefited by the mattresses and tried to sleep. Thus, from time to time,
+silence reigned in the upper rooms. In the midst of one of these pauses
+M. Bixio sat upright, and raising his voice, cried out, "Gentlemen, what
+do you think of 'passive obedience'?" An unanimous burst of laughter was
+the reply. Again, during one of these pauses another voice exclaimed,--
+
+"Romieu will be a senator."
+
+Emile Pean asked,--
+
+"What will become of the Red Spectre?"
+
+"He will enter the priesthood," answered Antony Thouret, "and will turn
+into the Black Spectre."
+
+Other exclamations which the historians of the Second of December have
+spread abroad were not uttered. Thus, Marc Dufraisse never made the
+remark with which the men of Louis Bonaparte have wished to excuse their
+crimes: "If the President does not shoot all those among us who resist,
+he does not understand his business."
+
+For the _coup d'etat_ such a remark might be convenient; but for History
+it is false.
+
+The interior of the police-vans was lighted while the Representatives
+were entering. The air-holes of each compartment were not closed. In this
+manner Marc Dufraisse through the aperture could see M. du Remusat in the
+opposite cell to his own. M. du Remusat had entered the van coupled with
+M. Duvergier de Hauranne.
+
+"Upon my word, Monsieur Marc Dufraisse," exclaimed Duvergier de Hauranne
+when they jostled each other in the gangway of the vehicle, "upon my
+word, if any one had said to me, 'You will go to Marzas in a police-van,'
+I should have said, 'It is improbable;' but if they had added, 'You will
+go with Marc Dufraisse,' I should have said, 'It is impossible!'"
+
+As soon as the vehicle was full, five or six policemen entered and stood
+in the gangway. The door was shut, the steps were thrown up, and they
+drove off.
+
+When all the police-vans had been filled, there were still some
+Representatives left. As we have said, omnibuses were brought into
+requisition. Into these Representatives were thrust, one upon the other,
+rudely, without deference for either age or name. Colonel Feray, on
+horseback, superintended and directed operations. As he mounted the steps
+of the last vehicle but one, the Duc de Montebello cried out to him,
+"To-day is the anniversary of the battle of Austerlitz, and the
+son-in-law of Marshal Bugeaud compels the son of Marshal Lannes to enter
+a convict's van."
+
+When the last omnibus was reached, there were only seventeen places for
+eighteen Representatives. The most active mounted first. Antony Thouret,
+who himself alone equalled the whole of the Right, for he had as much
+mind as Thiers and as much stomach as Murat; Antony Thouret, corpulent
+and lethargic, was the last. When he appeared on the threshold of the
+omnibus in all his hugeness, a cry of alarm arose;--Where was he going to
+sit?
+
+Antony Thouret, noticing Berryer at the bottom of the omnibus, went
+straight up to him, sat down on his knees, and quietly said to him, "You
+wanted 'compression,' Monsieur Berryer. Now you have it."
+
+
+[8] Michel de Bourges had thus characterized Louis Bonaparte as the
+guardian of the Republic against the Monarchical parties.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+
+MAZAS
+
+The police-vans, escorted as far as Mazas by Lancers, found another
+squadron of Lancers ready to receive them at Mazas. The Representatives
+descended from the vehicle one by one. The officer commanding the Lancers
+stood by the door, and watched them pass with a dull curiosity.
+
+Mazas, which had taken the place of the prison of La Force, now pulled
+down, is a lofty reddish building, close to the terminus of the Lyons
+Railway, and stands on the waste land of the Faubourg St. Antoine. From a
+distance the building appears as though built of bricks, but on closer
+examination it is seen to be constructed of flints set in cement. Six
+large detached buildings, three stories high, all radiating from a
+rotunda which serves as the common centre, and touching each other at the
+starting-point, separated by courtyards which grow broader in proportion
+as the buildings spread out, pierced with a thousand little dormer
+windows which give light to the cells, surrounded by a high wall, and
+presenting from a bird's-eye point of view the drape of a fan--such is
+Mazas. From the rotunda which forms the centre, springs a sort of
+minaret, which is the alarm-tower. The ground floor is a round room,
+which serves as the registrar's office. On the first story is a chapel
+where a single priest says mass for all; and the observatory, where a
+single attendant keeps watch over all the doors of all the galleries at
+the same time. Each building is termed a "division." The courtyards are
+intersected by high walls into a multitude of little oblong walks.
+
+As each Representative descended from the vehicle he was conducted into
+the rotunda where the registry office was situated. There his name was
+taken down, and in exchange for his name he was assigned a number.
+Whether the prisoner be a thief or a legislator, such is always the rule
+in this prison; the _coup d'etat_ reduced all to a footing of equality.
+As soon as a Representative was registered and numbered, he was ordered
+to "file off." They said to him, "Go upstairs," or "Go on;" and they
+announced him at the end of the corridor to which he was allotted by
+calling out, "Receive number So-and-So." The jailer in that particular
+corridor answered, "Send him on." The prisoner mounted alone, went
+straight on, and on his arrival found the jailer standing near an open
+door. The jailer said, "Here it is, sir." The prisoner entered, the
+jailer shut the door, and they passed on to another.
+
+The _coup d'etat_ acted in a very different manner towards the various
+Representatives. Those whom it desired to conciliate, the men of the
+Bight, were placed in Vincennes; those whom it detested, the men of the
+Left, were placed in Mazas. Those at Vincennes had the quarters of M.
+Montpensier, which were expressly reopened for them; an excellent dinner,
+eaten in company; wax candles, fire, and the smiles and bows of the
+governor, General Courtigis.
+
+This is how it treated those at Mazas.
+
+A police-van deposited them at the prison. They were transferred from one
+box to another. At Mazas a clerk registered them, weighed them, measured
+them, and entered them into the jail book as convicts. Having passed
+through the office, each of them was conducted along a gallery shrouded
+in darkness, through a long damp vault to a narrow door which was
+suddenly opened. This reached, a jailer pushed the Representative in by
+the shoulders, and the door was shut.
+
+The Representative, thus immured, found himself in a little, long,
+narrow, dark room. It is this which the prudent language of modern
+legislation terms a "cell." Here the full daylight of a December noon
+only produced a dusky twilight. At one end there was a door, with a
+little grating; at the other, close to the ceiling, at a height of ten or
+twelve feet, there was a loophole with a fluted glass window. This window
+dimmed the eye, and prevented it from seeing the blue or gray of the sky,
+or from distinguishing the cloud from the sun's ray, and invested the wan
+daylight of winter with an indescribable uncertainty. It was even less
+than a dim light, it was a turbid light. The inventors of this fluted
+window succeeded in making the heavens squint.
+
+After a few moments the prisoner began to distinguish objects confusedly,
+and this is what he found: White-washed walls here and there turned green
+by various exhalations; in one corner a round hole guarded by iron bars,
+and exhaling a disgusting smell; in another corner a slab turning upon a
+hinge like the bracket seat of a _fiacre_, and thus capable of being used
+as a table; no bed; a straw-bottomed chair; under foot a brick floor.
+Gloom was the first impression; cold was the second. There, then, the
+prisoner found himself, alone, chilled, in this semi-darkness, being able
+to walk up and down the space of eight square feet like a caged wolf, or
+to remain seated on his chair like an idiot at Bicetre.
+
+In this situation an ex-Republican of the Eve, who had become a member of
+the majority, and on occasions sided somewhat with the Bonapartists, M.
+Emile Leroux, who had, moreover, been thrown into Mazas by mistake,
+having doubtless been taken for some other Leroux, began to weep with
+rage. Three, four, five hours thus passed away. In the meanwhile they had
+not eaten since the morning; some of them, in the excitement caused by
+the _coup d'etat_ had not even breakfasted. Hunger came upon them. Were
+they to be forgotten there? No; a bell rang in the prison, the grating of
+the door opened, and an arm held out to the prisoner a pewter porringer
+and a piece of bread.
+
+The prisoner greedily seized the bread and the porringer. The bread was
+black and sticky; the porringer contained a sort of thick water, warm and
+reddish. Nothing can be compared to the smell of this "soup." As for the
+bread, it only smelt of mouldiness.
+
+However great their hunger, most of the prisoners during the first moment
+threw down their bread on the floor, and emptied the porringer down the
+hole with the iron bars.
+
+Nevertheless the stomach craved, the hours passed by, they picked up the
+bread, and ended by eating it. One prisoner went so far as to pick up the
+porringer and to attempt to wipe out the bottom with his bread, which he
+afterwards devoured. Subsequently, this prisoner, a Representative set at
+liberty in exile, described to me this dietary, and said to me, "A hungry
+stomach has no nose."
+
+Meanwhile there was absolute solitude and profound silence. However, in
+the course of a few hours, M. Emile Leroux--he himself has told the fact
+to M. Versigny--heard on the other side of the wall on his right a sort
+of curious knocking, spaced out and intermittent at irregular intervals.
+He listened, and almost at the same moment on the other side of the wall
+to his left a similar rapping responded. M. Emile Leroux,
+enraptured--what a pleasure it was to hear a noise of some kind!--thought
+of his colleagues, prisoners like himself, and cried out in a tremendous
+voice, "Oh, oh! you are there also, you fellows!" He had scarcely uttered
+this sentence when the door of his cell was opened with a creaking of
+hinges and bolts; a man--the jailer--appeared in a great rage, and said
+to him,--
+
+"Hold your tongue!"
+
+The Representative of the People, somewhat bewildered, asked for an
+explanation.
+
+"Hold your tongue," replied the jailer, "or I will pitch you into a
+dungeon."
+
+This jailer spoke to the prisoner as the _coup d'etat_ spoke to the
+nation.
+
+M. Emile Leroux, with his persistent parliamentary habits, nevertheless
+attempted to insist.
+
+"What!" said he, "can I not answer the signals which two of my colleagues
+are making to me?"
+
+"Two of your colleagues, indeed," answered the jailer, "they are two
+thieves." And he shut the door, shouting with laughter.
+
+They were, in fact, two thieves, between whom M. Emile Leroux was, not
+crucified, but locked up.
+
+The Mazas prison is so ingeniously built that the least word can be
+heard from one cell to another. Consequently there is no isolation,
+notwithstanding the cellular system. Thence this rigorous silence imposed
+by the perfect and cruel logic of the rules. What do the thieves do? They
+have invented a telegraphic system of raps, and the rules gain nothing by
+their stringency. M. Emile Leroux had simply interrupted a conversation
+which had been begun.
+
+"Don't interfere with our friendly patter," cried out his thief neighbor,
+who for this exclamation was thrown into the dungeon.
+
+Such was the life of the Representatives at Mazas. Moreover, as they were
+in secret confinement, not a book, not a sheet of paper, not a pen, not
+even an hour's exercise in the courtyard was allowed to them.
+
+The thieves also go to Mazas, as we have seen.
+
+But those who know a trade are permitted to work; those who know how to
+read are supplied with books; those who know how to write are granted a
+desk and paper; all are permitted the hour's exercise required by the
+laws of health and authorized by the rules.
+
+The Representatives were allowed nothing whatever. Isolation, close
+confinement, silence, darkness, cold, "the amount of _ennui_ which
+engenders madness," as Linguet has said when speaking of the Bastille.
+
+To remain seated on a chair all day long, with arms and legs crossed:
+such was the situation. But the bed! Could they lie down?
+
+No.
+
+There was no bed.
+
+At eight o'clock in the evening the jailer came into the cell, and
+reached down, and removed something which was rolled up on a plank near
+the ceiling. This "something" was a hammock.
+
+The hammock having been fixed, hooked up, and spread out, the jailer
+wished his prisoner "Good-night."
+
+There was a blanket on the hammock, sometimes a mattress some two inches
+thick. The prisoner, wrapt in this covering, tried to sleep, and only
+succeeded in shivering.
+
+But on the morrow he could at least remain lying down all day in his
+hammock?
+
+Not at all.
+
+At seven o'clock in the morning the jailer came in, wished the
+Representative "Good-morning," made him get up, and rolled up the hammock
+on its shelf near the ceiling.
+
+But in this case could not the prisoner take down the authorized hammock,
+unroll it, hook it up, and lie down again?
+
+Yes, he could. But then there was the dungeon.
+
+This was the routine. The hammock for the night, the chair for the day.
+
+Let us be just, however. Some obtained beds, amongst others MM. Thiers
+and Roger (du Nord). M. Grevy did not have one.
+
+Mazas is a model prison of progress; it is certain that Mazas is
+preferable to the _piombi_ of Venice, and to the under-water dungeon of
+the Chatelet. Theoretical philanthropy has built Mazas. Nevertheless, as
+has been seen, Mazas leaves plenty to be desired. Let us acknowledge that
+from a certain point of view the temporary solitary confinement of the
+law-makers at Mazas does not displease us. There was perhaps something of
+Providence in the _coup d'etat_. Providence, in placing the Legislators
+at Mazas, has performed an act of good education. Eat of your own
+cooking; it is not a bad thing that those who own prisons should try them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+
+THE EPISODE OF THE BOULEVARD ST. MARTIN
+
+When Charamaule and I reached No. 70, Rue Blanche, a steep lonely street,
+a man in a sort of naval sub-officer's uniform, was walking up and down
+before the door. The portress, who recognized us, called our attention to
+him. "Nonsense," said Charamaule, "a man walking about in that manner,
+and dressed after that fashion, is assuredly not a police spy."
+
+"My dear colleague," said I, "Bedeau has proved that the police are
+blockheads."
+
+We went upstairs. The drawing-room and a little ante-chamber which led to
+it were full of Representatives, with whom were mingled a good many
+persons who did not belong to the Assembly. Some ex-members of the
+Constituent Assembly were there, amongst others, Bastide and several
+Democratic journalists. The _Nationale_ was represented by Alexander Rey
+and Leopold Duras, the _Revolution_ by Xavier Durrieu, Vasbenter, and
+Watripon, the _Avenement du Peuple_ by H. Coste, nearly all the other
+editors of the _Avenement_ being in prison. About sixty members of the
+Left were there, and among others Edgar Quinet, Schoelcher, Madier de
+Montjau, Carnot, Noel Parfait, Pierre Lefranc, Bancel, de Flotte,
+Bruckner, Chaix, Cassal, Esquiros, Durand-Savoyat, Yvan, Carlos Forel,
+Etchegoyen, Labrousse, Barthelemy (Eure-et-Loire), Huguenin, Aubrey (du
+Nord), Malardier, Victor Chauffour, Belin, Renaud, Bac, Versigny, Sain,
+Joigneaux, Brives, Guilgot, Pelletier, Doutre, Gindrier, Arnauld (de
+l'Ariege), Raymond (de l'Isere), Brillier, Maigne, Sartin, Raynaud, Leon
+Vidal, Lafon, Lamargue, Bourzat, and General Rey.
+
+All were standing. They were talking without order. Leopold Duras had
+just described the investment of the Cafe Bonvalet. Jules Favre and
+Baudin, seated at a little table between the two windows, were writing.
+Baudin had a copy of the Constitution open before him, and was copying
+Article 68.
+
+When we entered there was silence, and they asked us, "Well, what news?"
+
+Charamaule told them what had just taken place on the Boulevard du
+Temple, and the advice which he had thought right to give me. They
+approved his action.
+
+"What is to be done?" was asked on every side. I began to speak.
+
+"Let us go straight to the fact and to the point," said I. "Louis
+Bonaparte is gaining ground, and we are losing ground, or rather, we
+should say, he has as yet everything, and we have as yet nothing.
+Charamaule and I have been obliged to separate ourselves from Colonel
+Forestier. I doubt if he will succeed. Louis Bonaparte is doing all he
+can to suppress us, we must no longer keep in the background. We must
+make our presence felt. We must fan this beginning of the flame of which
+we have seen the spark on the Boulevard du Temple. A proclamation must be
+made, no matter by whom it is printed, or how it is placarded, but it is
+absolutely necessary, and that immediately. Something brief, rapid, and
+energetic. No set phrases. Ten lines--an appeal to arms! We are the Law,
+and there are occasions when the Law should utter a war-cry. The Law,
+outlawing the traitor, is a great and terrible thing. Let us do it."
+
+They interrupted me with "Yes, that is right, a proclamation!"
+
+"Dictate! dictate!"
+
+"Dictate," said Baudin to me, "I will write."
+
+I dictated:-
+
+  "TO THE PEOPLE.
+
+  "Louis Napoleon Bonaparte is a traitor.
+
+  "He has violated the Constitution.
+
+  "He is forsworn.
+
+  "He is an outlaw--"
+
+They cried out to me on every side,--
+
+"That is right! Outlaw him."
+
+"Go on."
+
+I resumed the dictation. Baudin wrote,--
+
+  "The Republican Representatives refer the People and the Army to Article
+  68--"
+
+They interrupted me: "Quote it in full."
+
+"No," said I, "it would be too long. Something is needed which can be
+placarded on a card, stuck with a wafer, and which can be read in a
+minute. I will quote Article 110. It is short and contains the appeal to
+arms."
+
+I resumed,--
+
+  "The Republican Representatives refer the People and the Army to Article
+  68 and to Article 110, which runs thus--'The Constituent Assembly
+  confides the existing Constitution and the Laws which it consecrates to
+  the keeping and the patriotism of all Frenchmen.'
+
+  "The People henceforward and for ever in possession of universal
+  suffrages and who need no Prince for its restitution, will know how to
+  chastise the rebel.
+
+  "Let the People do its duty. The Republican Representatives are marching
+  at its head.
+
+  "Vive la Republique! To Arms!"
+
+They applauded.
+
+"Let us all sign," said Pelletier.
+
+"Let us try to find a printing-office without delay," said Schoelcher,
+"and let the proclamation be posted up immediately."
+
+"Before nightfall--the days are short," added Joigneaux.
+
+"Immediately, immediately, several copies!" called out the
+Representatives.
+
+Baudin, silent and rapid, had already made a second copy of the
+proclamation.
+
+A young man, editor of the provincial Republican journal, came out of the
+crowd, and declared that, if they would give him a copy at once, before
+two hours should elapse the Proclamation should be posted at all the
+street corners in Paris.
+
+I asked him,--
+
+"What is your name?"
+
+He answered me,--
+
+"Milliere."
+
+Milliere. It is in this manner that this name made its first appearance
+in the gloomy days of our History. I can still see that pale young man,
+that eye at the same time piercing and half closed, that gentle and
+forbidding profile. Assassination and the Pantheon awaited him. He was
+too obscure to enter into the Temple, he was sufficiently deserving to
+die on its threshold. Baudin showed him the copy which he had just made.
+
+Milliere went up to him.
+
+"You do not know me," said he; "my name is Milliere; but I know you, you
+are Baudin."
+
+Baudin held out his hand to him.
+
+I was present at the handshaking between these two spectres.
+
+Xavier Durrieu, who was editor of the _Revolution_ made the same offer as
+Milliere.
+
+A dozen Representatives took their pens and sat down, some around a
+table, others with a sheet of paper on their knees, and called out to
+me,--
+
+"Dictate the Proclamation to us."
+
+I had dictated to Baudin, "Louis Napoleon Bonaparte is a traitor." Jules
+Favre requested the erasure of the word Napoleon, that name of glory
+fatally powerful with the People and with the Army, and that there should
+be written, "Louis Bonaparte is a traitor."
+
+"You are right," said I to him.
+
+A discussion followed. Some wished to strike out the word "Prince." But
+the Assembly was impatient. "Quick! quick!" they cried out. "We are in
+December, the days are short," repeated Joigneaux.
+
+Twelve copies were made at the same time in a few minutes. Schoelcher,
+Rey, Xavier Durrieu, and Milliere each took one, and set out in search of
+a printing office.
+
+As they went out a man whom I did not know, but who was greeted by
+several Representatives, entered and said, "Citizens, this house is
+marked. Troops are on the way to surround you. You have not a second to
+lose."
+
+Numerous voices were raised,--
+
+"Very well! Let them arrest us!"
+
+"What does it matter to us?"
+
+"Let them complete their crime."
+
+"Colleagues," said I, "let us not allow ourselves to be arrested. After
+the struggle, as God pleases; but before the combat,--No! It is from us
+that the people are awaiting the initiative. If we are taken, all is at
+an end. Our duty is to bring on the battle, our right is to cross swords
+with the _coup d'etat_. It must not be allowed to capture us, it must
+seek us and not find us. We must deceive the arm which it stretches out
+against us, we must remain concealed from Bonaparte, we must harass him,
+weary him, astonish him, exhaust him, disappear and reappear unceasingly,
+change our hiding-place, and always fight him, be always before him, and
+never beneath his hand. Let us not leave the field. We have not numbers,
+let us have daring."
+
+They approved of this. "It is right," said they, "but where shall we go?"
+
+Labrousse said,--
+
+"Our former colleague of the Constituent Assembly, Beslay, offers us his
+house."
+
+"Where does he live?"
+
+"No. 33, Rue de la Cerisaie, in the Marais."
+
+"Very well," answered I, "let us separate. We will meet again in two
+hours at Beslay's, No. 33, Rue de la Cerisaie."
+
+All left; one after another, and in different directions. I begged
+Charamaule to go to my house and wait for me there, and I walked out with
+Noel Parfait and Lafon.
+
+We reached the then still uninhabited district which skirts the ramparts.
+As we came to the corner of the Rue Pigalle, we saw at a hundred paces
+from us, in the deserted streets which cross it, soldiers gliding all
+along the houses, bending their steps towards the Rue Blanche.
+
+At three o'clock the members of the Left rejoined each other in the Rue
+de la Cerisaie. But the alarm had been given, and the inhabitants of
+these lonely streets stationed themselves at the windows to see the
+Representatives pass. The place of meeting, situated and hemmed in at the
+bottom of a back yard, was badly chosen in the event of being surrounded:
+all these disadvantages were at once perceived, and the meeting only
+lasted a few seconds. It was presided over by Joly; Xavier Durrieu and
+Jules Gouache, who were editors of the _Revolution_, also took part, as
+well as several Italian exiles, amongst others Colonel Carini and
+Montanelli, ex-Minister of the Grand Duke of Tuscany. I liked Montanelli,
+a gentle and dauntless spirit.
+
+Madier de Montjau brought news from the outskirts. Colonel Forestier,
+without losing and without taking away hope, told them of the obstacles
+which he had encountered in his attempts to call together the 6th Legion.
+He pressed me to sign his appointment as Colonel, as well as Michel de
+Bourges; but Michel de Bourges was absent, and besides, neither Michel de
+Bourges nor I had yet at drat time the authority from the Left.
+Nevertheless, under this reservation I signed his appointment. The
+perplexities were becoming more and more numerous. The Proclamation was
+not yet printed, and the evening was closing in. Schoelcher explained the
+difficulties: all the printing offices closed and guarded; an order
+placarded that whoever should print an appeal to arms world be
+immediately shot; the workmen terrified; no money. A hat was sent round,
+and each threw into it what money he had about him. They collected in
+this manner a few hundred francs.
+
+Xavier Durrieu, whose fiery courage never flagged for a single moment,
+reiterated that he would undertake the printing, and promised that by
+eight o'clock that evening there should be 40,000 copies of the
+Proclamation. Time pressed. They separated, after fixing as a rendezvous
+the premises of the Society of Cabinet-makers in the Rue de Charonne, at
+eight o'clock in the evening, so as to allow time for the situation to
+reveal itself. As we went out and crossed the Rue Beautreillis I saw
+Pierre Leroux coming up to me. He had taken no part in our meetings. He
+said to me,--
+
+"I believe this struggle to be useless. Although my point of view is
+different from yours, I am your friend. Beware. There is yet time to
+stop. You are entering into the catacombs. The catacombs are Death."
+
+"They are also Life," answered I.
+
+All the same, I thought with joy that my two sons were in prison, and
+that this gloomy duty of street fighting was imposed upon me alone.
+
+There yet remained five hours until the time fixed for the rendezvous. I
+wished to go home, and once more embrace my wife and daughter before
+precipitating myself into that abyss of the "unknown" which was there,
+yawning and gloomy, and which several of us were about to enter, never to
+return.
+
+Arnauld (de l'Ariege) gave me his arm. The two Italian exiles, Carini
+aril Montanelli, accompanied me.
+
+Montanelli took my hands and said to me, "Right will conquer. You will
+conquer. Oh! that this time France may not be selfish as in 1848, and
+that she may deliver Italy." I answered him, "She will deliver Europe."
+
+Those were our illusions at that moment, but this, however, does not
+prevent them from being our hopes to-day. Faith is thus constituted;
+shadows demonstrate to it the light.
+
+There is a cabstand before the front gate of St. Paul. We went there. The
+Rue St. Antoine was alive with that indescribable uneasy swarming which
+precedes those strange battles of ideas against deeds which are called
+Revolutions. I seemed to catch, in this great working-class district, a
+glimpse of a gleam of light which, alas, died out speedily. The cabstand
+before St. Paul was deserted. The drivers had foreseen the possibility of
+barricades, and had fled.
+
+Three miles separated Arnauld and myself from our houses. It was
+impossible to walk there through the middle of Paris, without being
+recognized at each step. Two passers-by extricated us from our
+difficulty. One of them said to the other, "The omnibuses are still
+running on the Boulevards."
+
+We profited by this information, and went to look for a Bastille omnibus.
+All four of us got in.
+
+I entertained at heart, I repeat, wrongly or rightly, a bitter reproach
+for the opportunity lost during the morning. I said to myself that on
+critical days such moments come, but do not return. There are two
+theories of Revolution: to arouse the people, or to let them come of
+themselves. The first theory was mine, but, through force of discipline,
+I had obeyed the second. I reproached myself with this. I said to myself,
+"The People offered themselves, and we did not accept them. It is for us
+now not to offer ourselves, but to do more, to give ourselves."
+
+Meanwhile the omnibus had started. It was full. I had taken my place at
+the bottom on the left; Arnauld (de l'Ariege) sat next to me, Carini
+opposite, Montanelli next to Arnauld. We did not speak; Arnauld and
+myself silently exchanged that pressure of hands which is a means of
+exchanging thoughts.
+
+As the omnibus proceeded towards the centre of Paris the crowd became
+denser on the Boulevard. As the omnibus entered into the cutting of the
+Porte St. Martin a regiment of heavy cavalry arrived in the opposite
+direction. In a few seconds this regiment passed by the side of us. They
+were cuirassiers. They filed by at a sharp trot and with drawn swords.
+The people leaned over from the height of the pavements to see them pass.
+Not a single cry. On the one side the people dejected, on the other the
+soldiers triumphant. All this stirred me.
+
+Suddenly the regiment halted. I do not know what obstruction momentarily
+impeded its advance in this narrow cutting of the Boulevard in which we
+were hemmed in. By its halt it stopped the omnibus. There were the
+soldiers. We had them under our eyes, before us, at two paces distance,
+their horses touching the horses of our vehicle, these Frenchmen who had
+become Mamelukes, these citizen soldiers of the Great Republic
+transformed into supporters of the degraded Empire. From the place where
+I sat I almost touched them; I could no longer restrain myself.
+
+I lowered the window of the omnibus. I put out my head, and, looking
+fixedly at the dense line of soldiers which faced me, I called out, "Down
+with Louis Bonaparte. Those who serve traitors are traitors!"
+
+Those nearest to me turned their heads towards me and looked at me with a
+tipsy air; the others did not stir, and remained at "shoulder arms," the
+peaks of their helmets over their eyes, their eyes fixed upon the ears of
+their horses.
+
+In great affairs there is the immobility of statues; in petty mean
+affairs there is the immobility of puppets.
+
+At the shout which I raised Arnauld turned sharply round. He also had
+lowered his window, and he was leaning half out of the omnibus, with his
+arms extended towards the soldiers, and he shouted, "Down with the
+traitors!"
+
+To see him thus with his dauntless gesture, his handsome head, pale and
+calm, his fervent expression, his beard and his long chestnut hair, one
+seemed to behold the radiant and fulminating face of an angry Christ.
+
+The example was contagious and electrical.
+
+"Down with the traitors!" shouted Carini and Montanelli.
+
+"Down with the Dictator! Down with the traitors!" repeated a gallant
+young man with whom we were not acquainted, and who was sitting next to
+Carini.
+
+With the exception of this young man, the whole omnibus seemed seized
+with terror!
+
+"Hold your tongues!" exclaimed these poor frightened people; "you will
+cause us all to be massacred." One, still more terrified, lowered the
+window, and began to shout to the soldiers, "Long live Prince Napoleon!
+Long live the Emperor!"
+
+There were five of us, and we overpowered this cry by our persistent
+protest, "Down with Louis Bonaparte! Down with the traitors!"
+
+The soldiers listened in gloomy silence. A corporal turned with a
+threatening air towards us, and shook his sword. The crowd looked on in
+bewilderment.
+
+What passed within me at that moment? I cannot tell! I was in a
+whirlwind. I had at the same time yielded to a calculation, finding the
+opportunity good, and to a burst of rage, finding the encounter insolent.
+
+A woman cried out to us from the pavement, "You will get yourselves cut
+to pieces." I vaguely imagined that some collision was about to ensue,
+and that, either from the crowd or from the Army, the spark would fly
+out. I hoped for a sword-cut from the soldiers or a shout of anger from
+the people. In short I had obeyed rather an instinct than an idea.
+
+But nothing came of it, neither the sword-cut nor the shout of anger. The
+soldiers did not bestir themselves and the people maintained silence. Was
+it too late? Was it too soon?
+
+The mysterious man of the Elysee had not foreseen the event of an insult
+to his name being thrown in the very face of the soldiers. The soldiers
+had no orders. They received them that evening. This was seen on the
+morrow.
+
+In another moment the regiment broke into a gallop, and the omnibus
+resumed its journey. As the cuirassiers filed past us Arnauld (de
+l'Ariege), still leaning out of the vehicle, continued to shout in their
+ears, for as I have just said, their horses touched us, "Down with the
+Dictator! Down with the traitors!"
+
+We alighted in the Rue Lafitte. Carini, Montanelli, and Arnauld left me,
+and I went on alone towards the Rue de la Tour d'Auvergne. Night was
+coming on. As I turned the corner of the street a man passed close by me.
+By the light of a street lamp I recognized a workman at a neighboring
+tannery, and he said to me in a low tone, and quickly, "Do not return
+home. The police surround your house."
+
+I went back again towards the Boulevard, through the streets laid out,
+but not then built, which make a Y under my windows behind my house. Not
+being able to embrace my wife and daughter, I thought over what I could
+do during the moments which remained to me. A remembrance came into my
+mind.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+
+THE REBOUND OF THE 24TH JUNE, 1848, ON THE 2D DECEMBER, 1851
+
+On Sunday, 26th June, 1848, that four days' combat, that gigantic combat
+so formidable and so heroic on both sides, still continued, but the
+insurrection had been overcome nearly everywhere, and was restricted to
+the Faubourg St. Antoine. Four men who had been amongst the most
+dauntless defenders of the barricades of the Rue Pont-aux-Choux, of the
+Rue St. Claude, and of the Rue St. Louis in the Marais, escaped after the
+barricades had been taken, and found safe refuge in a house, No. 12, Rue
+St. Anastase. They were concealed in an attic. The National Guards and
+the Mobile Guards were hunting for them, in order to shoot them. I was
+told of this. I was one of the sixty Representatives sent by the
+Constituent Assembly into the middle of the conflict, charged with the
+task of everywhere preceding the attacking column, of carrying, even at
+the peril of their lives, words of peace to the barricades, to prevent
+the shedding of blood, and to stop the civil war. I went into the Rue St.
+Anastase, and I saved the lives of those four men.
+
+Amongst those men there was a poor workman of the Rue de Charonne, whose
+wife was being confined at that very moment, and who was weeping. One
+could understand, when hearing his sobs and seeing his rags, how he had
+cleared with a single bound these three steps--poverty, despair,
+rebellion. Their chief was a young man, pale and fair, with high cheek
+bones, intelligent brow, and an earnest and resolute countenance. As soon
+as I set him free, and told him my name, he also wept. He said to me,
+"When I think that an hour ago I knew that you were facing us, and that I
+wished that the barrel of my gun had eyes to see and kill you!" He added,
+"In the times in which we live we do not know what may happen. If ever
+you need me, for whatever purpose, come." His name was Auguste, and he
+was a wine-seller in the Rue de la Roquette.
+
+Since that time I had only seen him once, on the 26th August, 1819, on
+the day when I held the corner of Balzac's pall. The funeral possession
+was going to Pere la Chaise. Auguste's shop was on the way. All the
+streets through which the procession passed were crowded. Auguste was at
+his door with his young wife and two or three workmen. As I passed he
+greeted me.
+
+It was this remembrance which came back to my mind as I descended the
+lonely streets behind my house; in the presence of the 2d of December I
+thought of him. I thought that he might give me information about the
+Faubourg St. Antoine, and help us in rousing the people. This young man
+had at once given me the impression of a soldier and a leader. I
+remembered the words which he had spoken to me, and I considered it might
+be useful to see him. I began by going to find in the Rue St. Anastase
+the courageous woman who had hidden Auguste and his three companions, to
+whom she had several times since rendered assistance. I begged her to
+accompany me. She consented.
+
+On the way I dined upon a cake of chocolate which Charamaule had given
+me.
+
+The aspects of the boulevards, in coming down the Italiens towards the
+Marais, had impressed rue. The shops were open everywhere as usual. There
+was little military display. In the wealthy quarters there was much
+agitation and concentration of troops; but on advancing towards the
+working-class neighborhoods solitude reigned paramount. Before the Cafe
+Turc a regiment was drawn up. A band of young men in blouses passed
+before the regiment singing the "Marseillaise." I answered them by crying
+out "To Arms!" The regiment did not stir. The light shone upon the
+playbills on an adjacent wall; the theatres were open. I looked at the
+trees as I passed. They were playing _Hernani_ at the Theatre des
+Italiens, with a new tenor named Guasco.
+
+The Place de la Bastille was frequented, as usual, by goers and comers,
+the most peaceable folk in the world. A few workmen grouped round the
+July Column, and, chatting in a low voice, were scarcely noticeable.
+Through the windows of a wine shop could be seen two men who were
+disputing for and against the _coup d'etat_. He who favored it wore a
+blouse, he who attacked it wore a cloth coat. A few steps further on a
+juggler had placed between four candles his X-shaped table, and was
+displaying his conjuring tricks in the midst of a crowd, who were
+evidently thinking only of the juggler. On looking towards the gloomy
+loneliness of the Quai Mazas several harnessed artillery batteries were
+dimly visible in the darkness. Some lighted torches here and there showed
+up the black outline of the cannons.
+
+I had some trouble in finding Auguste's door in the Rue de la Roquette.
+Nearly all the shops were shut, thus making the street very dark. At
+length, through a glass shop-front I noticed a light which gleamed on a
+pewter counter. Beyond the counter, through a partition also of glass and
+ornamented with white curtains, another light, and the shadows of two or
+three men at table could be vaguely distinguished. This was the place.
+
+I entered. The door on opening rang a bell. At the sound, the door of the
+glazed partition which separated the shop from the parlor opened, and
+Auguste appeared.
+
+He knew me at once, and came up to me.
+
+"Ah, Sir," said he, "it is you!"
+
+"Do you know what is going on?" I asked him.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+This "Yes, sir," uttered with calmness, and even with a certain
+embarrassment, told me all. Where I expected an indignant outcry I found
+this peaceable answer. It seemed to me that I was speaking to the
+Faubourg St. Antoine itself. I understood that all was at an end in this
+district, and that we had nothing to expect from it. The people, this
+wonderful people, had resigned themselves. Nevertheless, I made an
+effort.
+
+"Louis Bonaparte betrays the Republic," said I, without noticing that I
+raised my voice.
+
+He touched my arm, and pointing with his finger to the shadows which were
+pictured on the glazed partition of the parlor, "Take care, sir; do not
+talk so loudly."
+
+"What!" I exclaimed, "you have come to this--you dare not speak, you dare
+not utter the name of 'Bonaparte' aloud; you barely mumble a few words in
+a whisper here, in this street, in the Faubourg St. Antoine, where, from
+all the doors, from all the windows, from all the pavements, from all the
+very stones, ought to be heard the cry, 'To arms.'"
+
+Auguste demonstrated to me what I already saw too clearly, and what
+Girard had shadowed forth in the morning--the moral situation of the
+Faubourg--that the people were "dazed"--that it seemed to all of them
+that universal suffrage was restored; that the downfall of the law of the
+31st of May was a good thing.
+
+Here I interrupted him.
+
+"But this law of the 31st of May, it was Louis Bonaparte who instigated
+it, it was Rouher who made it, it was Baroche who proposed it, and the
+Bonapartists who voted it. You are dazzled by a thief who has taken your
+purse, and who restores it to you!"
+
+"Not I," said Auguste, "but the others."
+
+And he continued, "To tell the whole truth, people did not care much for
+the Constitution, they liked the Republic, but the Republic was
+maintained too much by force for their taste. In all this they could only
+see one thing clearly, the cannons ready to slaughter them--they
+remembered June, 1848--there were some poor people who had suffered
+greatly--Cavaignac had done much evil--women clung to the men's blouses
+to prevent them from going to the barricades--nevertheless, with all
+this, when seeing men like ourselves at their head, they would perhaps
+fight, but this hindered them, they did not know for what." He concluded
+by saying, "The upper part of the Faubourg is doing nothing, the lower
+end will do better. Round about here they will fight. The Rue de la
+Roquette is good, the Rue de Charonne is good; but on the side of Pere la
+Chaise they ask, 'What good will that do us?' They only recognize the
+forty sous of their day's work. They will not bestir themselves; do not
+reckon upon the masons." He added, with a smile, "Here we do not say
+'cold as a stone,' but 'cold as a mason'"--and he resumed, "As for me, if
+I am alive, it is to you that I owe my life. Dispose of me. I will lay
+down my life, and will do what you wish."
+
+While he was speaking I saw the white curtain of the glazed partition
+behind him move a little. His young wife, uneasy, was peeping through at
+us.
+
+"Ah! my God," said I to him, "what we want is not the life of one man but
+the efforts of all."
+
+He was silent. I continued,--
+
+"Listen to me, Auguste, you who are good and intelligent. So, then, the
+Faubourgs of Paris--which are heroes even when they err--the Faubourgs
+of Paris, for a misunderstanding, for a question of salary wrongly
+construed, for a bad definition of socialism, rose in June, 1848, against
+the Assembly elected by themselves, against universal suffrage, against
+their own vote; and yet they will not rise in December, 1851, for Right,
+for the Law, for the People, for Liberty, for the Republic. You say that
+there is perplexity, and that you do not understand; but, on the
+contrary, it was in June that all was obscure, and it is to-day that
+everything is clear!"
+
+While I was saying these last words the door of the parlor was softly
+opened, and some one came in. It was a young man, fair as Auguste, in an
+overcoat, and wearing a workman's cap. I started. Auguste turned round
+and said to me, "You can trust him."
+
+The young man took off his cap, came close up to me, carefully turning
+his back on the glazed partition, and said to me in a low voice, "I know
+you well. I was on the Boulevard du Temple to-day. We asked you what we
+were to do; you said, 'We must take up arms.' Well, here they are!"
+
+He thrust his hands into the pockets of his overcoat and drew out two
+pistols.
+
+Almost at the same moment the bell of the street door sounded. He
+hurriedly put his pistols back into his pockets. A man in a blouse came
+in, a workman of some fifty years. This man, without looking at any one,
+without saying anything, threw down a piece of money on the counter.
+Auguste took a small glass and filled it with brandy, the man drank it
+off, put down the glass upon the counter and went away.
+
+When the door was shut: "You see," said Auguste to me, "they drink, they
+eat, they sleep, they think of nothing. Such are they all!"
+
+The other interrupted him impetuously: "One man is not the People!"
+
+And turning towards me,--
+
+"Citizen Victor Hugo, they will march forward. If all do not march, some
+will march. To tell the truth, it is perhaps not here that a beginning
+should be made, it is on the other side of the water."
+
+And suddenly checking himself,--"After all, you probably do not know my
+name."
+
+He took a little pocket-book from his pocket, tore out a piece of paper,
+wrote on it his name, and gave it to me. I regret having forgotten that
+name. He was a working engineer. In order not to compromise him, I burnt
+this paper with many others on the Saturday morning, when I was on the
+point of being arrested.
+
+"It is true, sir," said Auguste, "you must not judge badly of the
+Faubourg. As my friend has said, it will perhaps not be the first to
+begin; but if there is a rising it will rise."
+
+I exclaimed, "And who would you have erect if the Faubourg St. Antoine be
+prostrate! Who will be alive if the people be dead!"
+
+The engineer went to the street door, made certain that it was well shut,
+then came back, and said,--
+
+"There are many men ready and willing. It is the leaders who are wanting.
+Listen, Citizen Victor Hugo, I can say this to you, and," he added,
+lowering his voice, "I hope for a movement to-night."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"On the Faubourg St. Marceau."
+
+"At what time?"
+
+"At one o'clock."
+
+"How do you know it?"
+
+"Because I shall be there."
+
+He continued: "Now, Citizen Victor Hugo, if a movement takes place
+to-night in the Faubourg St. Marceau, will you head it? Do you consent?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Have you your scarf of office?"
+
+I half drew it out of my pocket. His eyes glistened with joy.
+
+"Excellent," said he. "The Citizen has his pistols, the Representative
+his scarf. All are armed."
+
+I questioned him. "Are you sure of your movement for to-night?"
+
+He answered me, "We have prepared it, and we reckon to be there."
+
+"In that case," said I, "as soon as the first barricade is constructed I
+will be behind it. Come and fetch me."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"Wherever I may be."
+
+He assured me that if the movement should take place during the night he
+would know it at half-past ten that evening at the latest, and that I
+should be informed of it before eleven o'clock. We settled that in
+whatever place I might be at that hour I would send word to Auguste, who
+undertook to let him know.
+
+The young woman continued to peep out at us. The conversation was growing
+prolonged, and might seem singular to the people in the parlor. "I am
+going," said I to Auguste.
+
+I had opened the door, he took my hand, pressed it as a woman might have
+done, and said to me in a deeply-moved tone, "You are going: will you
+come back?"
+
+"I do not know."
+
+"It is true," said he. "No one knows what is going to happen. Well, you
+are perhaps going to be hunted and sought for as I have been. It will
+perhaps be your turn to be shot, and mine to save you. You know the mouse
+may sometimes prove useful to the lion. Monsieur Victor Hugo, if you need
+a refuge, this house is yours. Come here. You will find a bed where you
+can sleep, and a man who will lay down his life for you."
+
+I thanked him by a hearty shake of the hand, and I left. Eight o'clock
+struck. I hastened towards the Rue de Charonne.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+
+THE REPRESENTATIVES HUNTED DOWN
+
+At the corner of the Rue de Faubourg St. Antoine before the shop of the
+grocer Pepin, on the same spot where the immense barricade of June,
+1848, was erected as high as the second story, the decrees of the
+morning had been placarded. Some men were inspecting them, although it
+was pitch dark, and they could not read them, and an old woman said,
+"The 'Twenty-five francs' are crushed--so much the better!"
+
+A few steps further I heard my name pronounced. I turned round. It was
+Jules Favre, Bourzat, Lafon, Madier de Montjau, and Michel de Bourges,
+who were passing by. I took leave of the brave and devoted woman who had
+insisted upon accompanying me. A _fiacre_ was passing. I put her in it,
+and then rejoined the five Representatives. They had come from the Rue
+de Charonne. They had found the premises of the Society of Cabinet
+Makers closed. "There was no one there," said Madier de Montjau. "These
+worthy people are beginning to get together a little capital, they do
+not wish to compromise it, they are afraid of us. They say, '_coups
+d'etat_ are nothing to us, we shall leave them alone!'"
+
+"That does not surprise me," answered I, "a society is shopkeeper."
+
+"Where are we going?" asked Jules Favre.
+
+Lafon lived two steps from there, at No. 2, Quai Jemmapes. He offered us
+the use of his rooms. We accepted, and took the necessary measures to
+inform the members of the Left that we had gone there.
+
+A few minutes afterwards we were installed in Lafon's rooms, on the
+fourth floor of an old and lofty house. This house had seen the taking
+of the Bastille.
+
+This house was entered by a side-door opening from the Quai Jemmapes
+upon a narrow courtyard a few steps lower than the Quai itself. Bourzat
+remained at this door to warn us in case of any accident, and to point
+out the house to those Representatives who might come up.
+
+In a few moments a large number of us had assembled, and we again
+met--all those of the morning, with a few added. Lafon gave up his
+drawing-room to us, the windows of which overlooked the back yard. We
+organized a sort of "bureau," and we took our places, Jules Favre,
+Carnot, Michel, and myself, at a large table, lighted by two candles,
+and placed before the fire. The Representatives and the other people
+present sat around on chairs and sofas. A group stood before the door.
+
+Michel de Bourges, on entering, exclaimed, "We have come to seek out the
+people of the Faubourg St. Antoine. Here we are. Here we must remain."
+
+These words were applauded.
+
+They set forth the situation--the torpor of the Faubourgs, no one at the
+Society of Cabinet Makers, the doors closed nearly everywhere. I told
+them what I had seen and heard in the Rue de la Roquette, the remarks of
+the wine-seller, Auguste, on the indifference of the people, the hopes
+of the engineer, and the possibility of a movement during the night in
+the Faubourg St. Marceau. It was settled that on the first notice that
+might be given I should go there.
+
+Nevertheless nothing was yet known of what had taken place during the
+day. It was announced that M. Havin, Lieutenant-Colonel of the 5th
+Legion of the National Guard, had ordered the officers of his Legion to
+attend a meeting.
+
+Some Democratic writers came in, amongst whom were Alexander Rey and
+Xavier Durrieu, with Kesler, Villiers, and Amable Lemaitre of the
+_Revolution_; one of these writers was Milliere.
+
+Milliere had a large bleeding wound above his eye-brow; that same
+morning on leaving us, as he was carrying away one of the copies of the
+Proclamation which I had dictated, a man had thrown himself upon him to
+snatch it from him. The police had evidently already been informed of
+the Proclamation, and lay in wait for it; Milliere had a hand-to-hand
+struggle with the police agent, and had overthrown him, not without
+bearing away this gash. However, the Proclamation was not yet printed.
+It was nearly nine o'clock in the evening and nothing had come. Xavier
+Durrieu asserted that before another hour elapsed they should have the
+promised forty thousand copies. It was hoped to cover the walls of Paris
+with them during the night. Each of those present was to serve as a
+bill-poster.
+
+There were amongst us--an inevitable circumstance in the stormy
+confusion of the first moments--a good many men whom we did not know.
+One of these men brought in ten or twelve copies of the appeal to arms.
+He asked me to sign them with my own hand, in order, he said, that he
+might be able to show my signature to the people--"Or to the police,"
+whispered Baudin to me smiling. We were not in a position to take such
+precautions as these. I gave this man all the signatures that he wanted.
+
+Madier de Montjau began to speak. It was of consequence to organize the
+action of the Left, to impress the unity of impulse upon the movement
+which was being prepared; to create a centre for it, to give a pivot to
+the insurrection, to the Left a direction, and to the People a
+support. He proposed the immediate formation of a committee representing
+the entire Left in all its shades, and charged with organizing and
+directing the insurrection.
+
+All the Representatives cheered this eloquent and courageous man. Seven
+members were proposed. They named at once Carnot, De Flotte, Jules
+Favre, Madier de Montjau, Michel de Bourges, and myself; and thus was
+unanimously formed this Committee of Insurrection, which at my request
+was called a Committee of Resistance; for it was Louis Bonaparte who was
+tire insurgent. For ourselves, the were the Republic. It was desired
+that one workman-Representative should be admitted into the committee.
+Faure (du Rhone) was nominated. But Faure, we learned later on, had been
+arrested that morning. The committee then was, it fact, composed of six
+members.
+
+The committee organized itself during the sitting. A Committee of
+Permanency was formed from amongst it, and invested with the authority
+of decreeing "urgency" in the name of all the Left, of concentrating all
+news, information, directions, instructions, resources, orders. This
+Committee of Permanency was composed of four members, who were Carnot,
+Michel de Bourges, Jules Favre, and myself. De Flotte and Madier de
+Montjau were specially delegated, De Flotte for the left bank of the
+river and the district of the schools, Madier for the Boulevards and the
+outskirts.
+
+These preliminary operations being terminated, Lafon took aside Michel
+de Bourges and myself, and told us that the ex-Constituent Proudhon had
+inquired for one of us two, that he had remained downstairs nearly a
+quarter of an hour, and that he had gone away, saying that he would wait
+for us in the Place de la Bastille.
+
+Proudhon, who was at that time undergoing a term of three years'
+imprisonment at St. Pelagie for an offence against Louis Bonaparte, was
+granted leave of absence from tine to time. Chance willed it that one of
+these liberty days had fallen on the 2d of December.
+
+This is an incident which one cannot help noting. On the 2d of December
+Proudhon was a prisoner by virtue of a lawful sentence, and at the same
+moment at which they illegally imprisoned the inviolable
+Representatives, Proudhon, whom they could have legitimately detained,
+was allowed to go out. Proudhon had profited by his liberty to come and
+find us.
+
+I knew Proudhon from having seen him at the Conciergerie, where my two
+sons were shut up, and my two illustrious friends, Auguste Vacquerie and
+Paul Meurice, and those gallant writers, Louis Jourdan, Erdan, and
+Suchet. I could not help thinking that on that day they would assuredly
+not have given leave of absence to these men.
+
+Meanwhile Xavier Durrieu whispered to me, "I have just left Proudhon. He
+wishes to see you. He is waiting for you down below, close by, at the
+entrance to the Place. You will find him leaning on the parapet of the
+canal."
+
+"I am going," said I.
+
+I went downstairs.
+
+I found in truth, at the spot mentioned, Proudhon, thoughtful, leaning
+with his two elbows on the parapet. He wore that broad-brimmed hat in
+which I had often seen him striding alone up and down the courtyard of
+the Conciergerie.
+
+I went up to him.
+
+"You wish to speak to me."
+
+"Yes," and he shook me by the hand.
+
+The corner where we were standing was lonely. On the left there was the
+Place de la Bastille, dark and gloomy; one could see nothing there, but
+one could feel a crowd; regiments were there in battle array; they did
+not bivouac, they were ready to march; the muffled sound of breathing
+could be heard; the square was full of that glistening shower of pale
+sparks which bayonets give forth at night time. Above this abyss of
+shadows rose up black and stark the Column of July.
+
+Proudhon resumed,--
+
+"Listen. I come to give you a friendly warning. You are entertaining
+illusions. The People are ensnared in this affair. They will not stir.
+Bonaparte will carry them with him. This rubbish, the restitution of
+universal suffrage, entraps the simpletons. Bonaparte passes for a
+Socialist. He has said, 'I will be the Emperor of the Rabble.' It is a
+piece of insolence. But insolence has a chance of success when it has
+this at its service."
+
+And Proudhon pointed with his finger to the sinister gleam of the
+bayonets. He continued,--
+
+"Bonaparte has an object in view. The Republic has made the People. He
+wishes to restore the Populace. He will succeed and you will fail. He
+has on his side force, cannons, the mistake of the people, and the folly
+of the Assembly. The few of the Left to which you belong will not
+succeed in overthrowing the _coup d'etat_. You are honest, and he has
+this advantage over you--that he is a rogue. You have scruples, and he
+has this advantage over you--that he has none. Believe me. Resist no
+longer. The situation is without resources. We must wait; but at this
+moment fighting would be madness. What do you hope for?"
+
+"Nothing," said I.
+
+"And what are you going to do?"
+
+"Everything."
+
+By the tone of my voice he understood that further persistence was
+useless.
+
+"Good-bye," he said.
+
+We parted. He disappeared in the darkness. I have never seen him since.
+
+I went up again to Lafon's rooms.
+
+In the meantime the copies of the appeal to arms did not come to hand.
+The Representatives, becoming uneasy, went up and downstairs. Some of
+them went out on the Quai Jemmapes, to wait there and gain information
+about them. In the room there was a sound of confused talking the
+members of the Committee, Madier de Montjau, Jules Favre, and Carnot,
+withdrew, and sent word to me by Charamaule that they were going to No.
+10, Rue des Moulins, to the house of the ex-Constituent Landrin, in the
+division of the 5th Legion, to deliberate more at their ease, and they
+begged me to join them. But I thought I should do better to remain. I
+had placed myself at the disposal of the probable movement of the
+Faubourg St. Marceau. I awaited the notice of it through Auguste. It was
+most important that I should not go too far away; besides, it was
+possible that if I went away, the Representatives of the Left, no
+longing seeing a member of the committee amongst them, would disperse
+without taking any resolution, and I saw in this more than one
+disadvantage.
+
+Time passed, no Proclamations. We learned the next day that the packages
+had been seized by the police. Cournet, an ex-Republican naval officer
+who was present, began to speak. We shall see presently what sort of a
+man Cournet was, and of what an energetic and determined nature he was
+composed. He represented to us that as we had been there nearly two
+hours the police would certainly end by being informed of our
+whereabouts, that the members of the Left had an imperative duty--to
+keep themselves at all costs at the head of the People, that the
+necessity itself of their situation imposed upon them the precaution of
+frequently changing their place of retreat, and he ended by offering us,
+for our deliberation, his house and his workshops, No. 82, Rue
+Popincourt, at the bottom of a blind alley, and also in the neighborhood
+of the Faubourg St. Antoine.
+
+This offer was accepted. I sent to inform Auguste of our change of
+abode, and of Cournet's address. Lafon remained on the Quai Jemmapes in
+order to forward on the Proclamations as soon as they arrived, and we
+set out at once.
+
+Charamaule undertook to send to the Rue des Moulins to tell the other
+members of the committee that we would wait for them at No. 82, Rue
+Popincourt.
+
+We walked, as in the morning, in little separate groups. The Quai
+Jemmapes skirts the left bank of the St. Martin Canal; we went up it. We
+only met a few solitary workmen, who looked back when we had passed, and
+stopped behind us with an air of astonishment. The night was dark. A few
+drops of rain were falling.
+
+A little beyond the Rue de Chemin Vert we turned to the right and
+reached the Rue Popincourt. There all was deserted, extinguished,
+closed, and silent, as in the Faubourg St. Antoine. This street is of
+great length. We walked for a long time; we passed by the barracks.
+Cournet was no longer with us; he had remained behind to inform some of
+his friends, and we were told to take defensive measures in case his
+house was attacked. We looked for No. 82. The darkness was such that we
+could not distinguish the numbers on the houses. At length, at the end
+of the street, on the right, we saw a light; it was a grocer's shop, the
+only one open throughout the street. One of us entered, and asked the
+grocer, who was sitting behind his counter, to show us M. Cournet's
+house. "Opposite," said the grocer, pointing to an old and low carriage
+entrance which could be seen on the other side of the street, almost
+facing his shop.
+
+We knocked at this door. It was opened. Baudin entered first, tapped at
+the window of the porter's lodge, and asked "Monsieur Cournet?"--An old
+woman's voice answered, "Here."
+
+The portress was in bed; all in the house sleeping. We went in.
+
+Having entered, and the gate being shut behind us, we found ourselves in
+a little square courtyard which formed the centre of a sort of a
+two-storied ruin; the silence of a convent prevailed, not a light was to
+be seen at the windows; near a shed was seen a low entrance to a narrow,
+dark, and winding staircase. "We have made some mistake," said
+Charamaule; "it is impossible that it can be here."
+
+Meanwhile the portress, hearing all these trampling steps beneath her
+doorway, had become wide awake, had lighted her lamp, and we could see
+her in her lodge, her face pressed against the window, gazing with alarm
+at sixty dark phantoms, motionless, and standing in her courtyard.
+
+Esquiros addressed her: "Is this really M. Cournet's house?" said he.
+
+"M. Cornet, without doubt," answered the good woman.
+
+All was explained. We had asked for Cournet, the grocer had understood
+Cornet, the portress had understood Cornet. It chanced that M. Cornet
+lived there.
+
+We shall see by and by what an extraordinary service chance had rendered
+us.
+
+We went out, to the great relief of the poor portress, and we resumed
+our search. Xavier Durrieu succeeded in ascertaining our whereabouts,
+and extricated us from our difficulty.
+
+A few moments afterwards we turned to the left, and we entered into a
+blind alley of considerable length and dimly lighted by an old oil
+lamp--one of those with which Paris was formerly lighted--then again to
+the left, and we entered through a narrow passage into a large courtyard
+encumbered with sheds and building materials. This time we had reached
+Cournet's.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+
+ONE FOOT IN THE TOMB
+
+Cournet was waiting for us. He received us on the ground floor, in a
+parlor where there was a fire, a table, and some chairs; but the room
+was so small that a quarter of us filled it to overflowing, and the
+others remained in the courtyard. "It is impossible to deliberate here,"
+said Bancel. "I have a larger room on the first floor," answered
+Cournet, "but it is a building in course of construction, which is not
+yet furnished, and where there is no fire."--"What does it matter?" they
+answered him. "Let us go up to the first floor."
+
+We went up to the first floor by a steep and narrow wooden staircase,
+and we took possession of two rooms with very low ceilings, but of which
+one was sufficiently large. The walls were whitewashed, and a few
+straw-covered stools formed the whole of its furniture.
+
+They called out to me, "Preside."
+
+I sat down on one of the stools in the corner of the first room, with
+the fire place on my right and on my left the door opening upon the
+staircase. Baudin said to me, "I have a pencil and paper. I will act as
+secretary to you." He sat down on a stool next to me.
+
+The Representatives and those present, amongst whom were several men in
+blouses, remained standing, forming in front of Baudin and myself a sort
+of square, backed by the two walls of the room opposite to us. This
+crowd extended as far as the staircase. A lighted candle was placed on
+the chimney-piece.
+
+A common spirit animated this meeting. The faces were pale, but in every
+eye could be seen the same firm resolution. In all these shadows
+glistened the same flame. Several simultaneously asked permission to
+speak. I requested them to give their names to Baudin, who wrote them
+down, and then passed me the list.
+
+The
+first speaker was a workman. He began by apologizing for mingling with
+the Representatives, he a stranger to the Assembly. The Representatives
+interrupted him. "No, no," they said, "the People and Representatives
+are all one! Speak--!" He declared that if he spoke it was in order to
+clear from all suspicion the honor of his brethren, the workmen of
+Paris; that he had heard some Representatives express doubt about them.
+He asserted that this was unjust, that the workmen realized the whole
+crime of M. Bonaparte and the whole duty of the People, that they would
+not be deaf to the appeal of the Republican Representatives, and that
+this would be clearly shown. He said all this, simply, with a sort of
+proud shyness and of honest bluntness. He kept his word. I found him the
+next day fighting on the Rambuteau barricade.
+
+Mathieu (de la Drome) came in as the workman concluded. "I bring news,"
+he exclaimed. A profound silence ensued.
+
+As I have already said, we vaguely knew since the morning that the Right
+were to have assembled, and that a certain number of our friends had
+probably taken part in the meeting, and that was all. Mathieu (de la
+Drome) brought us the events of the day, the details of the arrests at
+their own houses carried out without any obstacle, of the meeting which
+had taken place at M. Daru's house and its rough treatment in the Rue
+de Bourgogne, of the Representatives expelled from the Hall of the
+Assembly, of the meanness of President Dupin, of the melting away of the
+High Court, of the total inaction of the Council of State, of the sad
+sitting held at the Mairie of the Tenth Arrondissement, of the Oudinot,
+_fiasco_, of the decree of the deposition of the President, and of the
+two hundred and twenty forcibly arrested and taken to the Quai d'Orsay.
+He concluded in a manly style: "The duty of the Left was increasing
+hourly. The morrow would probably prove decisive." He implored the
+meeting to take this into consideration.
+
+A workman added a fact. He had happened in the morning to be in the Rue
+de Grenelle during the passage of the arrested members of the Assembly;
+he was there at the moment when one of the commanders of the Chasseurs
+de Vincennes had uttered these words, "Now it is the turn of those
+gentlemen--the Red Representatives. Let them look out for themselves!"
+
+One of the editors of the _Revolution_, Hennett de Kesler, who
+afterwards became an intrepid exile, completed the information of
+Mathieu (de la Drome). He recounted the action taken by two members of
+the Assembly with regard to the so-called Minister of the Interior,
+Morny, and the answer of the said Morny: "If I find any of the
+Representatives behind the barricades, I will have them shot to the last
+man," and that other saying of the same witty vagabond respecting the
+members taken to the Quai d'Orsay, "These are the last Representatives
+who will be made prisoners." He told us that a placard was at that very
+moment being printed which declared that "Any one who should be found at
+a secret meeting would be immediately shot." The placard, in truth,
+appeared the next morning.
+
+Baudin rose up. "The _coup d'etat_ redoubles its rage," exclaimed he.
+"Citizens, let us redouble our energy!"
+
+Suddenly a man in a blouse entered. He was out of breath. He had run
+hard. He told us that he had just seen, and he repeated, had seen with
+"his own eyes," in the Rue Popincourt, a regiment marching in silence,
+and wending its way towards the blind alley of No. 82, that we were
+surrounded, and that we were about to be attacked. He begged us to
+disperse immediately.
+
+"Citizen Representatives," called out Cournet, "I have placed scouts in
+the blind alley who will fall back and warn us if the regiment penetrates
+thither. The door is narrow and will be barricaded in the twinkling of
+an eye. We are here, with you, fifty armed and resolute men, and at the
+first shot we shall be two hundred. We are provided with ammunition. You
+can deliberate calmly."
+
+And as he concluded he raised his right arm, and from his sleeve fell
+a large poniard, which he had concealed, and with the other hand he
+rattled in his pocket the butts of a pair of pistols.
+
+"Very well," said I, "let us continue."
+
+Three of the youngest and most eloquent orators of the Left, Bancel,
+Arnauld (de l'Ariege) and Victor Chauffour delivered their opinions in
+succession. All three were imbued with this notion, that our appeal to
+arms not having yet been placarded, the different incidents of the
+Boulevarde du Temple and of the Cafe Bonvalet having brought about no
+results, none of our decrees, owing to the repressive measures of
+Bonaparte, having yet succeeded in appearing, while the events at the
+Mairie of the Tenth Arrondissement began to be spread abroad through
+Paris, it seemed as though the Right had commenced active resistance
+before the Left. A generous rivalry for the public safety spurred them
+on. It was delightful to them to know that a regiment ready to attack was
+close by, within a few steps, and that perhaps in a few moments their
+blood would flow.
+
+Moreover, advice abounded, and with advice, uncertainty. Some illusions
+were still entertained. A workman, leaning close to me against the
+fireplace, said in a low voice to one of his comrades that the People
+must not be reckoned upon, and that if we fought "We should perpetrate a
+madness."
+
+The incidents and events of the day had in some degree modified my
+opinion as to the course to be followed in this grave crisis. The
+silence of the crowd at the moment when Arnauld (de l'Ariege) and I had
+apostrophized the troops, had destroyed the impression which a few hours
+before the enthusiasm of the people on the Boulevard du Temple had left
+with me. The hesitation of Auguste had impressed me, the Society of
+Cabinet Makers appeared to shun us, the torpor of the Faubourg St.
+Antoine was manifest, the inertness of the Faubourg St. Marceau was not
+less so. I ought to have received notice from the engineer before eleven
+o'clock, and eleven o'clock was past. Our hopes died away one after
+another. Nevertheless, all the more reason, in my opinion, to astonish
+and awaken Paris by an extraordinary spectacle, by a daring act of life
+and collective power on the part of the Representatives of the Left, by
+the daring of an immense devotion.
+
+It will be seen later on what a combination of accidental circumstances
+prevented this idea from being realized as I then purposed. The
+Representatives have done their whole duty. Providence perhaps has not
+done all on its side. Be it as it may, supposing that we were not at
+once carried off by some nocturnal and immediate combat, and that at the
+hour at which I was speaking we had still a "to-morrow," I felt the
+necessity of fixing every eye upon the course which should be adopted
+on the day which was about to follow.--I spoke.
+
+I began by completely unveiling the situation. I painted the picture in
+four words: the Constitution thrown into the gutter; the Assembly driven
+to prison with the butt-end of a musket, the Council of State dispersed;
+the High Court expelled by a galley-sergeant, a manifest beginning of
+victory for Louis Bonaparte, Paris ensnared in the army as though in a
+net; bewilderment everywhere, all authority overthrown; all compacts
+annulled; two things only remained standing, the _coup d'etat_ and
+ourselves.
+
+"Ourselves! and who are we?"
+
+"We are," said I, "we are Truth and Justice! We are the supreme and
+sovereign power, the People incarnate--Right!"
+
+I continued,--
+
+"Louis Bonaparte at every minute which elapses advances a step further
+in his crime. For him nothing is inviolable, nothing is sacred; this
+morning he violated the Palace of the Representatives of the Nation, a
+few hours later he laid violent hands on their persons; to-morrow,
+perhaps in a few moments, he will shed their blood. Well then! he
+marches upon us, let us march upon him. The danger grows greater, let us
+grow greater with the danger."
+
+A movement of assent passed through the Assembly. I continued,--
+
+"I repeat and insist. Let us show no mercy to this wretched Bonaparte
+for any of the enormities which his outrage contains. As he has drawn
+the wine--I should say the blood--he must drink it up. We are not
+individuals, we are the Nation. Each of us walks forth clothed with the
+Sovereignty of the people. He cannot strike our persons without rending
+that. Let us compel his volleys to pierce our sashes as well as our
+breasts. This man is on a road where logic grasps him and leads him to
+parricide. What he is killing in this moment is the country! Well, then!
+when the ball of Executive Power pierces the sash of Legislative Power,
+it is visible parricide! It is this that must be understood!"
+
+"We are
+quite ready!" they cried out. "What measures would you advise us to
+adopt?"
+
+"No half measures," answered I; "a deed of grandeur! To-morrow--if we
+leave here this night--let us all meet in the Faubourg St. Antoine."
+
+They interposed, "Why the Faubourg St. Antoine?"
+
+"Yes," resumed I, "the Faubourg St. Antoine! I cannot believe that the
+heart of the People has ceased to beat there. Let us all meet to-morrow
+in the Faubourg St. Antoine. Opposite the Lenoir Market there is a hall
+which was used by a club in 1848."
+
+They cried out to me, "The Salle Roysin."
+
+"That is it," said I, "The Salle Roysin. We who remain free number a
+hundred and twenty Republican Representatives. Let us install ourselves
+in this hall. Let us install ourselves in the fulness and majesty of the
+Legislative Power. Henceforward we are the Assembly, the whole of the
+Assembly! Let us sit there, deliberate there, in our official sashes,
+in the midst of the People. Let us summon the Faubourg St. Antoine to
+its duty, let us shelter there the National Representation, let us
+shelter there the popular sovereignty. Let us intrust the People to the
+keeping of the People. Let us adjure them to protect themselves. If
+necessary, let us order them!"
+
+A voice interrupted me: "You cannot give orders to the People!"
+
+"Yes!" I cried, "When it is a question of public safety, of the universal
+safety, when it is a question of the future of every European
+nationality, when it is a question of defending the Republic, Liberty,
+Civilization, the Revolution, we have the right--we, the Representatives
+of the entire nation--to give, in the name of the French people, orders
+to the people of Paris! Let us, therefore, meet to-morrow at this Salle
+Roysin; but at what time? Not too early in the morning. In broad day. It
+is necessary that the shops should be open, that people should be coming
+and going, that the population should be moving about, that there should
+be plenty of people in the streets, that they should see us, that they
+should recognize us, that the grandeur of our example should strike every
+eye and stir every heart. Let us all be there between nine and ten
+o'clock in the morning. If we cannot obtain the Salle Roysin we will take
+the first church at hand, a stable, a shed, some enclosure where we can
+deliberate; at need, as Michel de Bourges has said, we will hold our
+sittings in a square bounded by four barricades. But provisionally I
+suggest the Salle Roysin. Do not forget that in such a crisis there must
+be no vacuum before the nation. That alarms it. There must be a
+government somewhere, and it must be known. The rebellion at the Elysee,
+the Government at the Faubourg St. Antoine; the Left the Government, the
+Faubourg St. Antoine the citadel; such are the ideas which from to-morrow
+we must impress upon the mind of Paris. To the Salle Roysin, then! Thence
+in the midst of the dauntless throng of workmen of that great district of
+Paris, enclosed in the Faubourg as in a fortress, being both Legislators
+and Generals, multiplying and inventing means of defence and of attack,
+launching Proclamations and unearthing the pavements, employing the women
+in writing out placards while the men are fighting, we will issue a
+warrant against Louis Bonaparte, we will issue warrants against his
+accomplices, we will declare the military chiefs traitors, we will outlaw
+in a body all the crime and all the criminals, we will summon the
+citizens to arms, we will recall the army to duty, we will rise up before
+Louis Bonaparte, terrible as the living Republic, we will fight on the
+one hand with the power of the Law, and on the other with the power of
+the People, we will overwhelm this miserable rebel, and will rise up
+above his head both as a great Lawful Power and a great Revolutionary
+Power!"
+
+While speaking I became intoxicated with my own ideas. My enthusiasm
+communicated itself to the meeting. They cheered me. I saw that I was
+becoming somewhat too hopeful, that I allowed myself to be carried away,
+and that I carried them away, that I presented to them success as
+possible, as even easy, at a moment when it was important that no one
+should entertain an illusion. The truth was gloomy, and it was my duty
+to tell it. I let silence be re-established, and I signed with my hand
+that I had a last word to say. I then resumed, lowering my voice,--
+
+"Listen, calculate carefully what you are doing. On one side a hundred
+thousand men, seventeen harnessed batteries, six thousand cannon-mouths
+in the forts, magazines, arsenals, ammunition sufficient to carry out a
+Russian campaign; on the other a hundred and twenty Representatives, a
+thousand or twelve hundred patriots, six hundred muskets, two cartridges
+per man, not a drum to beat to arms, not a bell to sound the tocsin, not
+a printing office to print a Proclamation; barely here and there a
+lithographic press, and a cellar where a hand-bill can be hurriedly and
+furtively printed with the brush; the penalty of death against any one
+who unearths a paving stone, penalty of death against any one who would
+enlist in our ranks, penalty of death against any one who is found in a
+secret meeting, penalty of death against any one who shall post up an
+appeal to arms; if you are taken during the combat, death; if you are
+taken after the combat, transportation or exile; on the one side an army
+and a Crime; on the other a handful of men and Right. Such is this
+struggle. Do you accept it?"
+
+A unanimous shout answered me, "Yes! yes!"
+
+This shout did not come from the mouths, it came from the souls. Baudin,
+still seated next to me, pressed my hand in silence.
+
+It was settled therefore at once that they should meet again on the next
+day, Wednesday, between nine and ten in the morning, at the Salle Roysin,
+that they should arrive singly or by little separate groups, and that
+they should let those who were absent know of this rendezvous. This
+done, there remained nothing more but to separate. It was about
+midnight.
+
+One of Cournet's scouts entered. "Citizen Representatives," he said,
+"the regiment is no longer there. The street is free."
+
+The regiment, which had probably come from the Popincourt barracks close
+at hand, had occupied the street opposite the blind alley for more than
+half an hour, and then had returned to the barracks. Had they judged the
+attack inopportune or dangerous at night in that narrow blind alley, and
+in the centre of this formidable Popincourt district, where the
+insurrection had so long held its own in June, 1848? It appeared certain
+that the soldiers had searched several houses in the neighborhood.
+According to details which we learned subsequently, we were followed
+after leaving No. 2, Quai Jemmapes, by an agent of police, who saw us
+enter the house where a M. Cornet was lodging, and who at once proceeded
+to the Prefecture to denounce our place of refuge to his chiefs. The
+regiment sent to arrest us surrounded the house, ransacked it from attic
+to cellar, found nothing, and went away.
+
+This quasi-synonym of Cornet and Cournet lead misled the bloodhounds of
+the _coup d'etat_. Chance, we see, had interposed usefully in our
+affairs.
+
+I was talking at the door with Baudin, and we were making some last
+arrangements, when a young man with a chestnut beard, dressed like a man
+of fashion, and possessing all the manners of one, and whom I had
+noticed while speaking, came up to me.
+
+"Monsieur Victor Hugo," said he, "where are you going to sleep?"
+
+Up to that moment I had not thought of this.
+
+It was far from prudent to go home.
+
+"In truth," I answered, "I have not the least idea."
+
+"Will you come to my house?"
+
+"I shall be very happy."
+
+He told me his mane. It was M. de la R----. He knew my brother Abel's
+wife and family, the Montferriers, relations of the Chambaceres, and he
+lived in the Rue Caumartin. He had been a Prefect under the Provisional
+Government. There was a carriage in waiting. We got in, and as Baudin
+told me that he would pass the night at Cournet's, I gave him the
+address of M. do la R----, so that he could send for me if any notice of
+the movement came from the Faubourg St. Marceau or elsewhere. But I
+hoped for nothing more that night, and I was right.
+
+About a quarter of an hour after the separation of the Representatives,
+and after we had left the Rue Popincourt, Jules Favre, Madier de
+Montajau, de Flotte, and Carnot, to whom we had sent word to the Rue des
+Moulins, arrived at Cournet's, accompanied by Schoelcher, by Charamaule,
+by Aubry (du Nord), and by Bastide. Some Representatives were still
+remaining at Cournet's. Several, like Baudin, were going to pass the
+night there. They told our colleagues what had been settled respecting
+my proposition, and of the rendezvous at the Salle Roysin; only it
+appears that there was some doubt regarding the hour agreed upon, and
+that Baudin in particular did not exactly remember it, and that our
+colleagues believed that the rendezvous, which had been fixed for nine
+o'clock in the morning, was fixed for eight.
+
+This alteration in the hour, due to the treachery of memory for which no
+one can be blamed, prevented the realization of the plan which I had
+conceived of an Assembly holding its sittings in the Faubourg, and
+giving battle to Louis Bonaparte, but gave us as a compensation the
+heroic exploits of the Ste. Marguerite barricade.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+
+THE BURIAL OF A GREAT ANNIVERSARY
+
+Such was the first day. Let us look at it steadfastly. It deserves it.
+It is the anniversary of Austerlitz; the Nephew commemorates the Uncle.
+Austerlitz is the most brilliant battle of history; the Nephew set
+himself this problem--how to commit a baseness equal to this
+magnificence. He succeeded.
+
+This first day, which will be followed by others, is already complete.
+Everything is there. It is the most terrible attempt at a thrust
+backwards that has ever been essayed. Never has such a crumbling of
+civilization been seen. All that formed the edifice is now in ruin; the
+soil is strewn with the fragments. In one night the inviolability of the
+Law, the Right of the Citizen, the Dignity of the Judge, and the Honor
+of the Soldier have disappeared. Terrible substitutions have taken
+place; there was the oath, there is pergury; there was the flag, there
+is a rag; there was the Army, there is a band of brigands; there was
+Justice, there is treason; there was a code of laws, there is the sabre;
+there was a Government, there is a crew of swindlers; there was France,
+there is a den of thieves. This called itself Society Saved.
+
+It is the rescue of the traveller by the highwayman.
+
+France was passing by, Bonaparte cried, "Stand and deliver!"
+
+The hypocrisy which has preceded the Crime, equals in deformity the
+impudence which has followed it. The nation was trustful and calm. There
+was a sudden and cynical shock. History has recorded nothing equal to the
+Second of December. Here there was no glory, nothing but meanness. No
+deceptive picture. He could have declared himself honest; He declares
+himself infamous; nothing more simple. This day, almost unintelligible in
+its success, has proved that Politics possess their obscene side. Louis
+Bonaparte has shown himself unmasked.
+
+Yesterday President of the Republic, to-day a scavenger. He has sworn,
+he still swears: but the tone has changed. The oath has become an
+imprecation. Yesterday he called himself a maiden, to-day he becomes a
+brazen woman, and laughs at his dupes. Picture to yourself Joan of Arc
+confessing herself to be Messalina. Such is the Second of December.
+
+Women are mixed up in this treason. It is an outrage which savors both
+of the boudoir and of the galleys. There wafts across the fetidness of
+blood an undefined scent of patchouli. The accomplices of this act of
+brigandage are most agreeable men--Romieu, Morny. Getting into debt
+leads one to commit crimes.
+
+Europe was astounded. It was a thunder bolt from a thief. It must be
+acknowledged that thunder can fall into bad hands, Palmerston, that
+traitor, approved of it. Old Metternich, a dreamer in his villa at
+Rennweg, shook his head. As to Soult, the man of Austerlitz after
+Napoleon, he did what he ought to do, on the very day of the Crime he
+died, Alas! and Austerlitz also.
+
+
+
+
+THE SECOND DAY--THE STRUGGLE.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+THEY COME TO ARREST ME
+
+In order to reach the Rue Caumartin from the Rue Popincourt, all Paris
+has to be crossed. We found a great apparent calm everywhere. It was one
+o'clock in the morning when we reached M. de la R----'s house. The
+_fiacre_ stopped near a grated door, which M. de la R---- opened with a
+latch-key; on the right, under the archway, a staircase ascended to the
+first floor of a solitary detached building which M. de la R----
+inhabited, and into which he led me.
+
+We entered a little drawing-room very richly furnished, lighted with a
+night-lamp, and separated from the bedroom by a tapestry curtain
+two-thirds drown. M. de la R---- went into the bedroom, and a few minutes
+afterwards came back again, accompanied by a charming woman, pale and
+fair, in a dressing-gown, her hair down, handsome, fresh, bewildered,
+gentle nevertheless, and looking at me with that alarm which in a young
+face confers an additional grace. Madame de la R---- had just been
+awakened by her husband. She remained a moment on the threshold of her
+chamber, smiling, half asleep, greatly astonished, somewhat frightened,
+looking by turns at her husband and at me, never having dreamed perhaps
+what civil war really meant, and seeing it enter abruptly into her rooms
+in the middle of the night under this disquieting form of an unknown
+person who asks for a refuge.
+
+I made Madame de la R---- a thousand apologies, which she received with
+perfect kindness, and the charming woman profited by the incident to go
+and caress a pretty little girl of two years old who was sleeping at the
+end of the room in her cot, and the child whom she kissed caused her to
+forgive the refugee who had awakened her.
+
+While chatting M. de la R---- lighted a capital fire in the grate, and
+his wife, with a pillow and cushions, a hooded cloak belonging to him,
+and a pelisse belonging to herself, improvised opposite the fire a bed
+on a sofa, somewhat short, and which we lengthened by means of an
+arm-chair.
+
+During the deliberation in the Rue Popincourt, at which I had just
+presided, Baudin had lent me his pencil to jot down some names. I still
+had this pencil with me. I made use of it to write a letter to my wife,
+which Madame de la R---- undertook to convey herself to Madame Victor
+Hugo the next day. While emptying my pockets I found a box for the
+"Italiens," which I offered to Madame de la R----. On that evening
+(Tuesday, December 2d) they were to play _Hernani_.
+
+I looked at that cot, these two handsome, happy young people, and at
+myself, my disordered hair and clothes, my boots covered with mud,
+gloomy thoughts in my mind, and I felt like an owl in a nest of
+nightingales.
+
+A few moments afterwards M. and Madame de la R---- had disappeared into
+their bedroom, and the half-opened curtain was closed. I stretched
+myself, fully dressed as I was, upon the sofa, and this gentle nest
+disturbed by me subsided into its graceful silence.
+
+One can sleep on the eve of a battle between two armies, but on the eve
+of a battle between citizens there can be no sleep. I counted each hour
+as it sounded from a neighboring church; throughout the night there
+passed down the street, which was beneath the windows of the room where I
+was lying, carriages which were fleeing from Paris. They succeeded each
+other rapidly and hurriedly, one might have imagined it was the exit from
+a ball. Not being able to sleep, I got up. I had slightly parted the
+muslin curtains of a window, and I tried to look outside; the darkness
+was complete. No stars, clouds were flying by with the turbulent violence
+of a winter night. A melancholy wind howled. This wind of clouds
+resembled the wind of events.
+
+I watched the sleeping baby. I waited for dawn. It came. M. de la R----
+had explained at my request in what manner I could go out without
+disturbing any one. I kissed the child's forehead, and left the room. I
+went downstairs, closing the doors behind me as gently as I could, so
+not to wake Madame de la R----. I opened the iron door and went out into
+the street. It was deserted, the shops were still shut, and a milkwoman,
+with her donkey by her side, was quietly arranging her cans on the
+pavement.
+
+I have not seen M. de la R---- again. I learned since that he wrote to
+me in my exile, and that his letter was intercepted. He has, I believe,
+quitted France. May this touching page convey to him my kind
+remembrances.
+
+The Rue Caumartin leads into the Rue St. Lazare. I went towards it. It
+was broad daylight. At every moment I was overtaken and passed by
+_fiacres_ laden with trunks and packages, which were hastening towards
+the Havre railway station. Passers-by began to appear. Some baggage
+trains were mounting the Rue St. Lazare at the same time as myself.
+Opposite No. 42, formerly inhabited by Mdlle. Mars, I saw a new bill
+posted on the wall. I went up to it, I recognized the type of the
+National Printing Office, and I read,
+
+  "COMPOSITION OF THE NEW MINISTRY.
+
+  "_Interior_           --M. de Morny.
+  "_War_                --The General of Division St. Arnaud.
+  "_Foreign Affairs_    --M. de Turgot.
+  "_Justice_            --M. Rouher.
+  "_Finance_            --M. Fould.
+  "_Marine_             --M. Ducos.
+  "_Public Works_       --M. Magne.
+  "_Public Instruction_ --M.H. Fortuol.
+  "_Commerce_           --M. Lefebre-Durufle."
+
+I tore down the bill, and threw it into the gutter! The soldiers of the
+party who were leading the wagons watched me do it, and went their way.
+
+In the Rue St. Georges, near a side-door, there was another bill. It was
+the "Appeal to the People." Some persons were reading it. I tore it
+down, notwithstanding the resistance of the porter, who appeared to me
+to be entrusted with the duty of protecting it.
+
+As I passed by the Place Breda some _fiacres_ had already arrived there.
+I took one. I was near home, the temptation was too great, I went there.
+On seeing me cross the courtyard the porter looked at me with a
+stupefied air. I rang the bell. My servant, Isidore, opened the door,
+and exclaimed with a great cry, "Ah! it is you, sir! They came during
+the night to arrest you." I went into my wife's room. She was in bed,
+but not asleep, and she told me what had happened.
+
+She had gone to bed at eleven o'clock. Towards half-past twelve, during
+that species of drowsiness which resembles sleeplessness, she heard
+men's voices. It seemed to her that Isidore was speaking to some one in
+the antechamber. At first she did not take any notice, and tried to go
+to sleep again, but the noise of voices continued. She sat up, and rang
+the bell.
+
+Isidore came in. She asked him,
+
+"Is any one there?"
+
+"Yes, madame."
+
+"Who is it?"
+
+"A man who wishes to speak to master."
+
+"Your master is out."
+
+"That is what I have told him, madame."
+
+"Well, is not the gentleman going?"
+
+"No, madame, he says that he urgently needs to speak to Monsieur Victor
+Hugo, and that he will wait for him."
+
+Isidore had stopped on the threshold of the bedroom. While he spoke a
+fat, fresh-looking man in an overcoat, under which could be seen a black
+coat, appeared at the door behind him.
+
+Madame Victor Hugo noticed this man, who was silently listening.
+
+"Is it you, sir, who wish to speak to Monsieur Victor Hugo?"
+
+"Yes, madame."
+
+"But what is it about? Is it regarding politics?"
+
+The man did not answer.
+
+"As to politics," continued my wife, "what is happening?"
+
+"I believe, madame, that all is at an end."
+
+"In what sense?"
+
+"In the sense of the President."
+
+My wife looked fixedly at the man, and said to him,--
+
+"You have come to arrest my husband, sir."
+
+"It is true, madame," answered the man, opening his overcoat, which
+revealed the sash of a Commissary of Police.
+
+He added after a pause, "I am a Commissary of Police, and I am the
+bearer of a warrant to arrest M. Victor Hugo. I must institute a search
+and look through the house."
+
+"What is your name, sir?" asked Madame Victor Hugo.
+
+"My name is Hivert."
+
+"You know the terms of the Constitution?"
+
+"Yes, madam."
+
+"You know that the Representatives of the People are inviolable!"
+
+"Yes, madame."
+
+"Very well, sir," she said coldly, "you know that you are committing a
+crime. Days like this have a to-morrow; proceed."
+
+The Sieur Hivert attempted a few words of explanation, or we should
+rather say justification; he muttered the word "conscience," he
+stammered the word "honor." Madame Victor Hugo, who had been calm until
+then, could not help interrupting him with some abruptness.
+
+"Do your business, sir, and do not argue; you know that every official
+who lays a hand on a Representative of the People commits an act of
+treason. You know that in presence of the Representatives the President
+is only an official like the others, the chief charged with carrying out
+their orders. You dare to come to arrest a Representative in his own
+home like a criminal! There is in truth a criminal here who ought to be
+arrested--yourself!"
+
+The Sieur Hivert looked sheepish and left the room, and through the
+half-open door my wife could see, behind the well-fed, well-clothed,
+and bald Commissary, seven or eight poor raw-boned devils, wearing dirty
+coats which reached to their feet, and shocking old hats jammed down over
+their eyes--wolves led by a dog. They examined the room, opened here and
+there a few cupboards, and went away--with a sorrowful air--as Isidore
+said to me.
+
+The Commissary Hivert, above all, hung his head; he raised it, however,
+for one moment. Isidore, indignant at seeing these men thus hunt for his
+master in every corner, ventured to defy them. He opened a drawer and
+said, "Look and see if he is not in here!" The Commissary of Police
+darted a furious glance at him: "Lackey, take care!" The lackey was
+himself.
+
+These men having gone, it was noticed that several of my papers were
+missing. Fragments of manuscripts had been stolen, amongst others one
+dated July, 1848, and directed against the military dictatorship of
+Cavaignac, and in which there were verses written respecting the
+Censorship, the councils of war, and the suppression of the newspapers,
+and in particular respecting the imprisonment of a great journalist--Emile
+de Girardin:--
+
+    "... O honte, un lansquenet
+    Gauche, et parodiant Cesar dont il herite,
+    Gouverne les esprits du fond de sa guerite!"
+
+These manuscripts are lost.
+
+The police might come back at any moment, in fact they did come back a
+few minutes after I had left. I kissed my wife; I would not wake my
+daughter, who had just fallen asleep, and I went downstairs again. Some
+affrighted neighbors were waiting for me in the courtyard. I cried out
+to them laughingly, "Not caught yet!"
+
+A quarter of an hour afterwards I reached No. 10, Rue des Moulins. It
+was not then eight o'clock in the morning, and thinking that my
+colleagues of the Committee of Insurrection had passed the night there,
+I thought it might be useful to go and fetch them, so that we might
+proceed all together to the Salle Roysin.
+
+I found only Madame Landrin in the Rue des Moulins. It was thought that
+the house was denounced and watched, and my colleagues had changed their
+quarters to No. 7, Rue Villedo, the house of the ex-Constituent Leblond,
+legal adviser to the Workmen's Association. Jules Favre had passed the
+night there. Madame Landrin was breakfasting. She offered me a place by
+her side, but time pressed. I carried off a morsel of bread, and left.
+
+At No. 7, Rue Villedo, the maid-servant who opened the door to me
+ushered me into a room where were Carnot, Michel de Bourges, Jules
+Favre, and the master of the house, our former colleague, Constituent
+Leblond.
+
+"I have a carriage downstairs," I said to them; "the rendezvous is at
+the Salle Roysin in the Faubourg St. Antoine; let us go."
+
+This, however, was not their opinion. According to them the attempts
+made on the previous evening in the Faubourg St. Antoine had revealed
+this portion of the situation; they sufficed; it was useless to persist;
+it was obvious that the working-class districts would not rise; we must
+turn to the side of the tradesmen's districts, renounce our attempt to
+rouse the extremities of the city, and agitate the centre. We were the
+Committee of Resistance, the soul of the insurrection; if we were to go
+to the Faubourg St. Antoine, which was occupied by a considerable force,
+we should give ourselves up to Louis Bonaparte. They reminded me of what
+I myself had said on the subject the previous evening in the Rue
+Blanche. We must immediately organize the insurrection against the _coup
+d'etat_ and organize it in practicable districts, that is to say, in the
+old labyrinths of the streets St. Denis and St. Martin; we must draw up
+proclamations, prepare decrees, create some method of publicity; they
+were waiting for important communications from Workmen's Associations
+and Secret Societies. The great blow which I wished to strike by our
+solemn meeting at the Salle Roysin would prove a failure; they thought
+it their duty to remain where they were; and the Committee being few in
+number, and the work to be done being enormous, they begged me not to
+leave them.
+
+They were men of great hearts and great courage who spoke to me; they
+were evidently right; but for myself I could not fail to go to the
+rendezvous which I myself had fixed. All the reasons which they had
+given me were good, nevertheless I could have opposed some doubts, but
+the discussion would have taken too much time, and the hour drew nigh.
+I did not make any objections, and I went out of the room, making some
+excuse. My hat was in the antechamber, my _fiacre_ was waiting for me,
+and I drove off to the Faubourg St. Antoine.
+
+The centre of Paris seemed to have retained its everyday appearance.
+People came and went, bought and sold, chatted and laughed as usual. In
+the Rue Montorgueil I heard a street organ. Only on nearing the Faubourg
+St. Antoine the phenomenon which I had already noticed on the previous
+evening became more and more apparent; solitude reigned, and a certain
+dreary peacefulness.
+
+We reached the Place de la Bastille.
+
+My driver stopped.
+
+"Go on," I said to him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+FROM THE BASTILLE TO THE RUE DE COTTE
+
+The Place de la Bastille was at the same time empty and filled. Three
+regiments in battle array were there; not one passer-by.
+
+Four harnessed batteries were drawn up at the foot of the column. Here
+and there knots of officers talked together in a low voice,--sinister
+men.
+
+One of these groups, the principal, attracted my attention. That one
+was silent, there was no talking. There were several men on horseback;
+one in front of the others, in a general's uniform, with a hat
+surmounted with black feathers, behind this man were two colonels, and
+behind the colonels a party of _aides-de-camp_ and staff officers.
+This lace-trimmed company remained immovable, and as though pointing
+like a dog between the column and the entrance to the Faubourg. At a
+short distance from this group, spread out, and occupying the whole of
+the square, were the regiments drawn up and the cannon in their
+batteries.
+
+"My driver again stopped.
+
+"Go on," I said; "drive into the Faubourg."
+
+"But they will prevent us, sir."
+
+"We shall see."
+
+The truth was that they did not prevent us.
+
+The driver continued on his way, but hesitatingly, and at a walking
+pace. The appearance of a _fiacre_ in the square had caused some
+surprise, and the inhabitants began to come out of their houses. Several
+came up to my carriage.
+
+We passed by a group of men with huge epaulets. These men, whose tactics
+we understood later on, did not even appear to see us.
+
+The emotion which I had felt on the previous day before a regiment of
+cuirassiers again seized me. To see before me the assassins of the
+country, at a few steps, standing upright, in the insolence of a
+peaceful triumph, was beyond my strength: I could not contain myself. I
+drew out my sash. I held it in my hand, and putting my arm and head out
+of the window of the _fiacre_, and shaking the sash, I shouted,--
+
+"Soldiers! Look at this sash. It is the symbol of Law, it is the
+National Assembly visible. Where there this sash is there is Right.
+Well, then, this is what Right commands you. You are being deceived. Go
+back to your duty. It is a Representative of the People who is speaking
+to you, and he who represents the People represents the army. Soldiers,
+before becoming soldiers you have been peasants, you have been workmen,
+you have been and you are still citizens. Citizens, listen to me when I
+speak to you. The Law alone has the right to command you. Well, to-day
+the law is violated. By whom? By you. Louis Bonaparte draws you into a
+crime. Soldiers, you who are Honor, listen to me, for I am Duty.
+Soldiers, Louis Bonaparte assassinates the Republic. Defend it. Louis
+Bonaparte is a bandit; all his accomplices will follow him to the
+galleys. They are there already. He who is worthy of the galleys is in
+the galleys. To merit fetters is to wear them. Look at that man who is
+at your head, and who dares to command you. You take him for a general,
+he is a convict."
+
+The soldiers seemed petrified.
+
+Some one who was there (I thank his generous, devoted spirit) touched my
+arm, and whispered in my ear, "You will get yourself shot."
+
+But I did not heed, and I listened to nothing. I continued, still waving
+my sash,--"You, who are there, dressed up like a general, it is you to
+whom I speak, sir. You know who I am, I am a Representative of the
+People, and I know who you are. I have told you you are a criminal.
+Now, do you wish to know my name? This is it."
+
+And I called out my name to him.
+
+And I added,--
+
+"Now tell me yours."
+
+He did not answer.
+
+I continued,--
+
+"Very well, I do not want to know your name as a general, I shall know
+your number as a galley slave."
+
+The man in the general's uniform hung his head, the others were silent.
+I could read all their looks, however, although they did not raise their
+eyes. I saw them cast down, and I felt that they were furious. I had an
+overwhelming contempt for them, and I passed on.
+
+What was the name of this general? I did not know then, and I do not
+know now.
+
+One of the apologies for the _coup d'etat_ in relating this incident,
+and characterizing it as "an insensate and culpable provocation," states
+that "the moderation shown by the military leaders on this occasion did
+honor to General ----:" We leave to the author of this panegyric the
+responsibility of that name and of this eulogium.
+
+I entered the Rue de Faubourg St. Antoine.
+
+My driver, who now knew my name, hesitated no longer, and whipped up his
+horse. These Paris coachmen are a brave and intelligent race.
+
+As I passed the first shops of the main street nine o'clock sounded from
+the Church St. Paul.
+
+"Good," I said to myself, "I am in time."
+
+The Faubourg presented an extraordinary aspect. The entrance was
+guarded, but not closed, by two companies of infantry. Two other
+companies were drawn up in echelons farther on, at short distances,
+occupying the street, but leaving a free passage. The shops, which were
+open at the end of the Faubourg, were half closed a hundred yards
+farther up. The inhabitants, amongst whom I noticed numerous workmen in
+blouses, were talking together at their doors, and watching the
+proceedings. I noticed at each step the placards of the _coup d'etat_
+untouched.
+
+Beyond the fountain which stands at the corner of the Rue de
+Charonne the shops were closed. Two lines of soldiers extended on
+either side of the street of the Faubourg on the kerb of the pavement;
+the soldiers were stationed at every five paces, with the butts of their
+muskets resting on their hips, their chests drawn in, their right hand
+on the trigger, ready to bring to the present, keeping silence in the
+attitude of expectation. From that point a piece of cannon was stationed
+at the mouth of each of the side streets which open out of the main road
+of the Faubourg. Occasionally there was a mortar. To obtain a clear idea
+of this military arrangement one must imagine two rosaries, extending
+along the two sides of the Faubourg St. Antoine, of which the soldiers
+should form the links and the cannon the beads.
+
+Meanwhile my driver became uneasy. He turned round to me and said, "It
+looks as though we should find barricades out there, sir; shall we turn
+back?"
+
+"Keep on," I replied.
+
+He continued to drive straight on.
+
+Suddenly it became impossible to do so. A company of infantry ranged
+three deep occupied the whole of the street from one pavement to the
+other. On the right there was a small street. I said to the driver,--
+
+"Take that turning."
+
+He turned to the right and then to the left. We turned into a labyrinth
+of streets.
+
+Suddenly I heard a shot.
+
+The driver asked me,--
+
+"Which way are we to go, sir?"
+
+"In the direction in which you hear the shots."
+
+We were in a narrow street; on my left I saw the inscription above a
+door, "Grand Lavoir," and on my right a square with a central building,
+which looked like a market. The square and the street were deserted. I
+asked the driver,--
+
+"What street are we in?"
+
+"In the Rue de Cotte."
+
+"Where is the Cafe Roysin?"
+
+"Straight before us."
+
+"Drive there."
+
+He drove on, but slowly. There was another explosion, this time close by
+us, the end of the street became filled with smoke; at the moment we
+were passing No. 22, which has a side-door above which I
+read, "Petit Lavoir."
+
+Suddenly a voice called out to the driver, "Stop!"
+
+The driver pulled up, and the window of the _fiacre_ being down, a hand
+was stretched towards mine. I recognized Alexander Rey.
+
+This daring man was pale.
+
+"Go no further," said he; "all is at an end."
+
+"What do you mean, all at an end?"
+
+"Yes, they must have anticipated the time appointed; the barricade is
+taken: I have just come from it. It is a few steps from here straight
+before us."
+
+And he added,--
+
+"Baudin is killed."
+
+The smoke rolled away from the end of the street.
+
+"Look," said Alexander Rey to me.
+
+I saw, a hundred steps before us, at the junction of the Rue de Cotte
+and the Rue Ste. Marguerite, a low barricade which the soldiers were
+pulling down. A corpse was being borne away.
+
+It was Baudin.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+THE ST. ANTOINE BARRICADE
+
+This is what had happened.
+
+During that same night, and as early as four o'clock in the morning, De
+Flotte was in the Faubourg St. Antoine. He was anxious, in case any
+movement took place before daylight, that a Representative of the People
+should be present, and he was one of those who, when the glorious
+insurrection of Right should burst forth, wished to unearth the
+paving-stones for the first barricade.
+
+But nothing was stirring. De Flotte, alone in the midst of this deserted
+and sleeping Faubourg, wandered from street to street throughout the
+night.
+
+Day breaks late in December. Before the first streaks of dawn De Flotte
+was at the rendezvous opposite the Lenoir Market.
+
+This spot was only weakly guarded. The only troops in the neighborhood
+were the post itself of the Lenoir Market, and another post at a short
+distance which occupied the guard-house at the corner of the Faubourg and
+the Rue de Montreuil, close to the old Tree of Liberty planted in 1793 by
+Santerre. Neither of these posts were commanded by officers.
+
+De Flotte reconnoitred the position. He walked some time up and down the
+pavement, and then seeing no one coming as yet, and fearing to excite
+attention, he went away, and returned to the side-streets of the
+Faubourg.
+
+For his part Aubry (du Nord) got up at five o'clock. Having gone home in
+the middle of the night, on his return from the Rue Popincourt, he had
+only taken three hours' rest. His porter told him that some suspicious
+persons had inquired for him during the evening of the 2d, and that they
+had been to the house opposite, No. 12 of the same street, Rue Racine,
+to arrest Huguenin. This determined Aubry to leave his house before
+daylight.
+
+He walked to the Faubourg St. Antoine. As he reached the place of
+rendezvous he met Cournet and the others from the Rue Popincourt. They
+were almost immediately joined by Malardier.
+
+It was dawn. The Faubourg was solitary. They walked along wrapt in
+thought and speaking in a low voice. Suddenly an impetuous and singular
+procession passed them.
+
+They looked round. It was a detachment of Lancers which surrounded
+something which in the dim light they recognized to be a police-van. The
+vehicle rolled noiselessly along the macadamized road.
+
+They were debating what this could mean, when a second and similar group
+appeared, then a third, and then a fourth. Ten police vans passed in
+this manner, following each other very closely, and almost touching.
+
+"Those are our colleagues!" exclaimed Aubry (du Nord).
+
+In truth the last batch of the Representatives, prisoners of the Quai
+d'Orsay, the batch destined for Vincennes, was passing through the
+Faubourg. It was about seven o'clock in the morning. Some shops were
+being opened and were lighted inside, and a few passers-by came out of
+the houses.
+
+Three carriages defiled one after the other, closed, guarded, dreary,
+dumb; no voice came out, no cry, no whisper. They were carrying off in
+the midst of swords, of sabres, and of lances, with the rapidity and
+fury of the whirlwind, something which kept silence; and that something
+which they were carrying off, and which maintained this sinister
+silence, was the broken Tribune, the Sovereignty of the Assemblies, the
+supreme initiative whence all civilization is derived; it was the word
+which contains the future of the world, it was the speech of France!
+
+A last carriage arrived, which by some chance had been delayed. It was
+about two or three hundred yards behind the principal convoy, and was
+only escorted by three Lancers. It was not a police-van, it was an
+omnibus, the only one in the convoy. Behind the conductor, who was a
+police agent, there could distinctly be seen the Representatives heaped
+up in the interior. It seemed easy to rescue them.
+
+Cournet appealed to the passers-by; "Citizens," he cried, "these are
+your Representatives, who are being carried off! You have just seen
+them pass in the vans of convicts! Bonaparte arrests them contrary to
+every law. Let us rescue them! To arms!"
+
+A knot formed of men in blouses and of workmen going to work. A shout
+came from the knot, "Long live the Republic!" and some men rushed
+towards the vehicle. The carriage and the Lancers broke into a gallop.
+
+"To arms!" repeated Cournet.
+
+"To arms!" repeated the men of the people.
+
+There was a moment of impulse. Who knows what might have happened? It
+would have been a singular accident if the first barricade against the
+_coup d'etat_ had been made with this omnibus, which, after having aided
+in the crime, would this have aided in the punishment. But at the moment
+when the people threw themselves on the vehicle they saw several of the
+Representative-prisoners which it contained sign to them with both hands
+to refrain. "Eh!" said a workman, "they do not wish it!"
+
+A second repeated, "They do not wish for liberty!"
+
+Another added, "They did not wish us to have it, they do not wish it for
+themselves."
+
+All was said, and the omnibus was allowed to pass on. A moment
+afterwards the rear-guard of the escort came up and passed by at a sharp
+trots and the group which surrounded Aubry (du Nord), Malardier, and
+Cournet dispersed.
+
+The Cafe Roysin had just opened. It may be remembered that the large
+hall of this _cafe_ had served for the meeting of a famous club in 1848.
+It was there, it may also be remembered, that the rendezvous had been
+settled.
+
+The Cafe Roysin is entered by a passage opening out upon the street, a
+lobby of some yards in length is next crossed, and then comes a large
+hall, with high windows, and looking-glasses on the walls, containing in
+the centre several billiard-tables, some small marble-topped tables,
+chairs, and velvet-covered benches. It was this hall, badly arranged,
+however, for a meeting where we could have deliberated, which had been
+the hall of the Roysin Club. Cournet, Aubry, and Malardier installed
+themselves there. On entering they did not disguise who they were; they
+were welcomed, and shown an exit through the garden in case of
+necessity.
+
+De Flotte had just joined them.
+
+Eight o'clock was striking when the Representatives began to arrive.
+Bruckner, Maigne, and Brillier first, and then successively Charamaule,
+Cassal, Dulac, Bourzat, Madier de Montjau, and Baudin. Bourzat, on
+account of the mud, as was his custom, wore wooden shoes. Whoever
+thought Bourzat a peasant would be mistaken. He rather resembled a
+Benedictine monk. Bourzat, with his southern imagination, his quick
+intelligence, keen, lettered, refined, possesses an encyclopedia in his
+head, and wooden shoes on his feet. Why not? He is Mind and People. The
+ex-Constituent Bastide came in with Madier de Montjau. Baudin shook the
+hands of all with warmth, but he did not speak. He was pensive. "What is
+the matter with you, Baudin?" asked Aubry (du Nord). "Are you mournful?"
+"I?" said Baudin, raising his head, "I have never been more happy."
+
+Did he feel himself already chosen? When we are so near death, all
+radiant with glory, which smiles upon us through the gloom, perhaps we
+are conscious of it.
+
+A certain number of men, strangers to the Assembly, all as determined as
+the Representatives themselves, accompanied them and surrounded them.
+
+Cournet was the leader. Amongst them there were workmen, but no blouses.
+In order not to alarm the middle classes the workmen had been
+requested, notably those employed by Derosne and Cail, to come in coats.
+
+Baudin had with him a copy of the Proclamation which I had dictated to
+him on the previous day. Cournet unfolded it and read it. "Let us at
+once post it up in the Faubourg," said he. "The People must know that
+Louis Bonaparte is outlawed." A lithographic workman who was there
+offered to print it without delay. All the Representatives present
+signed it, and they added my name to their signatures. Aubry (du Nord)
+headed it with these words, "National Assembly." The workman carried off
+the Proclamation, and kept his word. Some hours afterwards Aubry (du
+Nord), and later on a friend of Cournet's named Gay, met him in the
+Faubourg du Temple paste-pot in hand, posting the Proclamation at every
+street corner, even next to the Maupas placard, which threatened the
+penalty of death to any one who should be found posting an appeal to
+arms. Groups read the two bills at the same time. We may mention an
+incident which ought to be noted, a sergeant of the line, in uniform, in
+red trousers, accompanied him and protected him. He was doubtless a
+soldier who had lately left the service.
+
+The time fixed on the preceding evening for the general rendezvous was
+from nine to ten in the morning. This hour had been chosen so that there
+should be time to give notice to all the members of the Left; it was
+expedient to wait until the Representatives should arrive, so that the
+group should the more resemble an Assembly, and that its manifestation
+should have more authority on the Faubourg.
+
+Several of the Representatives who had already arrived had no sash of
+office. Some were made hastily in a neighboring house with strips of
+red, white, and blue calico, and were brought to them. Baudin and De
+Flotte were amongst those who girded on these improvised sashes.
+
+Meanwhile it was not yet nine o'clock, when impatience already began to
+be manifested around them.[9]
+
+Many shared this glorious impatience.
+
+Baudin wished to wait.
+
+"Do not anticipate the hour," said he; "let us allow our colleagues time
+to arrive."
+
+But they murmured round Baudin, "No, begin, give the signal, go outside.
+The Faubourg only waits to see your sashes to rise. You are few in
+number, but they know that your friends will rejoin you. That is
+sufficient. Begin."
+
+The result proved that this undue haste could only produce a failure.
+Meanwhile they considered that the first example which the
+Representatives of the People ought to set was personal courage. The
+spark must not be allowed to die out. To march the first, to march at
+the head, such was their duty. The semblance of any hesitation would
+have been in truth more disastrous than any degree of rashness.
+
+Schoelcher is of an heroic nature, he has the grand impatience of
+danger.
+
+"Let us go," he cried; "our friends will join us, let us go outside."
+
+They had no arms.
+
+"Let us disarm the post which is over there," said Schoelcher.
+
+They left the Salle Roysin in order, two by two, arm in arm. Fifteen or
+twenty men of the people escorted them. They went before them, crying,
+"Long live the Republic! To arms!"
+
+Some children preceded and followed them, shouting, "Long live the
+Mountain!"
+
+The entrances of the closed shops were half opened. A few men appeared
+at the doors, a few women showed themselves at the windows. Knots of
+workmen going to their work watched them pass. They cried, "Long live
+our Representatives! Long live the Republic!"
+
+Sympathy was everywhere, but insurrection nowhere. The procession
+gathered few adherents on the way.
+
+A man who was leading a saddled horse joined them. They did not know
+this man, nor whence this horse came. It seemed as if the man offered
+his services to any one who wished to fly. Representative Dulac ordered
+this man to be off.
+
+In this manner they reached the guard-house of the Rue de Montrenil. At
+their approach the sentry gave the alarm, and the soldiers came out of
+the guard-house in disorder.
+
+Schoelcher, calm, impassive, in ruffles and a white tie, clothed, as
+usual, in black, buttoned to the neck in his tight frock coat, with the
+intrepid and brotherly air of a Quaker, walked straight up to them.
+
+"Comrades," he said to them, "we are the Representatives of the People,
+and come in the name of the people to demand your arms for the defence
+of the Constitution and of the Laws!"
+
+The post allowed itself to be disarmed. The sergeant alone made any show
+of resistance, but they said to him, "You are alone," and he yielded.
+The Representatives distributed the guns and the cartridges to the
+resolute band which surrounded them.
+
+Some soldiers exclaimed, "Why do you take away our muskets! We would
+fight for you and with you!"
+
+The Representatives consulted whether they should accept this offer.
+Schoelcher was inclined to do so. But one of them remarked that some
+Mobile Guards had made the same overtures to the insurgents of June, and
+had turned against the Insurrection the arms which the Insurrection had
+left them.
+
+The muskets therefore were not restored.
+
+The disarming having been accomplished, the muskets were counted; there
+were fifteen of them.
+
+"We are a hundred and fifty," said Cournet, "we have not enough
+muskets."
+
+"Well, then," said Schoelcher, "where is there a post?"
+
+"At the Lenoir Market."
+
+"Let us disarm it."
+
+With Schoelcher at their head and escorted by fifteen armed men the
+Representatives proceeded to the Lenoir Market. The post of the Lenoir
+Market allowed themselves to be disarmed even more willingly than the
+post in the Rue de Montreuil. The soldiers turned themselves round so
+that the cartridges might be taken from their pouches.
+
+The muskets were immediately loaded.
+
+"Now," exclaimed De Flotte, "we have thirty guns, let us look for a
+street corner, and raise a barricade."
+
+There were at that time about two hundred combatants.
+
+They went up the Rue de Montreuil.
+
+After some fifty steps Schoelcher said, "Where are we going? We are
+turning our backs on the Bastille. We are turning our backs upon the
+conflict."
+
+They returned towards the Faubourg.
+
+They shouted, "To arms!" They Where answered by "Long live our
+Representatives!" But only a few young men joined them. It was evident
+that the breeze of insurrection was not blowing.
+
+"Never mind," said De Flotte, "let us begin the battle. Let us achieve
+the glory of being the first killed."
+
+As they reached the point where the Streets Ste. Marguerite and de Cotte
+open out and divide the Faubourg, a peasant's cart laden with dung
+entered the Rue Ste. Marguerite.
+
+"Here," exclaimed De Flotte.
+
+They stopped the dung-cart, and overturned it in the middle of the
+Faubourg St. Antoine.
+
+A milkwoman came up.
+
+They overturned the milk-cart.
+
+A baker was passing in his bread-cart. He saw what was being done,
+attempted to escape, and urged his horse to a gallop. Two or three
+street Arabs--those children of Paris brave as lions and agile as
+cats--sped after the baker, ran past his horse, which was still
+galloping, stopped it, and brought back the cart to the barricade which
+had been begun.
+
+They overturned the bread-cart.
+
+An omnibus came up on the road from the Bastille.
+
+"Very well!" said the conductor, "I see what is going on."
+
+He descended with a good grace, and told his passengers to get
+down, while the coachman unharnessed his horses and went away shaking
+his cloak.
+
+They overturned the omnibus.
+
+The four vehicles placed end to end barely barred the street of the
+Faubourg, which in this part is very wide. While putting them in line
+the men of the barricade said,--
+
+"Let us not injure the carts more than we can help."
+
+This formed an indifferent barricade, very low, too short, and which
+left the pavements free on either side.
+
+At this moment a staff officer passed by followed by an orderly, saw the
+barricade, and fled at a gallop.
+
+Schoelcher calmly inspected the overturned vehicles. When he reached the
+peasant's cart, which made a higher heap than the others, he said, "that
+is the only good one."
+
+The barricade grew larger. They threw a few empty baskets upon it, which
+made it thicker and larger without strengthening it.
+
+They were still working when a child came up to them shouting, "The
+soldiers!"
+
+In truth two companies arrived from the Bastille, at the double, through
+the Faubourg, told off in squads at short distances apart, and barring
+the whole of the street.
+
+The doors and the windows were hastily closed.
+
+During this time, at a corner of the barricade, Bastide, impassive, was
+gravely telling a story to Madier de Montjau. "Madier," said he, "nearly
+two hundred years ago the Prince de Conde, ready to give battle in this
+very Faubourg St. Antoine, where we now are, asked an officer who was
+accompanying him, 'Have you ever seen a battle lost?'--'No, sire.'
+'Well, then, you will see one now.'--Madier, I tell you to-day,--you
+will speedily see a barricade taken."
+
+In the meanwhile those who were armed had assumed their places for the
+conflict behind the barricade.
+
+The critical moment drew nigh.
+
+"Citizens," cried Schoelcher, "do not fire a shot. When the Army and the
+Faubourgs fight, the blood of the People is shed on both sides. Let us
+speak to the soldiers first."
+
+He mounted on one of the baskets which heightened the barricade. The
+other Representatives arranged themselves near him on the omnibus.
+Malardier and Dulac were on his right. Dulac said to him, "You scarcely
+know me, Citizen Schoelcher, but I love you. Let me have the charge of
+remaining by your side. I only belong to the second rank in the
+Assembly, but I want to be in the first rank of the battle."
+
+At this moment some men in blouses, those whom the Second of December
+had enlisted, appeared at the corner of the Rue Ste. Marguerite, close
+to the barricade, and shouted, "Down with the 'Twenty-five francs!'"
+
+Baudin who had already selected his post for the combat, and who was
+standing on the barricade, looked fixedly at these men, and said to
+them,--
+
+"You shall see how one can die for 'twenty-five francs!'"
+
+There was a noise in the street. Some few doors which had remained half
+opened were closed. The two attacking columns had arrived in sight of
+the barricade. Further on could be seen confusedly other lines of
+bayonets. They were those which had barred my passage.
+
+Schoelcher, raising his arm with authority, signed to the captain, who
+commanded the first squad, to halt.
+
+The captain made a negative sign with his sword. The whole of the Second
+of December was in these two gestures. The Law said, "Halt!" The Sabre
+answered, "No!"
+
+The two companies continued to advance, but slowly, and keeping at the
+same distance from each other.
+
+Schoelcher came down from the barricade into the street. De Flotte,
+Dulac, Malardier, Brillier, Maigne, and Bruckner followed him.
+
+Then was seen a grand spectacle.
+
+Seven Representatives of the People, armed only with their sashes, that
+is to say, majestically clothed with Law and Right, advanced in the
+street beyond the barricade, and marched straight to the soldiers, who
+awaited them with their guns pointed at them.
+
+The other Representatives who had remained at the barricade made their
+last preparations for resistance. The combatants maintained an intrepid
+bearing. The Naval Lieutenant Cournet towered above them all with his
+tall stature. Baudin, still standing on the overturned omnibus, leaned
+half over the barricade.
+
+On seeing the Representatives approach, the soldiers and their officers
+were for the moment bewildered. Meanwhile the captain signed to the
+Representatives to stop.
+
+They stopped, and Schoelcher said in an impressive voice,--
+
+"Soldiers! we are the Representatives of the Sovereign People, we are
+your Representatives, we are the Elect of Universal Suffrage. In the
+name of the Constitution, in the name of Universal Suffrage, in the name
+of the Republic, we, who are the National Assembly, we, who are the Law,
+order you to join us, we summon you to obey. We ourselves are your
+leaders. The Army belongs to the People, and the Representatives of the
+People are the Chiefs of the Army. Soldiers! Louis Bonaparte violates
+the Constitution, we have outlawed him. Obey us."
+
+The officer who was in command, a captain named Petit, did not allow him
+to finish.
+
+"Gentlemen," he said, "I have my orders. I belong to the People. I am a
+Republican as you are, but I am only an instrument."
+
+"You know the Constitution?" said Schoelcher.
+
+"I only know my instructions."
+
+"There is an instruction above all other instructions," continued
+Schoelcher, "obligatory upon the Soldier as upon the Citizen--the Law."
+
+He turned again towards the soldiers to harangue them, but the captain
+cried out to him,--
+
+"Not another word! You shall not go on! If you add one word, I shall
+give the order to fire."
+
+"What does that matter to us?" said Schoelcher.
+
+At this moment an officer arrived on horseback. It was the major of the
+regiment. He whispered for a moment to the captain.
+
+"Gentlemen! Representatives!" continued the captain, waving his sword,
+"withdraw, or I shall fire."
+
+"Fire!" shouted De Flotte.
+
+The Representatives--strange and heroic copy of Fontenoy--took off their
+hats, and faced the muskets.
+
+Schoelcher alone kept his hat on his head, and waited with his arms
+crossed.
+
+"Fix bayonets," said the captain. And turning towards the squads,
+"Charge!"
+
+"Vive la Republique!" cried out the Representatives.
+
+The
+bayonets were lowered, the companies moved forward, the soldiers came on
+at the double upon the motionless Representatives.
+
+It was a terrible and superb moment.
+
+The seven Representatives saw the bayonets at their breasts without a
+word, without a gesture, without one step backwards. But the hesitation
+which was not in their soul was in the heart of the soldiers.
+
+The soldiers felt distinctly that this was a double stain upon their
+uniform--the outrage upon the Representatives of the People--which was
+treason, and the slaughter of unarmed men, which was cowardice. Now
+treason and cowardice are two epaulets to which a general sometimes
+becomes reconciled, the soldier--never.
+
+When the bayonets were so close to the Representatives that they touched
+their breasts, they turned aside of their own accord, and the soldier's
+by an unanimous movement passed between the Representatives without
+doing them any harm. Schoelcher alone had his coat pierced in two
+places, and in his opinion this was awkwardness instead of intention.
+One of the soldiers who faced him wished to push him away from the
+captain, and touched him with his bayonet. The point encountered the
+book of the addresses of the Representatives, which Schoelcher had in
+his pocket, and only pierced his clothing.
+
+A soldier said to De Flotte, "Citizen, we do not wish to hurt you."
+
+Nevertheless a soldier came up to Bruckner and pointed his gun at him.
+
+"Well," said Bruckner, "fire."
+
+The soldier, touched, lowered his arm, and shook Bruckner's hand.
+
+It was singular that, notwithstanding the order given by the officers,
+the two companies successively came up to the Representatives, charged
+with the bayonet, and turned aside. Instructions may order, but instinct
+prevails; instructions may be crime, but instinct is honor. Major P----
+said afterwards, "They had told us that we should have to deal with
+brigands, we had to deal with heroes."
+
+Meanwhile those on the barricade were growing uneasy, and seeing their
+colleagues surrounded, and wishing to succor them, they fired a musket
+shot. This unfortunate shot killed a soldier between De Flotte and
+Schoelcher.
+
+The officer who commanded the second attacking squad passed close to
+Schoelcher as the poor soldier fell. Schoelcher pointed out the fallen
+man to the officer, and said to him, "Lieutenant, look!"
+
+The officer answered by a gesture of despair,--
+
+"What would you have us do?"
+
+The two companies replied to the shot by a general volley, and rushed to
+the assault of the barricade, leaving behind them the seven
+Representatives astounded at being still alive.
+
+The barricade replied by a volley, but it could not hold out. It was
+carried.
+
+Baudin was killed.
+
+He had remained standing in his position on the omnibus. Three balls
+reached him. One struck him in the right eye and penetrated into the
+brain. He fell. He never regained consciousness. Half-an-hour afterwards
+he was dead. His body was taken to the Ste. Marguerite Hospital.
+
+Bourzat, who was close to Baudin, with Aubry (du Nord), had his coat
+pierced by a ball.
+
+We must again remark a curious incident,--the soldiers made no prisoner
+on this barricade. Those who defended it dispersed through the streets
+of the Faubourg, or took refuge in the neighboring houses. Representative
+Maigne, pushed by some affrighted women behind a door, was shut in with
+one of the soldiers who had just taken the barricade. A moment afterwards
+the soldier and the Representative went out together. The Representatives
+could freely leave this first field of battle.
+
+At this solemn moment of the struggle a last glimmer of Justice and of
+Right still flickered, and military honesty recoiled with a sort of
+dread anxiety before the outrage upon which they were entering. There is
+the intoxication of good, and there is an intoxication of evil: this
+intoxication later on drowned the conscience of the Army.
+
+The French Army is not made to commit crimes. When the struggle became
+prolonged, and ferocious orders of the day had to be executed, the
+soldiers must have been maddened. They obeyed not coldly, which would
+have been monstrous, but with anger, and this History will invoke as
+their excuse; and with many, perhaps, despair was at the root of their
+anger.
+
+The fallen soldier had remained on the ground. It was Schoelcher who
+raised him. A few women, weeping, but brave, came out of a house. Some
+soldiers came up. They carried him, Schoelcher holding his head, first
+to a fruiterer's shop, then to the Ste. Marguerite Hospital, where they
+had already taken Baudin.
+
+He was a conscript. The ball had entered his side. Through his gray
+overcoat buttoned to the collar, could be seen a hole stained with
+blood. His head had sunk on his shoulder, his pale countenance,
+encircled by the chinstrap of his shako, had no longer any expression,
+the blood oozed out of his mouth. He seemed barely eighteen years old.
+Already a soldier and still a boy. He was dead.
+
+This poor soldier was the first victim of the _coup d'etat_. Baudin was
+the second.
+
+Before being a Republican Baudin had been a tutor. He came from that
+intelligent and brave race of schoolmasters ever persecuted, who have
+fallen from the Guizot Law into the Falloux Law, and from the Falloux
+Law into the Dupanloup Law. The crime of the schoolmaster is to hold a
+book open; that suffices, the Church condemns him. There is now, in
+France, in each village, a lighted torch--the schoolmaster--and a mouth
+which blows upon it--the cure. The schoolmasters of France, who knew how
+to die of hunger for Truth and for Science, were worthy that one of
+their race should be killed for Liberty.
+
+The first time that I saw Baudin was at the Assembly on January 13,
+1850. I wished to speak against the Law of Instruction. I had not put my
+name down; Baudin's name stood second. He offered me his turn. I
+accepted, and I was able to speak two days afterwards, on the 15th.
+
+Baudin was one of the targets of Sieur Dupin, for calls to order and
+official annoyances. He shared this honor with the Representatives Miot
+and Valentin.
+
+Baudin ascended the Tribune several times. His mode of speaking,
+outwardly hesitating, was energetic in the main. He sat on the crest of
+the Mountain. He had a firm spirit and timid manners. Thence there was in
+his constitution an indescribable embarrassment, mingled with decision.
+He was a man of middle height. His face ruddy and full, his broad chest,
+his wide shoulders announced the robust man, the laborer-schoolmaster,
+the peasant-thinker. In this he resembled Bourzat. Baudin leaned his head
+on his shoulder, listened with intelligence, and spoke with a gentle and
+grave voice. He had the melancholy air and the bitter smile of the
+doomed.
+
+On the evening of the Second of December I had asked him, "How old are
+you?" He had answered me, "Not quite thirty-three years."
+
+"And you?" said he.
+
+"Forty-nine."
+
+And he replied,--
+
+"To-day we are of the same age."
+
+He thought in truth of that to-morrow which awaited us, and in which was
+hidden that "perhaps" which is the great leveller.
+
+The first shots had been fired, a Representative had fallen, and the
+people did not rise! What bandage had they on their eyes, what weight
+had they on their hearts? Alas! the gloom which Louis Bonaparte had
+known how to cast over his crime, far from lifting, grew denser. For the
+first time in the sixty years, that the Providential era of Revolutions
+had been open, Paris, the city of intelligence, seemed not to
+understand!
+
+On leaving the barricade of the Rue Ste. Marguerite, De Flotte went to
+the Faubourg St. Marceau, Madier de Montjau went to Belleville,
+Charamaule and Maigne proceeded to the Boulevards. Schoelcher, Dulac,
+Malardier, and Brillier again went up the Faubourg St. Antoine by the
+side streets which the soldiers had not yet occupied. They shouted,
+"Vive la Republique!" They harangued the people on the doorsteps: "Is it
+the Empire that you want?" exclaimed Schoelcher. They even went as far
+as to sing the "Marseillaise." People took off their hats as they passed
+and shouted "Long live the Representatives!" But that was all.
+
+They were thirsty and weary. In the Rue de Reuilly a man came out of a
+door with a bottle in his hand, and offered them drink.
+
+Sartin joined them on the way. In the Rue de Charonne they entered the
+meeting-place of the Association of Cabinet Makers, hoping to find there
+the committee of the association in session. There was no
+one there. But nothing discouraged them.
+
+As they reached the Place de la Bastille, Dulac said to Schoelcher, "I
+will ask permission to leave you for an hour or two, for this reason: I
+am alone in Paris with my little daughter, who is seven years old. For
+the past week she has had scarlet fever. Yesterday, when the _coup
+d'etat_ burst forth, she was at death's door. I have no one but this
+child in the world. I left her this morning to come with you, and she
+said to me, 'Papa, where are you going?' As I am not killed, I will go
+and see if she is not dead."
+
+Two hours afterwards the child was still living, and we were holding a
+permanent sitting at No. 15, Rue Richelieu, Jules Favre, Carnot, Michel
+de Bourges, and myself, when Dulac entered, and said to us, "I have come
+to place myself at your disposal."
+
+
+[9] "There was also a misunderstanding respecting the appointed time.
+Some made a mistake, and thought it was nine o'clock. The first arrivals
+impatiently awaited their colleagues. They were, as we have said, some
+twelve or fifteen in number at half-past eight. 'Time is being lost,'
+exclaimed one of them who had hardly entered; 'let us gird on our sashes;
+let us show the Representatives to the People, let us join it in raising
+barricades.' We shall perhaps save the country, at all events we shall
+save the honor of our party. 'Come, let us to the barricades!' This
+advice was immediately and unanimously acclaimed: one alone, Citizen
+Baudin, interposed the forcible objection, 'we are not sufficiently
+numerous to adopt such a resolution.' But he spiritedly joined in the
+general enthusiasm, and with a calm conscience, after having reserved
+the principle, he was not the last to gird on his sash."--SCHOELCHER,
+_Histoire des Crimes du 2d Decembre_, pp. 130-131.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+THE WORKMEN'S SOCIETIES ASK US FOR THE ORDER TO FIGHT
+
+In presence of the fact of the barricade of the Faubourg St. Antoine so
+heroically constructed by the Representatives, so sadly neglected by the
+populace, the last illusions, even mine, should have been dispersed.
+Baudin killed, the Faubourg cold. Such things spoke aloud. It was a
+supreme, manifest, absolute demonstration of that fact, the inaction of
+the people, to which I could not resign myself--a deplorable inaction,
+if they understood, a self-treason, if they did not understand, a fatal
+neutrality in every case, a calamity of which all the responsibility, we
+repeat, recoiled not upon the people but upon those who in June, 1848,
+after having promised them amnesty, had refused it, and who had unhinged
+the great soul of the people of Paris by breaking faith with them. What
+the Constituent Assembly had sown the Legislative Assembly harvested.
+We, innocent of the fault, had to submit to the consequence.
+
+The spark which we had seen flash for an instant through the
+crowd--Michel de Bourges from the height of Bonvalet's balcony, myself
+from the Boulevard du Temple--this spark seemed extinguished. Maigne
+firstly, then Brillier, then Bruckner, later on Charmaule, Madier de
+Montjau, Bastide, and Dulac came to report to us what had passed at the
+barricade of St. Antoine, the motives which had decided the
+Representatives present not to await the hour appointed for the
+rendezvous, and Baudin's death. The report which I made myself of what I
+had seen, and which Cassal and Alexander Rey completed by adding new
+circumstances, enabled us to ascertain the situation. The Committee could
+no longer hesitate: I myself renounced the hopes which I had based upon a
+grand manifestation, upon a powerful reply to the _coup d'etat_, upon a
+sort of pitched battle waged by the guardians of the Republic against the
+banditti of the Elysee. The Faubourgs failed us; we possessed the
+lever--Right, but the mass to be raised, the People, we did not possess.
+There was nothing more to hope for, as those two great orators, Michel de
+Bourges and Jules Favre, with their keen political perception, had
+declared from the first, save a slow long struggle, avoiding decisive
+engagements, changing quarters, keeping Paris on the alert, saying to
+each, It is not at an end; leaving time for the departments to prepare
+their resistance, wearying the troops out, and in which struggle the
+Parisian people, who do not long smell powder with impunity, would
+perhaps ultimately take fire. Barricades raised everywhere, barely
+defended, re-made immediately, disappearing and multiplying themselves at
+the same time, such was the strategy indicated by the situation. The
+Committee adopted it, and sent orders in every direction to this effect.
+At that moment we were sitting at No. 15, Rue Richelieu, at the house of
+our colleague Grevy, who had been arrested in the Tenth Arrondissement on
+the preceding day, who was at Mazas. His brother had offered us his house
+for our deliberations. The Representatives, our natural emissaries,
+flocked around us, and scattered themselves throughout Paris, with our
+instructions to organize resistance at every point. They were the arms
+and the Committee was the soul. A certain number of ex-Constituents,
+intrepid men, Garnier-Pages, Marie, Martin (de Strasbourg), Senart,
+formerly President of the Constituent Assembly, Bastide, Laissac,
+Landrin, had joined the Representatives on the preceding day. They
+established, therefore, in all the districts where it was possible
+Committees of Permanence in connection with us, the Central Committee,
+and composed either of Representatives or of faithful citizens. For our
+watchword we chose "Baudin."
+
+Towards noon the centre of Paris began to grow agitated.
+
+Our appeal to arms was first seen placarded on the Place de la Bourse
+and the Rue Montmartre. Groups pressed round to read it, and battled
+with the police, who endeavored to tear down the bills. Other
+lithographic placards contained in two parallel columns the decree of
+deposition drawn up by the Right at the Mairie of the Tenth
+Arrondissement, and the decree of outlawry voted by the Left. There were
+distributed, printed on gray paper in large type, the judgment of the
+High Court of Justice, declaring Louis Bonaparte attainted with the
+Crime of High Treason, and signed "Hardouin" (President), "Delapalme,"
+"Moreau" (of the Seine), "Cauchy," "Bataille" (Judges). This last name
+was thus mis-spelt by mistake, it should read "Pataille."
+
+At that moment people generally believed, and we ourselves believed, in
+this judgment, which, as we have seen, was not the genuine judgment.
+
+At the same time they posted in the populous quarters, at the corner of
+every street, two Proclamations. The first ran thus:--
+
+  "TO THE PEOPLE.
+
+  "ARTICLE III.[10]
+
+  "The Constitution is confided to the keeping and to the patriotism of
+  French citizens. Louis NAPOLEON is outlawed.
+
+  "The State of Siege is abolished.
+
+  "Universal suffrage is re-established.
+
+  "LONG LIVE THE REPUBLIC.
+
+  "To ARMS!
+
+  "For the United Mountain.
+
+  "The Delegate, VICTOR HUGO."
+
+The second ran thus:--
+
+  "INHABITANTS OF PARIS.
+
+  "The National Guards and the People of the Departments are marching on
+  Paris to aid you in seizing the TRAITOR, Louis Napoleon BONAPARTE.
+
+  "For the Representatives of the People,
+
+  "VICTOR HUGO, President.
+
+  "SCHOELCHER, Secretary."
+
+This last placard, printed on little squares of paper, was distributed
+abroad, says an historian of the _coup d'etat_, by thousands of copies.
+
+For their part the criminals installed in the Government offices replied
+by threats: the great white placards, that is to say, the official
+bills, were largely multiplied. On one could be read:--
+
+  "WE, PREFECT OF THE POLICE,
+
+  "Decree as follows:--
+
+  "ARTICLE I. All meetings are rigorously prohibited. They will be
+  immediately dispersed by force.
+
+  "ARTICLE II. All seditious shouts, all reading in public, all posting
+  of political documents not emanating from a regularly constituted
+  authority, are equally prohibited.
+
+  "ARTICLE III. The agents of the Public Police will enforce the execution
+  of the present decree.
+
+  "Given at the Prefecture of Police, December 3, 1851.
+
+  "DE MAUPAS, Prefect of Police.
+
+  "Seen and approved,
+
+  "DE MORNY, Minister of the Interior."
+
+On another could be read,--
+
+  "THE MINISTER OF WAR,
+
+  "By virtue of the Law on the State of Siege,
+
+  "Decrees:--
+
+  "Every person taken constructing or defending a barricade, or carrying
+  arms, WILL BE SHOT.
+
+  "General of Division,
+
+  "Minister of war,
+
+  "DE SAINT-ARNAUD."
+
+We reproduce this Proclamation exactly, even to the punctuation. The
+words "Will be shot" were in capital letters in the placards signed "De
+Saint-Arnaud."
+
+The Boulevards were thronged with an excited crowd. The agitation
+increasing in the centre reached three Arrondissements, the 6th, 7th,
+and the 12th. The district of the schools began to disorderly. The
+Students of Law and of Medicine cheered De Flotte on the Place de
+Pantheon. Madier de Montjau, ardent and eloquent, went through and
+aroused Belleville. The troops, growing more numerous every moment,
+took possession of all the strategical points of Paris.
+
+At one o'clock, a young man was brought to us by the legal adviser of
+the Workmen's Societies, the ex-Constituent Leblond, at whose house the
+Committee had deliberated that morning. We were sitting in permanence,
+Carnot, Jules Favre, Michel de Bourges, and myself. This young man, who
+had an earnest mode of speaking and an intelligent countenance, was
+named King. He had been sent to us by the Committee of the Workmen's
+Society, from whom he was delegated. "The Workmen's Societies," he said
+to us, "place themselves at the disposal of the Committee of Legal
+Insurrection appointed by the Left. They can throw into the struggle
+five or six thousand resolute men. They will manufacture powder; as for
+guns, they will be found." The Workmen's Society requested from us an
+order to fight signed by us. Jules Favre took a pen and wrote,--"The
+undersigned Representatives authorize Citizen King and his friends to
+defend with them, and with arms in their hands, Universal Suffrage, the
+Republic, the Laws." He dated it, and we all four signed it. "That is
+enough," said the delegate to us, "you will hear of us."
+
+Two hours afterwards it was reported to us that the conflict had begun.
+They were fighting in the Rue Aumaire.
+
+
+[10] A typographical error--it should read "Article LXVIII." On the
+subject of this placard the author of this book received the following
+letter. It does honor to those who wrote it:--
+
+  "CITIZEN VICTOR HUGO,--We know that you have made an appeal to arms. We
+  have not been able to obtain it. We replace it by these bills which we
+  sign with your name. You will not disown us. When France is in danger
+  your name belongs to all; your name is a Public Power.
+
+  "FELIX BONY.
+
+  "DABAT."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+BAUDINS'S CORPSE
+
+With regard to the Faubourg St. Antoine, we had, as I said, lost nearly
+all hope, but the men of the _coup d'etat_ had not lost all uneasiness.
+Since the attempts at rising and the barricades of the morning a rigorous
+supervision had been organized. Any one who entered the Faubourg ran the
+risk of being examined, followed, and upon the slightest suspicion,
+arrested. The supervision was nevertheless sometimes at fault. About two
+o'clock a short man, with an earnest and attentive air, crossed the
+Faubourg. A _sergent de ville_ and a police agent in plain clothes barred
+his passage. "Who are you?" "You seem a passenger." "Where are you going?"
+"Over there, close by, to Bartholome's, the overseer of the sugar
+manufactory.--" They search him. He himself opened his pocket-book; the
+police agents turned out the pockets of his waistcoat and unbuttoned
+his shirt over his breast; finally the _sergent de ville_ said gruffly,
+"Yet I seem to have seen you here before this morning. Be off!" It was
+the Representative Gindrier. If they had not stopped at the pockets of
+his waistcoat--and if they had searched his great-coat, they would have
+found his sash there--Gindrier would have been shot.
+
+Not to allow themselves to be arrested, to keep their freedom for the
+combat--such was the watchword of the members of the Left. That is why
+we had our sashes upon us, but not outwardly visible.
+
+Gindrier had had no food that day; he thought he would go home, and
+returned to the new district of the Havre Railway Station, where he
+resided. In the Rue de Calais, which is a lonely street running from Rue
+Blanche to the Rue de Clichy, a _fiacre_ passed him. Gindrier heard his
+name called out. He turned round and saw two persons in a _fiacre_,
+relations of Baudin, and a man whom he did not know. One of the
+relations of Baudin, Madame L----, said to him, "Baudin is
+wounded!" She added, "They have taken him to the St. Antoine Hospital.
+We are going to fetch him. Come with us." Gindrier got into the
+_fiacre_. The stranger, however, was an emissary of the Commissary of
+Police of the Rue Ste. Marguerite St. Antoine. He had been charged by
+the commissary of Police to go to Baudin's house, No, 88, Rue de Clichy,
+to inform the family. Having only found the women at home he had
+confined himself to telling them that Representative Baudin was wounded.
+He offered to accompany them, and went with them in the _fiacre_. They
+had uttered the name of Gindrier before him. This might have been
+imprudent. They spoke to him; he declared that he would not betray the
+Representative, and it was settled that before the Commissary of Police
+Gindrier should assume to be a relation, and be called Baudin.
+
+The poor women still hoped. Perhaps the wound was serious, but Baudin
+was young, and had a good constitution. "They will save him," said they.
+Gindrier was silent. At the office of the Commissary of Police the truth
+was revealed.--"How is he?" asked Madame L---- on entering. "Why?" said
+the Commissary, "he is dead." "What do you mean? Dead!" "Yes; killed on
+the spot."
+
+This was a painful moment. The despair of these two women who had been
+so abruptly struck to the heart burst forth in sobs. "Ah, infamous
+Bonaparte!" cried Madame L----. "He has killed Baudin. Well, then, I will
+kill him. I will be the Charlotte Corday of this Marat."
+
+Gindrier claimed the body of Baudin. The Commissary of Police only
+consented to restore it to the family on exacting a promise that they
+would bury it at once, and without any ostentation, and that they would
+not exhibit it to the people. "You understand," he said, "that the sight
+of a Representative killed and bleeding might raise Paris." The _coup
+d'etat_ made corpses, but did not wish that they should be utilized.
+
+On these conditions the Commissary of Police gave Gindrier two men and a
+safe conduct to fetch the body of Baudin from the hospital where he had
+been carried.
+
+Meanwhile Baudin's brother, a young man of four-and-twenty, a medical
+student, came up. This young man has since been arrested and imprisoned.
+His crime is his brother. Let us continue. They proceeded to the
+hospital. At the sight of the safe conduct the director ushered Gindrier
+and young Baudin into the parlor. There were three pallets there covered
+with white sheets, under which could be traced the motionless forms of
+three human bodies. The one which occupied the centre bed was Baudin. On
+his right lay the young soldier killed a minute before him by the side of
+Schoelcher, and on the left an old woman who had been struck down by a
+spent ball in the Rue de Cotte, and whom the executioners of the _coup
+d'etat_ had gathered up later on; in the first moment one cannot find out
+all one's riches.
+
+The three corpses were naked under their winding sheets.
+
+They had left to Baudin alone his shirt and his flannel vest. They had
+found on him seven francs, his gold watch and chain, his Representative's
+medal, and a gold pencil-case which he had used in the Rue de Popincourt,
+after having passed me the other pencil, which I still preserve. Gindrier
+and young Baudin, bare-headed, approached the centre bed. They raised the
+shroud, and Baudin's dead face became visible. He was calm, and seemed
+asleep. No feature appeared contracted. A livid tint began to mottle his
+face.
+
+They drew up an official report. It is customary. It is not sufficient
+to kill people. An official report must also be drawn up. Young Baudin
+had to sign it, upon which, on the demand of the Commissary of Police,
+they "made over" to him the body of his brother. During these
+signatures, Gindrier in the courtyard of the hospital, attempted if not
+to console, at least to calm the two despairing women.
+
+Suddenly a man who had entered the courtyard, and who had attentively
+watched him for some moments, came abruptly up to him,--
+
+"What are you doing there?"
+
+"What is that to you?" said Gindrier.
+
+"You have come to fetch Baudin's body?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Is this your carriage?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Get in at once, and pull down the blinds."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"You are the Representative Gindrier. I know you. You were this morning
+on the barricade. If any other than myself should see you, you are
+lost."
+
+Gindrier followed his advice and got into the _fiacre_. While getting in
+he asked the man:
+
+"Do you belong to the Police?"
+
+The man did not answer. A moment after he came and said in a low voice,
+near the door of the _fiacre_ in which Gindrier was enclosed,--
+
+"Yes, I eat the bread, but I do not do the work."
+
+The two men sent by the Commissary of Police took Baudin on his wooden
+bed and carried him to the _fiacre_. They placed him at the bottom of
+the _fiacre_ with his face covered, and enveloped from head to foot in a
+shroud. A workman who was there lent his cloak, which was thrown over
+the corpse in order not to attract the notice of passers-by. Madame L----
+took her place by the side of the body, Gindrier opposite, young Baudin
+next to Gindrier. A _fiacre_ followed, in which were the other relative
+of Baudin and a medical student named Duteche. They set off. During the
+journey the head of the corpse, shaken by the carriage, rolled from
+shoulder to shoulder; the blood began to flow from the wound and
+appeared in large red patches through the white sheet. Gindrier with
+his arms stretched out and his hand placed on its breast, prevented it
+from falling forwards; Madame L---- held it up by the side.
+
+They had told the coachman to drive slowly; the journey lasted more than
+an hour.
+
+When they reached No. 88, Rue de Clichy, the bringing out of the body
+attracted a curious crowd before the door. The neighbors flocked
+thither. Baudin's brother, assisted by Gindrier and Duteche, carried up
+the corpse to the fourth floor, where Baudin resided. It was a new
+house, and he had only lived there a few months.
+
+They carried him into his room, which was in order, and just as he had
+left it on the morning of the 2d. The bed, on which he had not slept the
+preceding night, had not been disturbed. A book which he had been
+reading had remained on the table, open at the page where he had left
+off. They unrolled the shroud, and Gindrier cut off his shirt and his
+flannel vest with a pair of scissors. They washed the body. The ball had
+entered through the corner of the arch of the right eye, and had gone out
+at the back of the head. The wound of the eye had not bled. A sort of
+swelling had formed there; the blood had flowed copiously through the
+hole at the back of the head. They put clean linen on him, and clean
+sheets on the bed, and laid him down with his head on the pillow, and
+his face uncovered. The women were weeping in the next room.
+
+Gindrier had already rendered the same service to the ex-Constituent
+James Demontry. In 1850 James Demontry died in exile at Cologne.
+Gindrier started for Cologne, went to the cemetery, and had James
+Demontry exhumed. He had the heart extracted, embalmed it, and enclosed
+it in a silver vase, which he took to Paris. The party of the Mountain
+delegated him, with Chollet and Joigneux, to convey this heart to Dijon,
+Demontry's native place, and to give him a solemn funeral. This funeral
+was prohibited by an order of Louis Bonaparte, then President of the
+Republic. The burial of brave and faithful men was unpleasing to Louis
+Bonaparte--not so their death.
+
+When Baudin had been laid out on the bed, the women came in, and all
+this family, seated round the corpse, wept. Gindrier, whom other duties
+called elsewhere, went downstairs with Duteche. A crowd had formed
+before the door.
+
+A man in a blouse, with his hat on his head, mounted on a kerbstone, was
+speechifying and glorifying the _coup d'etat_. Universal Suffrage
+re-established, the Law of the 31st May abolished, the "Twenty-five
+francs" suppressed; Louis Bonaparte has done well, etc.--Gindrier,
+standing on the threshold of the door, raised his voice: "Citizens!
+above lies Baudin, a Representative of the People, killed while
+defending the People; Baudin the Representative of you all, mark that
+well! You are before his house; he is there bleeding on his bed, and
+here is a man who dares in this place to applaud his assassin! Citizens!
+shall I tell you the name of this man? He is called the Police! Shame
+and infamy to traitors and to cowards! Respect to the corpse of him who
+has died for you!"
+
+And pushing aside the crowd, Gindrier took the man who had
+been speaking by the collar, and knocking his hat on to the ground with
+the back of his hand, he cried, "Hats off!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+THE DECREES OF THE REPRESENTATIVES WHO REMAINED FREE
+
+The text of the judgment which was believed to have been dawn up by the
+High Court of Justice had been brought to us by the ex-Constituent
+Martin (of Strasbourg), a lawyer at the Court of Cassation. At the same
+time we learned what was happening in the Rue Aumaire. The battle was
+beginning, it was important to sustain it, and to feed it; it was
+important ever to place the legal resistance by the side of the armed
+resistance. The members who had met together on the preceding day at the
+Mairie of the Tenth Arrondissement had decreed the deposition of Louis
+Bonaparte; but this decree, drawn up by a meeting almost exclusively
+composed of the unpopular members of the majority, might have no effect
+on the masses; it was necessary that the Left should take it up, should
+adopt it, should imprint upon it a more energetic and more revolutionary
+accent, and also take possession of the judgment of the High Court,
+which was believed to be genuine, to lend assistance to this judgment,
+and put it into execution.
+
+In our appeal to arms we had outlawed Louis Bonaparte. The decree of
+deposition taken up and counter-signed by us added weight to this
+outlawry, and completed the revolutionary act by the legal act.
+
+The Committee of Resistance called together the Republican
+Representatives.
+
+The apartments of M. Grevy, where we had been sitting, being too small,
+we appointed for our meeting-place No. 10. Rue des Moulins, although
+warned that the police had already made a raid upon this house. But we
+had no choice; in time of Revolution prudence is impossible, and it is
+speedily seen that it is useless. Confidence, always confidence; such is
+the law of those grand actions which at times determine great events.
+The perpetual improvisation of means, of policy, of expedients, of
+resources, nothing step by step, everything on the impulse of the moment,
+the ground never sounded, all risks taken as a whole, the good with the
+bad, everything chanced on all sides at the same time, the hour, the
+place, the opportunity, friends, family, liberty, fortune, life,--such
+is the revolutionary conflict.
+
+Towards three o'clock about sixty Representatives were meeting at No.
+10, Rue des Moulins, in the large drawing-room, out of which opened a
+little room where the Committee of Resistance was in session.
+
+It was a gloomy December day, and darkness seemed already to have almost
+set in. The publisher Hetzel, who might also be called the poet Hetzel,
+is of a noble mind and of great courage. He has, as is known, shown
+unusual political qualities as Secretary-General of the Ministry of
+Foreign Affairs under Bastide; he came to offer himself to us, as the
+brave and patriotic Hingray had already done in the morning. Hetzel knew
+that we needed a printing-office above everything; we had not the
+faculty of speech, and Louis Bonaparte spoke alone. Hetzel had found a
+printer who had said to him, "_Force me, put a pistol to my throat, and
+I will print whatever you wish_." It was only a question, therefore, of
+getting a few friends together, of seizing this printing-office by main
+force, of barricading it, and, if necessary, of sustaining a siege,
+while our Proclamations and our decrees were being printed. Hetzel
+offered this to us. One incident of his arrival at our meeting-place
+deserves to be noted. As he drew near the doorway he saw in the twilight
+of this dreary December day a man standing motionless at a short
+distance, and who seemed to be lying in wait. He went up to this man,
+and recognized M. Yon, the former Commissary of Police of the Assembly.
+
+"What are you doing there?" said Hetzel abruptly. "Are you there to
+arrest us? In that case, here is what I have got for you," and he took
+out two pistols from his pocket.
+
+M. Yon answered smiling,--
+
+"I am in truth watching, not against you, but for you; I am guarding
+you."
+
+M. Yon, aware of our meeting at Landrin's house and fearing that we
+should be arrested, was, of his own accord, acting as police for us.
+
+Hetzel had already revealed his scheme to Representative Labrousse, who
+was to accompany him and give him the moral support of the Assembly in
+his perilous expedition. A first rendezvous which had been agreed upon
+between them at the Cafe Cardinal having failed, Labrousse had left with
+the owner of the _cafe_ for Hetzel a note couched in these terms:--
+
+"Madame Elizabeth awaits M. Hetzel at No. 10, Rue des Moulins."
+
+In accordance with this note Hetzel had come.
+
+We accepted Hetzel's offer, and it was agreed that at nightfall
+Representative Versigny, who performed the duties of Secretary to the
+Committee, should take him our decrees, our Proclamation, such items of
+news as may have reached us, and all that we should judge proper to
+publish. It was settled that Hetzel should await Versigny on the
+pavement at the end of the Rue de Richelieu which runs alongside the
+Cafe Cardinal.
+
+Meanwhile Jules Favre, Michel de Bourges and myself had drawn up a final
+decree, which was to combine the deposition voted by the Right with the
+outlawry voted by us. We came back into the large room to read it to the
+assembled Representatives, and for them to sign it.
+
+At this moment the door opened, and Emile de Girardin appeared. We had
+not seen him since the previous evening.
+
+Emile de Girardin--after dispersing from around him that mist which
+envelopes every combatant in party warfare, and which at a distance
+changes or obscures the appearance of a man--Emile de Girardin is an
+extraordinary thinker, an accurate writer, energetic, logical, skilful,
+hearty; a journalist in whom, as in all great journalists, can be seen
+the statesman. We owe to Emile de Girardin this great work of progress,
+the cheap Press. Emile de Girardin has this great gift, a clearheaded
+stubbornness. Emile de Girardin is a public watchman; his journal is his
+sentry-box; he waits, he watches, he spies out, he enlightens, he lies
+in wait, he cries "Who goes there?" at the slightest alarm, he fires
+volleys with his pen. He is ready for every form of combat, a sentinel
+to-day, a General to-morrow. Like all earnest minds he understands, he
+sees, he recognizes, he handles, so to speak, the great and magnificent
+identity embraced under these three words, "Revolution, Progress,
+Liberty;" he wishes for the Revolution, but above all through Progress;
+he wishes for progress, but solely through Liberty. One can, and
+according to our opinion sometimes rightly, differ from him as to the
+road to be taken, as to the attitude to be assumed, and the position to
+be maintained, but no one can deny his courage, which he has proved in
+every form, nor reject his object, which is the moral and physical
+amelioration of the lot of all. Emile de Girardin is more Democratic
+than Republican, more Socialist than Democratic; on the day when these
+three ideas, Democracy, Republicanism, Socialism, that is to say, the
+principle, the form, and the application, are balanced in his mind the
+oscillations which still exist in him will cease. He has already Power,
+he will have Stability.
+
+In the course of this sitting, as we shall see, I did not always agree
+with Emile de Girardin. All the more reason that I should record here
+how greatly I appreciate the mind formed of light and of courage. Emile
+de Girardin, whatever his failings may be, is one of those men who do
+honor to the Press of to-day; he unites in the highest degree the
+dexterity of the combatant with the serenity of the thinker.
+
+I went up to him, and I asked him,--
+
+"Have you any workmen of the _Presse_ still remaining?"
+
+He answered me,--
+
+"Our presses are under seal, and guarded by the _Gendarmerie Mobile_,
+but I have five or six willing workmen, they can produce a few placards
+with the brush."
+
+"Well then," said I, "print our decrees and our Proclamation." "I will
+print anything," answered he, "as long as it is not an appeal to arms."
+
+He added, addressing himself to me, "I know your Proclamation. It is a
+war-cry, I cannot print that."
+
+They remonstrated at this. He then declared that he for his part made
+Proclamations, but in a different sense from ours. That according to him
+Louis Bonaparte should not be combated by force of arms, but by creating
+a vacuum. By an armed conflict he would be the conqueror, by a vacuum he
+would be conquered. He urged us to aid him in isolating the "deposed of
+the Second December." "Let us bring about a vacuum around him!" cried
+Emile de Girardin, "let us proclaim an universal strike. Let the merchant
+cease to sell, let the consumer cease from buying, let the workman cease
+from working, let the butcher cease from killing, let the baker cease
+from baking, let everything keep holiday, even to the National Printing
+Office, so that Louis Bonaparte may not find a compositor to compose the
+_Moniteur_, not a pressman to machine it, not a bill-sticker to placard
+it! Isolation, solitude, a void space round this man! Let the nation
+withdraw from him. Every power from which the nation withdraws falls like
+a tree from which the roots are divided. Louis Bonaparte abandoned by all
+in his crime will vanish away. By simply folding our arms as we stand
+around him he will fall. On the other hand, fire on him and you will
+consolidate him. The army is intoxicated, the people are dazed and do not
+interfere, the middle classes are afraid of the President, of the people,
+of you, of every one! No victory is possible. You will go straight before
+you, like brave men, you risk your heads, very good; you will carry with
+you two or three thousand daring men, whose blood mingled with yours,
+already flows. It is heroic, I grant you. It is not politic. As for me,
+I will not print an appeal to arms, and I reject the combat. Let us
+organize an universal strike."
+
+This point of view was haughty and superb, but unfortunately I felt it
+to be unattainable. Two aspects of the truth seized Girardin, the
+logical side and the practical side. Here, in my opinion, the practical
+side was wanting.
+
+Michel de Bourges answered him. Michel de Bourges with his sound logic
+and quick reasoning put his finger on what was for us the immediate
+question; the crime of Louis Bonaparte, the necessity to rise up erect
+before this crime. It was rather a conversation than a debate, but
+Michel de Bourges and Jules Favre, who spoke next, raised it to the
+highest eloquence. Jules Favre, worthy to understand the powerful mind
+of Girardin would willingly have adopted this idea, if it had seemed
+practicable, of the universal strike, of the void around the man; he
+found it great, but impossible. A nation does not pull up short. Even
+when struck to the heart, it still moves on. Social movement, which is
+the animal life of society, survives all political movement. Whatever
+Emile de Girardin might hope, there would always be a butcher who would
+kill, a baker who would bake, men must eat! "To make universal labor
+fold its arms is a chimera!" said Jules Favre, "a dream! The People
+fight for three days, for four days, for a week; society will not wait
+indefinitely." As to the situation, it was doubtless terrible, it was
+doubtless tragical, and blood flowed, but who had brought about this
+situation? Louis Bonaparte. For ourselves we would accept it, such as it
+was, and nothing more.
+
+Emile de Girardin, steadfast, logical, absolute in his idea, persisted.
+Some might be shaken. Arguments, which were so abundant in this vigorous
+and inexhaustible mind, crowded upon him. As for me, I saw Duty before
+me like a torch.
+
+I interrupted him. I cried out, "It is too late to deliberate what we
+are to do. We have not got to do it. It is done. The gauntlet of the
+_coup d'etat_ is thrown down, the Left takes it up. The matter is as
+simple as this. The outrage of the Second December is an infamous,
+insolent, unprecedented defiance to Democracy, to Civilization, to
+Liberty, to the People, to France. I repeat that we have taken up this
+gauntlet, we are the Law, but the living Law which at need can arm
+itself and fight. A gun in our hands is a protest. I do not know whether
+we shall conquer, but it is our duty to protest. To protest first in
+Parliament; when Parliament is closed, to protest in the street; when
+the street is closed, to protest in exile; when exile is fulfilled, to
+protest in the tomb. Such is our part, our office, our mission. The
+authority of the Representatives is elastic; the People bestow it,
+events extend it."
+
+While we were deliberating, our colleague, Napoleon Bonaparte, son
+of the ex-King of Westphalia, came in. He listened. He spoke. He
+energetically blamed, in a tone of sincere and generous indignation, his
+cousin's crime, but he declared that in his opinion a written protest
+would suffice. A protest of the Representatives, a protest of the
+Council of State, a protest of the Magistracy, a protest of the Press,
+that this protest would be unanimous and would enlighten France, but
+that no other form of resistance would obtain unanimity. That as for
+himself, having always considered the Constitution worthless, having
+contended against it from the first in the Constituent Assembly, he
+would not defend it at the last, that he assuredly would not give one
+drop of blood for it. That the Constitution was dead, but that the
+Republic was living, and that we must save, not the Constitution, a
+corpse, but the Republic, the principle!
+
+Remonstrances burst forth. Bancel, young, glowing, eloquent, impetuous,
+overflowing with self-confidence, cried out that we ought not to look at
+the shortcomings of the Constitution, but at the enormity of the crime
+which had been committed, the flagrant treason, the violated oath; he
+declared that we might have voted against the Constitution in the
+Constituent Assembly, and yet defend it to-day in the presence of an
+usurper; that this was logical, and that many amongst us were in this
+position. He cited me as an example. Victor Hugo, said he, is a proof of
+this. He concluded thus: "You have been present at the construction of a
+vessel, you have considered it badly built, you have given advice which
+has not been listened to. Nevertheless, you have been obliged to embark
+on board this vessel, your children and your brothers are there with
+you, your mother is on board. A pirate ranges up, axe in one hand, to
+scuttle the vessel, a torch in the other to fire it. The crew are
+resolved to defend themselves and run to arms. Would you say to this
+crew, 'For my part I consider this vessel badly built, and I will let it
+be destroyed'?"
+
+"In such a case," added Edgar Quinet, "whoever is not on the side of the
+vessel is on the side of the pirates."
+
+They shouted on all sides, "The decree! Read the decree!"
+
+I was standing leaning against the fire place. Napoleon Bonaparte came
+up to me, and whispered in my ear,--
+
+"You are undertaking," said he, "a battle which is lost beforehand."
+
+I answered him, "I do not look at success, I look at duty."
+
+He replied, "You are a politician, consequently you ought to look
+forward to success. I repeat, before you go any further, that the battle
+is lost beforehand."
+
+I resumed, "If we enter upon the conflict the battle is lost. You say
+so, I believe it; but if we do not enter upon it, honor is lost. I would
+rather lose the battle than honor."
+
+He remained silent for a moment, then he took my hand.
+
+"Be it so," continued he, "but listen to me. You run, you yourself
+personally, great dancer. Of all the men in the Assembly you are the one
+whom the President hates the most. You have from the height of the
+Tribune nicknamed him, 'Napoleon the Little.' You understand that will
+never be forgotten. Besides, it was you who dictated the appeal to arms,
+and that is known. If you are taken, you are lost. You will be shot on
+the spot, or at least transported. Have you a safe place where you can
+sleep to-night?"
+
+I had not as yet thought of this. "In truth, no," answered I.
+
+He continued, "Well, then, come to my house. There is perhaps only one
+house in Paris where you would be in safety. That is mine. They will not
+come to look for you there. Come, day or night, at what hour you please,
+I will await you, and I will open the door to you myself. I live at No.
+5, Rue d'Alger."
+
+I thanked him. It was a noble and cordial offer. I was touched by it. I
+did not make use of it, but I have not forgotten it.
+
+They cried out anew, "Read the decree! Sit down! sit down!"
+
+There was a round table before the fire place; a lamp, pens,
+blotting-books, and paper were brought there; the members of the
+Committee sat down at this table, the Representatives took their places
+around them on sofas, on arm-chairs, and on all the chairs which could
+be found in the adjoining rooms. Some looked about for Napoleon
+Bonaparte. He had withdrawn.
+
+A member requested that in the first place the meeting should declare
+itself to be the National Assembly, and constitute itself by immediately
+appointing a President and Secretaries. I remarked that there was no
+need to declare ourselves the Assembly, that we were the Assembly by
+right as well as in fact, and the whole Assembly, our absent colleagues
+being detained by force; that the National Assembly, although mutilated
+by the _coup d'etat_, ought to preserve its entity and remain constituted
+afterwards in the same manner as before; that to appoint another
+President and another staff of Secretaries would be to give Louis
+Bonaparte an advantage over us, and to acknowledge in some manner the
+Dissolution; that we ought to do nothing of the sort; that our decrees
+should be published, not with the signature of a President, whoever he
+might be, but with the signature of all the members of the Left who had
+not been arrested, that they would thus carry with them full authority
+over the People, and full effect. They relinquished the idea of appointing
+a President. Noel Parfait proposed that our decrees and our resolutions
+should be drawn up, not with the formula: "The National Assembly
+decrees," etc.; but with the formula: "The Representatives of the People
+remaining at liberty decree," etc. In this manner we should preserve all
+the authority attached to the office of the Representatives of the People
+without associating the arrested Representatives with the responsibility
+of our actions. This formula had the additional advantage of separating
+us from the Right. The people knew that the only Representatives
+remaining free were the members of the Left. They adopted Noel Parfait's
+advice.
+
+I read aloud the decree of deposition. It was couched in these words:--
+
+  "DECLARATION.
+
+  "The Representatives of the people remaining at liberty, by virtue of
+  Article 68 of the Constitution, which runs as follows:--
+
+    "'Article 68.--Every measure by which the President of the Republic
+    dissolves the Assembly, prorogues it, or obstructs the exercise of
+    its authority, is a crime of High Treason.
+
+    "'By this action alone the President is deposed from his office; the
+    citizens are bound to refuse him obedience; the executive power
+    passes by right to the National Assembly; the judges of the High
+    Court of Justice should meet together immediately under penalty of
+    treason, and convoke the juries in a place which they shall appoint
+    to proceed to the judgment of the President and his accomplices.'
+
+  "Decree:--
+
+  "ARTICLE I.--Louis Bonaparte is deposed from his office of President
+  of the Republic.
+
+  "ARTICLE II.--All citizens and public officials are bound to refuse
+  him obedience under penalty of complicity.
+
+  "ARTICLE III.--The judgment drawn up on December 2d by the High Court
+  of Justice, and which declares Louis Bonaparte attainted with the
+  Crime of High Treason, shall be published and executed. Consequently
+  the civil and military authorities are summoned under penalty of
+  Treason to lend their active assistance to the execution of the said
+  judgment.
+
+  "Given at Paris, in permanent session, December 3d, 1851."
+
+The decree having been read, and voted unanimously, we signed it, and
+the Representatives crowded round the table to add their signatures to
+ours. Sain remarked that this signing took time, that in addition we
+numbered barely more than sixty, a large number of the members of the
+Left being at work in the streets in insurrection. He asked if the
+Committee, who had full powers from the whole of the Left, had any
+objection to attach to the decree the names of all the Republican
+Representatives remaining at liberty, the absent as well as those
+present. We answered that the decree signed by all would assuredly
+better answer its purpose. Besides, it was the counsel which I had
+already given. Bancel had in his pocket on old number of the _Moniteur_
+containing the result of a division.
+
+They cut out a list of the names of the members of the Left, the names
+of those who were arrested were erased, and the list was added to the
+decree.[11]
+
+The name of Emile de Girardin upon this list caught my eye. He was still
+present.
+
+"Do you sign this decree?" I asked him.
+
+"Unhesitatingly."
+
+"In that case will you consent to print it?"
+
+"Immediately."
+
+He continued,--
+
+"Having no longer any presses, as I have told you, I can only print it
+as a handbill, and with the brush. It takes a long time, but by eight
+o'clock this evening you shall have five hundred copies."
+
+"And," continued I, "you persist in refusing to print the appeal to
+arms?"
+
+"I do persist."
+
+A second copy was made of the decree, which Emile de Girardin took away
+with him. The deliberation was resumed. At each moment Representatives
+came in and brought items of news: Amiens in insurrection--Rheims and
+Rouen in motion, and marching on Paris--General Canrobert resisting the
+_coup d'etat_--General Castellane hesitating--the Minister of the United
+States demanding his passports. We placed little faith in these rumors,
+and facts proved that we were right.
+
+Meanwhile Jules Favre had drawn up the following decree, which he
+proposed, and which was immediately adopted:--
+
+  "DECREE.
+
+  "FRENCH REPUBLIC.
+
+  "Liberty,--Equality,--Fraternity.
+
+  "The undersigned Representatives remaining at liberty, assembled in
+  Permanent Session,--
+
+  "Considering the arrest of the majority of our colleagues, and the
+  urgency of the moment:
+
+  "Considering that for the accomplishment of his crime Louis Bonaparte
+  has not contented himself with multiplying the most formidable means of
+  destruction against the lives and property of the citizens of Paris,
+  that he has trampled under foot every law, that he has annihilated all
+  the guarantees of civilized nations:
+
+  "Considering that these criminal madnesses only serve to augment the
+  violent denunciation of every conscience and to hasten the hour of
+  national vengeance, but that it is important to proclaim the Right:
+
+  "Decree:
+
+  "ARTICLE I.--The State of Siege is raised in all Departments where it
+  has been established, the ordinary laws resume their authority.
+
+  "ARTICLE II.--It is enjoined upon all military leaders under penalty
+  of Treason immediately to lay down the extraordinary powers which
+  have been conferred upon them.
+
+  "ARTICLE III.--Officials and agents of the public force are charged
+  under penalty of treason to put this present decree into execution.
+
+  "Given in Permanent Session, 3d December, 1851."
+
+Madier de Montjau and De Flotte entered. They came from outside. They
+had been in all the districts where the conflict was proceeding, they
+had seen with their own eyes the hesitation of a part of the population
+in the presence of these words, "The Law of the 31st May is abolished,
+Universal Suffrage is re-established." The placards of Louis Bonaparte
+were manifestly working mischief. It was necessary to oppose effort to
+effort, and to neglect nothing which could open the eyes of the people.
+I dictated the following Proclamation:-
+
+  "PROCLAMATION.
+
+  "People! you are being deceived.
+
+  "Louis Bonaparte says that he has re-established you in your rights,
+  and that he restores to you Universal Suffrage.
+
+  "Louis Bonaparte has lied.
+
+  "Read his placards. He grants you--what infamous mockery!--the right
+  of conferring on him, on him _alone_, the Constituent power; that is
+  to say, the Supreme power, which belongs to you. He grants you the
+  right to appoint him Dictator _for ten years_. In other words, he
+  grants you the right of abdicating and of crowning him. A right which
+  even you do not possess, O People! for one generation cannot dispose
+  of the sovereignty of the generation which shall follow it.
+
+  "Yes, he grants to you, Sovereign, the right of giving yourself a
+  master, and that master himself.
+
+  "Hypocrisy and treason!
+
+  "People! we unmask the hypocrite. It is for you to punish the traitor!
+
+  "The Committee of Resistance:
+
+  "Jules Favre, De Flotte, Carnot, Madier de Montjau, Mathieu (de la
+  Drome), Michel de Bourges, Victor Hugo."
+
+Baudin had fallen heroically. It was necessary to let the People know of
+his death, and to honor his memory. The decree below was voted on the
+proposition of Michel de Bourges:--
+
+  "DECREE.
+
+  "The Representatives of the People remaining at liberty considering
+  that the Representative Baudin has died on the barricade of the
+  Faubourg St. Antoine for the Republic and for the laws, and that he
+  has deserved well of his country, decree:
+
+  "That the honors of the Pantheon are adjudged to Representative Baudin.
+
+  "Given in Permanent Session, 3d December, 1851."
+
+After honor to the dead and the needs of the conflict it was
+necessary in my opinion to enunciate immediately and dictatorially
+some great popular benefit. I proposed the abolition of the _octroi_
+duties and of the duty on liquors. This objection was raised, "No
+caresses to the people! After victory, we will see. In the meantime
+let them fight! If they do not fight, if they do not rise, if they do
+not understand that it is for them, for their rights that we the
+Representatives, that we risk our heads at this moment--if they leave
+us alone at the breach, in the presence of the _coup d'etat_--it is
+because they are not worthy of Liberty!"
+
+Bancel remarked that the abolition of the _octroi_ duties and the duty
+on liquors were not caresses to the People, but succor to the poor, a
+great economical and reparatory measure, a satisfaction to the public
+demand--a satisfaction which the Right had always obstinately refused,
+and that the Left, master of the situation, ought hasten to accord. They
+voted, with the reservation that it should not be published until after
+victory, the two decrees in one; in this form:--
+
+  "DECREE.
+
+  "The Representatives remaining at liberty decree:
+
+  "The _Octroi_ Duties are abolished throughout the extent of the
+  territory of the Republic.
+
+  "Given in permanent Session, 3d December, 1851."
+
+Versigny, with a copy of the Proclamations and of the Decree, left in
+search of Hetzel. Labrousse also left with the same object. They settled
+to meet at eight o'clock in the evening at the house of the former
+member of the Provisional Government Marie, Rue Neuve des Petits Champs.
+
+As the members of the Committee and the Representatives withdrew I was
+told that some one had asked to speak to me. I went into a sort of
+little room attached to the large meeting-room, and I found there a man
+in a blouse, with an intelligent and sympathetic air. This man had a
+roll of paper in his hand.
+
+"Citizen Victor Hugo," said he to me, "you have no printing office. Here
+are the means which will enable you to dispense with one."
+
+He unfolded on the mantel-piece the roll which he had in his hand. It
+was a species of blotting-book made of very thin blue paper, and which
+seemed to be slightly oiled. Between each leaf of blue paper there was a
+sheet of white paper. He took out of his pocket a sort of blunt bodkin,
+saying, "The first thing to hand will serve your purpose, a nail or a
+match," and he traced with his bodkin on the first leaf of the book the
+word "Republic." Then turning over the leaves, he said, "Look at this."
+
+The word "Republic" was reproduced upon the fifteen or twenty white
+leaves which the book contained.
+
+He added, "This paper is usually used to trace the designs of
+manufactured fabrics. I thought that it might be useful at a moment like
+this. I have at home a hundred books like this on which I can make a
+hundred copies of what you want--a Proclamation, for instance--in the
+same space of time that it takes to write four or five. Write something,
+whatever you may think useful at the present moment, and to-morrow
+morning five hundred copies shall be posted throughout Paris."
+
+I had none of the documents with me which we had just drawn up. Versigny
+had gone away with the copies. I took a sheet of paper, and, leaning on
+the corner of the chimney-piece, I wrote the following Proclamation:--
+
+  "TO THE ARMY.
+
+  "Soldiers!
+
+  "A man has just broken the Constitution. He tears up the oath which
+  he has sworn to the people; he suppresses the law, stifles Right,
+  stains Paris with blood, chokes France, betrays the Republic!
+
+  "Soldiers, this man involves you in his crime.
+
+  "There are two things holy; the flag which represents military honor
+  and the law which represents the National Right. Soldiers, the
+  greatest of outrages is the flag raised against the Law! Follow no
+  longer the wretched man who misleads you. Of such a crime French
+  soldiers should be the avengers, not the accomplices.
+
+  "This man says he is named Bonaparte. He lies, for Bonaparte is a
+  word which means glory. This man says that he is named Napoleon. He
+  lies, for Napoleon is a word which means genius. As for him, he is
+  obscure and insignificant. Give this wretch up to the law. Soldiers,
+  he is a false Napoleon. A true Napoleon would once more give you a
+  Marengo; he will once more give you a Transnonain.
+
+  "Look towards the true function of the French army; to protect the
+  country, to propagate the Revolution, to free the people, to sustain
+  the nationalities, to emancipate the Continent, to break chains
+  everywhere, to protect Right everywhere, this is your part amongst
+  the armies of Europe. You are worthy of great battle-fields.
+
+  "Soldiers, the French Army is the advanced guard of humanity.
+
+  "Become yourselves again, reflect; acknowledge your faults; rise up!
+  Think of your Generals arrested, taken by the collar by galley
+  sergeants and thrown handcuffed into robbers' cells! The malefactor,
+  who is at the Elysee, thinks that the Army of France is a band of
+  mercenaries; that if they are paid and intoxicated they will obey.
+  He sets you an infamous task, he causes you to strangle, in this
+  nineteenth century, and in Paris itself, Liberty, Progress, and
+  Civilization. He makes you--you, the children of France--destroy all
+  that France has so gloriously and laboriously built up during the
+  three centuries of light and in sixty years of Revolution! Soldiers!
+  you are the 'Grand Army!' respect the 'Grand Nation!'
+
+  "We, citizens; we, Representatives of the People and of yourselves;
+  we, your friends, your brothers; we, who are Law and Right; we, who
+  rise up before you, holding out our arms to you, and whom you strike
+  blindly with your swords--do you know what drives us to despair? It
+  is not to see our blood which flows; it is to see your honor which
+  vanishes.
+
+  "Soldiers! one step more in the outrage, one day more with Louis
+  Bonaparte, and you are lost before universal conscience. The men who
+  command you are outlaws. They are not generals--they are criminals.
+  The garb of the galley slave awaits them; see it already on their
+  shoulders. Soldiers! there is yet time--Stop! Come back to the
+  country! Come back to the Republic! If you continue, do you know
+  what History will say of you? It will say, They have trampled under
+  the feet of their horses and crushed beneath the wheels of their
+  cannon all the laws of their country; they, French soldiers, they
+  have dishonored the anniversary of Austerlitz, and by their fault,
+  by their crime, the name of Napoleon sprinkles as much shame to-day
+  upon France as in other times it has showered glory!
+
+  "French soldiers! cease to render assistance to crime!"
+
+My colleagues of the Committee having left, I could not consult them--time
+pressed--I signed:
+
+  "For the Representatives of the People remaining at liberty, the
+  Representative member of the Committee of Resistance,
+
+  "VICTOR HUGO."
+
+The man in the blouse took away the Proclamation saying, "You will see
+it again to-morrow morning." He kept his word. I found it the nest day
+placarded in the Rue Rambuteau, at the corner of the Rue de l'Homme-Arme
+and the Chapelle-Saint-Denis. To those who were not in the secret of the
+process it seemed to be written by hand in blue ink.
+
+I thought of going home. When I reached the Rue de la Tour d'Auvergne,
+opposite my door, it happened curiously and by some chance to be half
+open. I pushed it, and entered. I crossed the courtyard, and went
+upstairs without meeting any one.
+
+My wife and my daughter were in the drawing-room round the fire with
+Madame Paul Meurice. I entered noiselessly; they were conversing in a
+low tone. They were talking of Pierre Dupont, the popular song-writer,
+who had come to me to ask for arms. Isidore, who had been a soldier, had
+some pistols by him, and had lent three to Pierre Dupont for the
+conflict.
+
+Suddenly these ladies turned their heads and saw me close to them. My
+daughter screamed. "Oh, go away," cried my wife, throwing her arms round
+my neck, "you are lost if you remain here a moment. You will be arrested
+here!" Madame Paul Meurice added, "They are looking for you. The police
+were here a quarter of an hour ago." I could not succeed in reassuring
+them. They gave me a packet of letters offering me places of refuge for
+the night, some of them signed with names unknown to me. After some
+moments, seeing them more and more frightened, I went away. My wife said
+to me, "What you are doing, you are doing for justice. Go, continue!" I
+embraced my wife and my daughter; five months have elapsed at the time
+when I am writing these lines. When I went into exile they remained near
+my son Victor in prison; I have not seen them since that day.
+
+I left as I had entered. In the porter's lodge there were only two or
+three little children seated round a lamp, laughing and looking at
+pictures in a book.
+
+
+[11] This list, which belongs to History, having served as the base of
+the proscription list, will be found complete in the sequel to this book
+to be published hereafter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+THE ARCHBISHOP
+
+On this gloomy and tragical day an idea struck one of the people.
+
+He was a workman belonging to the honest but almost imperceptible
+minority of Catholic Democrats. The double exaltation of his mind,
+revolutionary on one side, mystical on the other, caused him to be
+somewhat distrusted by the people, even by his comrades and his friends.
+Sufficiently devout to be called a Jesuit by the Socialists,
+sufficiently Republican to be called a Red by the Reactionists, he
+formed an exception in the workshops of the Faubourg. Now, what is
+needed in these supreme crises to seize and govern the masses are men
+of exceptional genius, not men of exceptional opinion. There is no
+revolutionary originality. In order to be something, in the time of
+regeneration and in the days of social combat, one must bathe fully in
+those powerful homogeneous mediums which are called parties. Great
+currents of men follow great currents of ideas, and the true
+revolutionary leader is he who knows how best to drive the former in
+accordance with the latter.
+
+Now the Gospel is in accordance with the Revolution, but Catholicism is
+not. This is due to the fact that in the main the Papacy is not in
+accordance with the Gospel. One can easily understand a Christian
+Republican, one cannot understand a Catholic Democrat. It is a
+combination of two opposites. It is a mind in which the negative bars
+the way to the affirmative. It is a neuter.
+
+Now in time revolution, whoever is neuter of is impotent. Nevertheless,
+during the first hours of resistance against the _coup d'etat_ the
+democratic Catholic workman, whose noble effort we are here relating,
+threw himself so resolutely into the cause of Justice and of Truth, that
+in a few moments he transformed distrust into confidence, and was hailed
+by the people. He showed such gallantry at the rising of the barricade
+of the Rue Aumaire that with an unanimous voice they appointed him their
+leader. At the moment of the attack he defended it as he had built it,
+with ardor. That was a sad but glorious battle-field; most of his
+companions were killed, and he escaped only by a miracle.
+
+However, he succeeded in returning home, saying to himself bitterly,
+"All is lost."
+
+It seemed evident to him that the great masses of the people would not
+rise. Thenceforward it appeared impossible to conquer the _coup d'etat_
+by a revolution; it could be only combated by legality. What had been
+the risk at the beginning became the hope at the end, for he believed
+the end to be fatal, and at hand. In his opinion it was necessary, as
+the people were defaulters, to try now to arouse the middle classes. Let
+one legion of National Guards go out in arms, and the Elysee was lost.
+For this a decisive blow must be struck--the heart of the middle classes
+must be reached--the "bourgeois" must be inspired by a grand spectacle
+which should not be a terrifying spectacle.
+
+It was then that this thought came to this workman, "Write to the
+Archbishop of Paris."
+
+The workman took a pen, and from his humble garret he wrote to the
+Archbishop of Paris an enthusiastic and earnest letter in which he, a
+man of the people and a believer, said this to his Bishop; we give the
+substance of his letter:--
+
+"This is a solemn hour, Civil War sets by the ears the Army and People,
+blood is being shed. When blood flows the Bishop goes forth. M. Sibour
+should follow in the path of M. Affre. The example is great, the
+opportunity is still greater.
+
+"Let the Archbishop of Paris, followed by all his clergy, the Pontifical
+cross before him, his mitre on his head, go forth in procession through
+the streets. Let him summon to him the National Assembly and the High
+Court, the Legislators in their sashes, the Judges in their scarlet
+robes; let him summon to him the citizens, let him summon to him the
+soldiers, let him go straight to the Elysee. Let him raise his hand in
+the name of Justice against the man who is violating the laws, and in
+the name of Jesus against the man who is shedding blood. Simply with
+his raised hand he will crush the _coup d'etat_.
+
+"And he will place his statue by the side of M. Affre, and it will be
+said that twice two Archbishops of Paris have trampled Civil War beneath
+their feet."
+
+"The Church is holy, but the Country is sacred. There are times when the
+Church should succor the Country."
+
+The letter being finished, he signed it with his workman's signature.
+
+But now a difficulty arose; how should it be conveyed to its destination?
+
+Take it himself!
+
+But would he, a mere workman in a blouse, be allowed to penetrate to the
+Archbishop!
+
+And then, in order to reach the Archiepiscopal Palace, he would have to
+cross those very quarters in insurrection, and where, perhaps, the
+resistance was still active. He would have to pass through streets
+obstructed by troops, he would be arrested and searched; his hands smelt
+of powder, he would be shot; and the letter would not reach its
+destination.
+
+What was to be done?
+
+At the moment when he had almost despaired of a solution, the name of
+Arnauld de l'Ariege came to his mind.
+
+Arnauld de l'Ariege was a Representative after his own heart. Arnauld de
+l'Ariege was a noble character. He was a Catholic Democrat like the
+workman. At the Assembly he raised aloft, but he bore nearly alone, that
+banner so little followed which aspires to ally the Democracy with the
+Church. Arnauld de l'Ariege, young, handsome, eloquent, enthusiastic,
+gentle, and firm, combined the attributes of the Tribune with the faith
+of the knight. His open nature, without wishing to detach itself from
+Rome, worshipped Liberty. He had two principles, but he had not two
+faces. On the whole the democratic spirit preponderated in him. He said
+to me one day, "I give my hand to Victor Hugo. I do not give it to
+Montalembert."
+
+The workman knew him. He had often written to him, and had sometimes
+seen him.
+
+Arnauld de l'Ariege lived in a district which had remained almost free.
+
+The workman went there without delay.
+
+Like the rest of us, as has been seen, Arnauld de l'Ariege had taken
+part in the conflict. Like most of the Representatives of the Left, he
+had not returned home since the morning of the 2d. Nevertheless, on the
+second day, he thought of his young wife whom he had left without
+knowing if he should see her again, of his baby of six months old which
+she was suckling, and which he had not kissed for so many hours, of that
+beloved hearth, of which at certain moments one feels an absolute need
+to obtain a fleeting glimpse, he could no longer resist; arrest, Mazas,
+the cell, the hulks, the firing party, all vanished, the idea of danger
+was obliterated, he went home.
+
+It was precisely at that moment that the workman arrived there.
+
+Arnauld de l'Ariege received him, read his letter, and approved of it.
+
+Arnauld de l'Ariege knew the Archbishop of Paris personally.
+
+M. Sibour, a Republican priest appointed Archbishop of Paris by General
+Cavaignac, was the true chief of the Church dreamed of by the liberal
+Catholicism of Arnauld de l'Ariege. On behalf of the Archbishop, Arnauld
+de l'Ariege represented in the Assembly that Catholicism which M. de
+Montalembert perverted. The democratic Representative and the Republic
+Archbishop had at times frequent conferences, in which acted as
+intermediatory the Abbe Maret, an intelligent priest, a friend of the
+people and of progress, Vicar-General of Paris, who has since been Bishop
+_in partibus_ of Surat. Some days previously Arnauld had seen the
+Archbishop, and had received his complaints of the encroachment of the
+Clerical party upon the episcopal authority, and he even proposed shortly
+to interpellate the Ministry on this subject and to take the question
+into the Tribune.
+
+Arnauld added to the workman's letter a letter of introduction, signed
+by himself, and enclosed the two letters in the same envelope.
+
+But here the same question arose.
+
+How was the letter to be delivered?
+
+Arnauld, for still weightier reasons than those of the workman, could
+not take it himself.
+
+And time pressed!
+
+His wife saw his difficulty and quietly said,--
+
+"I will take charge of it."
+
+Madame Arnauld de l'Ariege, handsome and quite young, married scarcely
+two years, was the daughter of the Republican ex-Constituent Guichard,
+worthy daughter of such a father, and worthy wife of such a husband.
+
+They were fighting in Paris; it was necessary to face the dangers of the
+streets, to pass among musket-balls, to risk her life.
+
+Arnauld de l'Ariege hesitated.
+
+"What do you want to do?" he asked.
+
+"I will take this letter."
+
+"You yourself?"
+
+"I myself."
+
+"But there is danger."
+
+She raised her eyes, and answered,--
+
+"Did I make that objection to you when you left me the day before
+yesterday?"
+
+He kissed her with tears in his eyes, and answered, "Go."
+
+But the police of the _coup d'etat_ were suspicious, many women were
+searched while going through the streets; this letter might be found on
+Madame Arnauld. Where could this letter be hidden?
+
+"I will take my baby with me," said Madame Arnauld.
+
+She undid the linen of her little girl, hid the letter there, and
+refastened the swaddling band.
+
+When this was finished the father kissed his child on the forehead, and
+the mother exclaimed laughingly,--
+
+"Oh, the little Red! She is only six months' old, and she is already a
+conspirator!"
+
+Madame Arnauld reached the Archbishop's Palace with some difficulty. Her
+carriage was obliged to take a long round. Nevertheless she arrived
+there. She asked for the Archbishop. A woman with a child in her arms
+could not be a very terrible visitor, and she was allowed to enter.
+
+But she lost herself in courtyards and staircases. She was seeking her
+way somewhat discouraged, when she met the Abbe Maret. She knew him. She
+addressed him. She told him the object of her expedition. The Abbe Maret
+read the workman's letter, and was seized with enthusiasm: "This may
+save all," said he.
+
+He added, "Follow me, madam, I will introduce you."
+
+The Archbishop of Paris was in the room which adjoins his study. The
+Abbe Maret ushered Madame Arnaulde into the study, informed the
+Archbishop, and a moment later the Archbishop entered. Besides the Abbe
+Maret, the Abbe Deguerry, the Cure of the Madeleine, was with him.
+
+Madame Arnauld handed to M. Sibour the two letters of her husband and
+the workman. The Archbishop read them, and remained thoughtful.
+
+"What answer am I to take back to my husband?" asked Madame Arnauld.
+
+"Madame," replied the Archbishop, "it is too late. This should have been
+done before the struggle began. Now, it would be only to risk the
+shedding of more blood than perhaps has yet been spilled."
+
+The Abbe Deguerry was silent. The Abbe Maret tried respectfully to turn
+the mind of his Bishop towards the grand effort unsoiled by the workman.
+He spoke eloquently. He laid great stress open this argument, that the
+appearance of the Archbishop would bring about a manifestation of the
+National Guard, and that a manifestation of the National Guard would
+compel the Elysee to draw back.
+
+"No," said the Archbishop, "you hope for the impossible. The Elysee will
+not draw back now. You believe that I should stop the bloodshed--not at
+all; I should cause it to flow, and that in torrents. The National Guard
+has no longer any influence. If the legions appeared, the Elysee could
+crush the legions by the regiments. And then, what is an Archbishop in
+the presence of the Man of the _coup d'etat_? Where is the oath? Where
+is the sworn faith? Where is the Respect for Right? A man does not turn
+back when he has made three steps in such a crime. No! No! Do not hope.
+This man will do all. He has struck the Law in the hand of the
+Representatives. He will strike God in mine."
+
+And he dismissed Madame Arnauld with the look of a man overwhelmed with
+sorrow.
+
+Let us do the duty of the Historian. Six weeks afterwards, in the Church
+of Notre Dame, some one was singing the _Te Deum_ in honor of the
+treason of December--thus making God a partner in a crime.
+
+This man was the Archbishop Sibour.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+MOUNT VALERIEN
+
+Of the two hundred and thirty Representatives prisoners at the barracks
+of the Quai d'Orsay fifty-three had been sent to Mount Valerien. They
+loaded them in four police vans. Some few remained who were packed in an
+omnibus. MM. Benoist d'Azy, Falloux, Piscatory, Vatimesail, were locked
+in the wheeled cells, as also Eugene Sue and Esquiros. The worthy M.
+Gustave de Beaumont, a great upholder of the cellular system, rode in a
+cell vehicle. It is not an undesirable thing, as we have said, that the
+legislator should taste of the law.
+
+The Commandant of Mount Valerien appeared under the archway of the fort
+to receive the Representative prisoners.
+
+He at first made some show of registering them in the jailer's book.
+General Oudinot, under whom he had served, rebuked him severely,--
+
+"Do you know me?"
+
+"Yes, General."
+
+"Well then, let that suffice. Ask no more."
+
+"Yes," said Tamisier. "Ask more and salute. We are more than the Army;
+we are France."
+
+The commandant understood. From that moment he was hat in hand before
+the generals, and bowed low before the Representatives.
+
+They led them to the barracks of the fort and shut them up promiscuously
+in a dormitory, to which they added fresh beds, and which the soldiers
+had just quitted. They spent their first night there. The beds touched
+each other. The sheets were dirty.
+
+Next morning, owing to a few words which had been heard outside, the
+rumor spread amongst them that the fifty-three were to be sorted, and
+that the Republicans were to be placed by themselves. Shortly afterwards
+the rumor was confirmed. Madame de Luynes gained admission to her
+husband, and brought some items of news. It was asserted, amongst other
+things, that the Keeper of the Seals of the _coup d'etat_, the man who
+signed himself Eugene Rouher, "Minister of Justice," had said, "Let them
+set the men of the Right at liberty, and send the men of the Left to the
+dungeon. If the populace stirs they will answer for everything. As a
+guarantee for the submission of the Faubourgs we shall have the head of
+the Reds."
+
+We do not believe that M. Rouher uttered these words, in which there is
+so much audacity. At that moment M. Rouher did not possess any.
+Appointed Minister on the 2d December, he temporized, he exhibited a
+vague prudery, he did not venture to install himself in the Place
+Vendome. Was all that was being done quite correct? In certain minds the
+doubt of success changes into scruples of conscience. To violate every
+law, to perjure oneself, to strangle Right, to assassinate the country,
+are all these proceedings wholly honest? While the deed is not
+accomplished they hesitate. When the deed has succeeded they throw
+themselves upon it. Where there is victory there is no longer treason;
+nothing serves like success to cleanse and render acceptable that
+unknown thing which is called crime. During the first moments M. Rocher
+reserved himself. Later on he has been one of the most violent advisers
+of Louis Bonaparte. It is all very simple. His fear beforehand explains
+his subsequent zeal.
+
+The truth is, that these threatening words had been spoken not by
+Rouher, but by Persigny.
+
+M. de Luynes imparted to his colleagues what was in preparation, and
+warned them that they would be asked for their names in order that the
+white sheep might be separated from the scarlet goats. A murmur which
+seemed to be unanimous arose. These generous manifestations did honor to
+the Representatives of the Right.
+
+"No! no! Let us name no one, let us not allow ourselves to be sorted,"
+exclaimed M. Gustave de Beaumont.
+
+M. de Vatimesnil added, "We have come in here all together, we ought to
+go out all together."
+
+Nevertheless a few moments afterwards Antony Thouret was informed that a
+list of names was being secretly prepared, and that the Royalist
+Representatives were invited to sign it. They attributed, doubtless
+wrongly, this unworthy resolution to the honorable M. de Falloux.
+
+Antony Thouret spoke somewhat warmly in the centre of the group, which
+were muttering together in the dormitory.
+
+"Gentlemen," said he, "a list of names is being prepared. This would be
+an unworthy action. Yesterday at the Mairie of the Tenth Arrondissement
+you said to us, 'There is no longer Left or Right; we are the Assembly.'
+You believed in the victory of the People, and you sheltered yourself
+behind us Republicans. Today you believe in the victory of the _coup
+d'etat_, and you would again become Royalists, to deliver us up, us
+Democrats! Truly excellent. Very well! Pray do so."
+
+A universal shout arose.
+
+"No! No! No more Right or Left! All are the Assembly. The same lot for
+all!"
+
+The list which had been begun was seized and burnt.
+
+"By decision of the Chamber," said M. de Vatimesnil, smiling. A
+Legitimist Representative added,--
+
+"Of the Chamber? No, let us say of the Chambered."
+
+A few moments afterwards the Commissary of the fort appeared, and in
+polite phrases, which, however, savored somewhat of authority, invited
+each of the Representatives of the People to declare his name in order
+that each might be allotted to his ultimate destination.
+
+A shout of indignation answered him.
+
+"No one! No one will give his name," said General Oudinot.
+
+Gustave de Beaumont added,--
+
+"We all bear the same name: Representatives of the People."
+
+The Commissary saluted them and went away.
+
+After two hours he came back. He was accompanied this time by the Chief
+of the Ushers of the Assembly, a man named Duponceau, a species of
+arrogant fellow with a red face and white hair, who on grand days
+strutted at the foot of the Tribune with a silvered collar, a chain over
+his stomach, and a sword between his legs.
+
+The Commissary said to Duponceau,--"Do your duty."
+
+What the Commissary meant, and what Duponceau understood by this word
+_duty_, was that the Usher should denounce the Legislators. Like the
+lackey who betrays his masters.
+
+It was done in this manner.
+
+This Duponceau dared to look in the faces of the Representatives by
+turn, and he named them one after the other to a policeman, who took
+notes of them.
+
+The Sieur Duponceau was sharply castigated while holding this review.
+
+"M. Duponceau," said M. Vatimesnil to him, "I always thought you an
+idiot, but I believed you to be an honest man."
+
+The severest rebuke was administered by Antony Thouret. He looked Sieur
+Duponceau in the face, and said to him, "You deserve to be named Dupin."
+
+The Usher in truth was worthy of being the President, and the President
+was worthy of being the Usher.
+
+The flock having been counted, the classification having been made,
+there were found to be thirteen goats: ten Representatives of the Left;
+Eugene Sue, Esquires, Antony Thouret, Pascal Duprat, Chanay, Fayolle,
+Paulin Durrien, Benoit, Tamisier, Tailard Laterisse, and three members
+of the Right, who since the preceding day had suddenly become Red in the
+eyes of the _coups d'etat_; Oudinot, Piscatory, and Thuriot de la
+Rosiere.
+
+They confined these separately, and they set at liberty one by one the
+forty who remained.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+THE LIGHTNING BEGINS TO FLASH AMONGST THE PEOPLE
+
+The evening wore a threatening aspect.
+
+Groups were formed on the Boulevards. As night advanced they grew larger
+and became mobs, which speedily mingled together, and only formed one
+crowd. An enormous crowd, reinforced and agitated by tributary currents
+from the side-streets, jostling one against another, surging, stormy,
+and whence ascended an ominous hum. This hubbub resolved itself into one
+word, into one name which issued simultaneously from every mouth, and
+which expressed the whole of the situation: "Soulouque!"[12] Throughout
+that long line from the Madeleine to the Bastille, the roadway nearly
+everywhere, except (was this on purpose?) at the Porte St. Denis and the
+Porte St. Martin, was occupied by the soldiers--infantry and cavalry,
+ranged in battle-order, the artillery batteries being harnessed; on the
+pavements on each side of this motionless and gloomy mass, bristling
+with cannon, swords, and bayonets, flowed a torrent of angry people. On
+all sides public indignation prevailed. Such was the aspect of the
+Boulevards. At the Bastille there was a dead calm.
+
+At the Porte St. Martin the crowd, hemmed together and uneasy, spoke in
+low tones. Groups of workmen talked in whispers. The Society of the 10th
+December made some efforts there. Men in white blouses, a sort of
+uniform which the police assumed during those days, said, "Let us leave
+them alone; let the 'Twenty-five francs' settle it amongst themselves!
+They deserted us in June, 1848; to-day let them get out of the
+difficulty alone! It does not concern us!" Other blouses, blue blouses,
+answered them, "We know what we have to do. This is only the beginning,
+wait and see."
+
+Others told how the barricades of the Rue Aumaire were being rebuilt,
+how a large number of persons had already been killed there, how they
+fired without any summons, how the soldiers were drunk, how at various
+points in the district there were ambulances already crowded with killed
+and wounded. All this was said seriously, without loud speaking, without
+gesture, in a confidential tone. From time to time the crowd were silent
+and listened, and distant firing was heard.
+
+The groups said, "Now they are beginning to tear down the curtain."
+
+We were holding Permanent Session at Marie's house in the Rue Croix des
+Petits Champs. Promises of co-operation poured in upon us from every
+side. Several of our colleagues, who had not been able to find us on the
+previous day, had joined us, amongst others Emmanuel Arago, gallant son
+of an illustrious father; Farconnet and Roussel (de l'Yonne), and some
+Parisian celebrities, amongst whom was the young and already well-known
+defender of the _Avenement du Peuple_, M. Desmarets.
+
+Two eloquent men, Jules Favre and Alexander Rey, seated at a large table
+near the window of the small room, were drawing up a Proclamation to the
+National Guard. In the large room Sain, seated in an arm-chair, his feet
+on the dog-irons, drying his wet boots before a huge fire, said, with
+that calm and courageous smile which he wore in the Tribune, "Things are
+looking badly for us, but well for the Republic. Martial law is
+proclaimed; it will be carried out with ferocity, above all against us.
+We are laid in wait for, followed, tracked, there is little probability
+that we shall escape. To-day, to-morrow, perhaps in ten minutes, there
+will be a 'miniature massacre' of Representatives. We shall be taken
+here or elsewhere, shot down on the spot or killed with bayonet thrusts.
+They will parade our corpses, and we must hope that that will at length
+raise the people and overthrow Bonaparte. We are dead, but Bonaparte is
+lost."
+
+At eight o'clock, as Emile de Girardin had promised, we received from
+the printing office of the _Presse_ five hundred copies of the decree of
+deposition and of outlawry endorsing the judgment of the High Court, and
+with all our signatures attached. It was a placard twice as large as
+one's hand, and printed on paper used for proofs. Noel Parfait brought us
+the five hundred copies, still damp, between his waistcoat and his shirt.
+Thirty Representatives divided the bills amongst them, and we sent them
+on the Boulevards to distribute the Decree to the People.
+
+The effect of this Decree falling in the midst of the crowd was
+marvellous. Some _cafes_ had remained open, people eagerly snatched the
+bills, they pressed round the lighted shop windows, they crowded under
+the street lamps. Some mounted on kerbstones or on tables, and read
+aloud the Decree.--"That is it! Bravo!" cried the people. "The
+signatures!" "The signatures!" they shouted. The signatures were read
+out, and at each popular name the crowd applauded. Charamaule, merry and
+indignant, wandered through the groups, distributing copies of the
+Decree; his great stature, his loud and bold words, the packet of
+handbills which he raised, and waved above his head, caused all hands to
+be stretched out towards him. "Shout 'Down with Soulouque!'" said he,
+"and you shall have some." All this in the presence of the soldiers.
+Even a sergeant of the line, noticing Charamaule, stretched out his hand
+for one of the bills which Charamaule was distributing. "Sergeant," said
+Charamaule to him, "cry, 'Down with Soulouque!'" The sergeant hesitated
+for a moment, and answered "No." "Well, then," replied Charamaule,
+"Shout, 'Long live Soulouque.'" This time the sergeant did not hesitate,
+he raised his sword, and, amid bursts of laughter and of applause, he
+resolutely shouted, "Long live Soulouque!"
+
+The reading of the Decree added a gloomy warmth to the popular anger.
+They set to work on all sides to tear down the placards of the _coup
+d'etat_. At the door of the Cafe des Varietes a young man cried out to
+the officers, "You are drunk!" Some workmen on the Boulevard
+Bonne-Nouvelle shook their fists at the soldiers and said, "Fire, then,
+you cowards, on unarmed men! If we had guns you would throw the butts of
+your muskets in the air." Charges of cavalry began to be made in front
+of the Cafe Cardinal.
+
+As there were no troops on the Boulevard St. Martin and the Boulevard du
+Temple, the crowd was more compact pact there than elsewhere. All the
+shops were shut there; the street lamps alone gave any light. Against
+the gloss of the unlighted windows heads might be dimly seen peering
+out. Darkness produced silence; this multitude, as we have already said,
+was hushed. There was only heard a confused whispering. Suddenly a
+light, a noise, an uproar burst forth from the entrance of the Rue St.
+Martin. Every eye was turned in that direction; a profound upheaving
+agitated the crowd; they rushed forward, they pressed against the
+railings of the high pavements which border the cutting between the
+theatres of the Porte St. Martin and the Ambigu. A moving mass was seen,
+and an approaching light. Voices were singing. This formidable chorus
+was recognized,
+
+    "Aux armes, Citoyens; formez vos bataillons!"
+
+Lighted torches were coming, it was the "Marseillaise," that other torch
+of Revolution and of warfare which was blazing.
+
+The crowd made way for the mob which carried the torches, and which were
+singing. The mob reached the St. Martin cutting, and entered it. It was
+then seen what this mournful procession meant. The mob was composed of
+two distinct groups. The first carried on its shoulders a plank, on which
+could be seen stretched an old man with a white beard, stark, the mouth
+open, the eyes fixed, and with a hole in his forehead. The swinging
+movement of the bearers shook the corpse, and the dead head rose and fell
+in a threatening and pathetic manner. One of the men who carried him,
+pale, and wounded in the breast, placed his hand to his wound, leant
+against the feet of the old man, and at times himself appeared ready to
+fall. The other group bore a second litter, on which a young man was
+stretched, his countenance pale and his eyes closed, his shirt stained,
+open over his breast, displaying his wounds. While bearing the two
+litters the groups sang. They sang the "Marseillaise," and at each chorus
+they stopped and raised their torches, crying, "To arms!" Some young men
+waved drawn swords. The torches shed a lurid light on the pallid
+foreheads of the corpses and on the livid faces of the crowd. A shudder
+ran through the people. It appeared as though they again saw the terrible
+vision of February, 1848.
+
+This gloomy procession came from the Rue Aumaire. About eight o'clock
+some thirty workmen gathered together from the neighborhood of the
+markets, the same who on the next day raised the barricade of the
+Guerin-Boisseau, reached the Rue Aumaire by the Rue de Petit Lion, the
+Rue Neuve-Bourg-l'Abbe, and the Carre St. Martin. They came to fight,
+but here the combat was at an end. The infantry had withdrawn after
+having pulled down the barricades. Two corpses, an old man of seventy
+and a young man of five-and-twenty, lay at the corner of the street on
+the ground, with uncovered faces, their bodies in a pool of blood, their
+heads on the pavement where they had fallen. Both were dressed in
+overcoats, and seemed to belong to the middle class. The old man had his
+hat by his side; he was a venerable figure with a white beard, white
+hair, and a calm expression. A ball had pierced his skull.
+
+The young man's breast was pierced with buck-shot. One was the father,
+the other the son. The son, seeing his father fall, had said, "I also
+will die." Both were lying side by side.
+
+Opposite the gateway of the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers there was
+a house in course of building. They fetched two planks from it, they
+laid the corpses on the planks, the crowd raised them upon their
+shoulders, they brought torches, and they began their march. In the Rue
+St. Denis a man in a white blouse barred the way. "Where are you going?"
+said he to them. "You will bring about disasters! You are helping the
+'Twenty-five francs!'" "Down with the police! Down with the white
+blouse!" shouted the crowd. The man slunk away.
+
+The mob swelled on its road; the crowd opened out and repeated the
+"Marseillaise" in chorus, but with the exception of a few swords no one
+was armed. On the boulevard the emotion was intense. Women clasped their
+hands in pity. Workmen were heard to exclaim, "And to think that we have
+no arms!"
+
+The procession, after having for some time followed the Boulevards,
+re-entered the streets, followed by a deeply-affected and angry
+multitude. In this manner it reached the Rue de Gravilliers. Then a
+squad of twenty _sergents de ville_ suddenly emerging from a narrow
+street rushed with drawn swords upon the men who were carrying the
+litters, and overturned the corpses into the mud. A regiment of
+Chasseurs came up at the double, and put an end to the conflict with
+bayonet thrusts. A hundred and two citizen prisoners were conducted to
+the Prefecture. The two corpses received several sword-cuts in the
+confusion, and were killed a second time. The brigadier Revial, who
+commanded the squad of the _sergents de ville_, received the Cross of
+Honor for this deed of arms.
+
+At Marie's we were on the point of being surrounded. We decided to leave
+the Rue Croix des Petits Champs.
+
+At the Elysee they commenced to tremble. The ex-Commandant Fleury, one
+of the aides-de-camp of the Presidency, was summoned into the little
+room where M. Bonaparte had remained throughout the day. M. Bonaparte
+conferred a few moments alone with M. Fleury, then the aide-de-camp came
+out of the room, mounted his horse, and galloped off in the direction of
+Mazas.
+
+After this the men of the _coup d'etat_ met together in M. Bonaparte's
+room, and held council. Matters were visibly going badly; it was
+probable that the battle would end by assuming formidable proportions.
+Up to that time they had desired this, now they did not feel sure that
+they did not fear it. They pushed forward towards it, but they
+mistrusted it. There were alarming symptoms in the steadfastness of the
+resistance, and others not less serious in the cowardice of adherents.
+Not one of the new Ministers appointed during the morning had taken
+possession of his Ministry--a significant timidity on the part of people
+ordinarily so prompt to throw themselves upon such things. M. Roulier,
+in particular, had disappeared, no one knew where--a sign of tempest.
+Putting Louis Bonaparte on one side, the _coup d'etat_ continued to rest
+solely upon three names, Morny, St. Arnaud, and Maupas. St. Arnaud
+answered for Magnan. Morny laughed and said in a whisper, "But does
+Magnan answer for St. Arnaud?" These men adopted energetic measures,
+they sent for new regiments; an order to the garrisons to march upon
+Paris was despatched in the one direction as far as Cherbourg, and on
+the other as far as Maubeuge. These criminals, in the main deeply
+uneasy, sought to deceive each other. They assumed a cheerful
+countenance; all spoke of victory; each in the background arranged for
+flight; in secret, and saying nothing, in order not to give the alarm to
+his compromised colleagues, so as, in case of failure, to leave the
+people some men to devour. For this little school of Machiavellian apes
+the hopes of a successful escape lie in the abandonment of their
+friends. During their flight they throw their accomplices behind them.
+
+
+[12] A popular nickname for Louis Bonaparte. Faustin Soulouque was the
+negro Emperor of Hayti, who, when President of the Republic, had carried
+out a somewhat similar _coup d'etat_ in 1848, being subsequently elected
+Emperor. He treated the Republicans with great cruelty, putting most of
+them to death.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+
+WHAT FLEURY WENT TO DO AT MAZAS
+
+During the same night towards four o'clock the approaches of the
+Northern Railway Station were silently invested by two regiments; one
+of Chasseurs de Vincennes, the other of _Gendarmerie Mobile_. Numerous
+squads of _sergents de ville_ installed themselves in the terminus. The
+station-master was ordered to prepare a special train and to have an
+engine ready. A certain number of stokers and engineers for night
+service were retained. No explanation however was vouchsafed to any
+one, and absolute secrecy was maintained. A little before six o'clock a
+movement was apparent in the troops. Some _sergents de ville_ came
+running up, and a few minutes afterwards a squadron of Lancers emerged
+at a sharp trot from the Rue du Nord. In the centre of the squadron and
+between the two lines of horse-soldiers could be seen two police-vans
+drawn by post-horses, behind each vehicle came a little open barouche,
+in which there sat one man. At the head of the Lancers galloped the
+aide-de-camp Fleury.
+
+The procession entered the courtyard, then the railway station, and the
+gates and doors were reclosed.
+
+The two men in the barouches made themselves known to the Special
+Commissary of the station, to whom the aide-de-camp Fleury spoke
+privately. This mysterious convoy excited the curiosity of the railway
+officials; they questioned the policemen, but these knew nothing. All
+that they could tell was that these police-vans contained eight places,
+that in each van there were four prisoners, each occupying a cell, and
+that the four other cells were filled by four _sergents de ville_
+placed between the prisoners so as to prevent any communication between
+the cells.
+
+After various consultations between the aide-de-camp of the Elysee and
+the men of the Prefect Maupas, the two police-vans were placed on
+railway trucks, each having behind it the open barouche like a wheeled
+sentry-box, where a police agent acted as sentinel. The engine was
+ready, the trucks were attached to the tender, and the train started. It
+was still pitch dark.
+
+For a long time the train sped on in the most profound silence.
+Meanwhile it was freezing, in the second of the two police-vans, the
+_sergents de ville_, cramped and chilled, opened their cells, and in
+order to warm and stretch themselves walked up and down the narrow
+gangway which runs from end to end of the police-vans. Day had broken,
+the four _sergents de ville_ inhaled the outside air and gazed at the
+passing country through a species of port-hole which borders each side
+of the ceiling of the passage. Suddenly a loud voice issued from one of
+the cells which had remained closed, and cried out, "Hey! there! it is
+very cold, cannot I relight my cigar here?"
+
+Another voice immediately issued from a second cell, and said, "What! it
+is you? Good-morning, Lamoriciere!"
+
+"Good-morning, Cavaignac!" replied the first voice.
+
+General Cavaignac and General Lamoriciere had just recognized each
+other.
+
+A third voice was raised from a third cell. "Ah! you are there,
+gentlemen. Good-morning and a pleasant journey."
+
+He who spoke then was General Changarnier.
+
+"Generals?" cried out a fourth voice. "I am one of you!"
+
+The three generals recognized M. Baze. A burst of laughter came from the
+four cells simultaneously.
+
+This police-van in truth contained, and was carrying away from Paris,
+the Questor Baze, and the Generals Lamoriciere, Cavaignac, and
+Changarnier. In the other vehicle, which was placed foremost on the
+trucks, there were Colonel Charras, Generals Bedeau and Le Flo, and
+Count Roger (du Nord).
+
+At midnight these eight Representative prisoners were sleeping in their
+cells at Mazas, when they heard a sudden knocking at their doors, and a
+voice cried out to them, "Dress, they are coming to fetch you." "Is it to
+shoot us?" cried Charras from the other side of the door. They did not
+answer him. It is worth remarking that this idea came simultaneously to
+all. And in truth, if we can believe what has since transpired through
+the quarrels of accomplices, it appears that in the event of a sudden
+attack being made by us upon Mazas to deliver them, a fusillade had been
+resolved upon, and that St. Arnaud had in his pocket the written order,
+signed "Louis Bonaparte."
+
+The prisoners got up. Already on the preceding night a similar notice
+had been given to them. They had passed the night on their feet, and at
+six o'clock in the morning the jailer said to them, "You can go to bed."
+The hours passed by; they ended by thinking it would be the same as the
+preceding night, and many of them, hearing five o'clock strike from the
+clock tower inside the prison, were going to get back into bed, when the
+doors of their cells were opened. All the eight were taken downstairs
+one by one into the clerk's office in the Rotunda, and were then ushered
+into the police-van without having met or seen each other during the
+passage. A man dressed in black, with an impertinent bearing, seated at
+a table with pen in hand, stopped them on their way, and asked their
+names. "I am no more disposed to tell you my name than I am curious to
+learn yours," answered General Lamoriciere, and he passed outside.
+
+The aide-de-camp Fleury, concealing his uniform under his hooded cloak,
+stationed himself in the clerk's office. He was charged, to use his own
+words, to "embark" them, and to go and report their "embarkation" at the
+Elysee. The aide-de-camp Fleury had passed nearly the whole of his
+military career in Africa in General Lamoriciere's division; and it was
+General Lamoriciere who in 1848, then being Minister of War, had
+promoted him to the rank of major. While passing through the clerk's
+office, General Lamoriciere looked fixedly at him.
+
+When they entered the police-vans the generals were smoking cigars. They
+took them from them. General Lamoriciere had kept his. A voice from
+outside cried three separate times, "Stop his smoking!" A _sergent de
+ville_ who was standing by the door of the cell hesitated for
+some time, but however ended by saying to the general, "Throw away your
+cigar."
+
+Thence later on ensued the exclamation which caused General Cavaignac to
+recognize General Lamoriciere. The vehicles having been loaded they set
+off.
+
+They did not know either with whom they were or where they were going.
+Each observed for himself in his box the turnings of the streets, and
+tried to speculate. Some believed that they were being taken to the
+Northern Railway Station; others thought to the Havre Railway Station.
+They heard the trot of the escort on the paving-stones.
+
+On the railway the discomfort of the cells greatly increased. General
+Lamoriciere, encumbered with a parcel and a cloak, was still more jammed
+in than the others. He could not move, the cold seized him, and he ended
+by the exclamation which put all four of them in communication with each
+other.
+
+On hearing the names of the prisoners their keepers, who up to that time
+had been rough, became respectful. "I say there," said General
+Changarnier, "open our cells, and let us walk up and down the passage
+like yourselves." "General," said a _sergent de ville_, "we are forbidden
+to do so. The Commissary of Police is behind the carriage in a barouche,
+whence he sees everything that is taking place here." Nevertheless, a
+few moments afterwards, the keepers, under pretext of cold, pulled up
+the ground-glass window which closed the vehicle on the side of the
+Commissary, and having thus "blocked the police," as one of them
+remarked, they opened the cells of the prisoners.
+
+It was with great delight that the four Representatives met again and
+shook hands. Each of these three generals at this demonstrative moment
+maintained the character of his temperament. Lamoriciere, impetuous and
+witty, throwing himself with all his military energy upon "the Bonaparte;"
+Cavaignac, calm and cold; Changarnier, silent and looking out through
+the port-hole at the landscape. The _sergents de ville_ ventured to put
+in a word here and there. One of them related to the prisoners that the
+ex-Prefect Carlier had spent the night of the First and Second at the
+Prefecture of Police. "As for me," said he, "I left the Prefecture at
+midnight, but I saw him up to that hour, and I can affirm that at
+midnight he was there still."
+
+They reached Creil, and then Noyon. At Noyon they gave them some
+breakfast, without letting them get out, a hurried morsel and a glass of
+wine. The Commissaries of Police did not open their lips to them. Then
+the carriages were reclosed, and they felt they were being taken off the
+trucks and being replaced on the wheels. Post horses arrived, and the
+vehicles set out, but slowly; they were now escorted by a company of
+infantry _Gendarmerie Mobile_.
+
+When they left Noyon they had been ten hours in the police-van. Meanwhile
+the infantry halted. They asked permission to get out for a moment "We
+consent," said one of the Commissaries of the Police, "but only for a
+minute, and on condition that you will give your word of honor not to
+escape." "We will give our word of honor," replied the prisoners.
+"Gentlemen," continued the Commissary, "give it to me only for one
+minute, the time to drink a glass of water." "No," said General
+Lamoriciere, "but the time to do the contrary," and he added, "To Louis
+Bonaparte's health." They allowed them to get out, one by one, and they
+were, able to inhale for a moment the fresh air in the open country by
+the side of the road.
+
+Then the convoy resumed its march.
+
+As the day waned they saw through their port-hole a mass of high walls,
+somewhat overtopped by a great round tower. A moment afterwards the
+carriages entered beneath a low archway, and then stopped in the centre
+of a long courtyard, steeply embanked, surrounded by high walls, and
+commanded by two buildings, of which one had the appearance of a
+barrack, and the other, with bars at all the windows, had the appearance
+of a prison. The doors of the carriages were opened. An officer who wore
+a captain's epaulets was standing by the steps. General Changarnier came
+down first. "Where are we?" said he. The officer answered, "You are at
+Ham."
+
+This officer was the Commandant of the Fort. He had been appointed to
+this post by General Cavaignac.
+
+The journey from Noyon to Ham had lasted three hours and a half. They
+had spent thirteen hours in the police van, of which ten were on the
+railway.
+
+They led them separately into the
+prison, each to the room that was allotted to him. However, General
+Lamoriciere having been taken by mistake into Cavaignac's room, the two
+generals could again exchange a shake of the hand. General Lamoriciere
+wished to write to his wife; the only letter which the Commissaries of
+Police consented to take charge of was a note containing this line: "I
+am well."
+
+The principal building of the prison of Ham is composed of a story above
+the ground floor. The ground floor is traversed by a dark and low
+archway, which leads from the principal courtyard into a back yard, and
+contains three rooms separated by a passage; the first floor contains
+five rooms. One of the three rooms on the ground floor is only a little
+ante-room, almost uninhabitable; there they lodged M. Baze. In the
+remaining lower chambers they installed General Lamoriciere and General
+Changarnier. The five other prisoners were distributed in the five rooms
+of the first floor.
+
+The room allotted to General Lamoriciere had been occupied in the time
+of the captivity of the Ministers of Charles X. by the ex-Minister of
+Marine, M. d'Haussez. It was a low, damp room, long uninhabited, and
+which had served as a chapel, adjoining the dreary archway which led
+from one courtyard to the other, floored with great planks slimy and
+mouldy, to which the foot adhered, papered with a gray paper which had
+turned green, and which hung in rags, exuding saltpetre from the floor
+to the ceiling, lighted by two barred windows looking on to the
+courtyard, which had always to be left open on account of the smoky
+chimney. At the bottom of the room was the bed, and between the windows
+a table and two straw-bottomed chairs. The damp ran down the walls. When
+General Lamoriciere left this room he carried away rheumatism with him;
+M. de Haussez went out crippled.
+
+When the eight prisoners had entered their rooms, the doors were shut
+upon them; they heard the bolts shot from outside, and they were told:
+"You are in close confinement."
+
+General Cavaignac occupied on the first floor the former room of M. Louis
+Bonaparte, the best in the prison. The first thing which struck the eye
+of the General was an inscription traced on the well, and stating the day
+when Louis Bonaparte had entered this fortress, and the day when he had
+left it, as is well known, disguised as a mason, and with a plank on his
+shoulder. Moreover, the choice of this building was an attention on the
+part of M. Louis Bonaparte, who having in 1848 taken the place of General
+Cavaignac in power; wished that in 1851 General Cavaignac should take his
+place in prison.
+
+"Turn and turn about!" Morny had said, smiling.
+
+The prisoners were guarded by the 48th of the Line, who formed the
+garrison at Ham. The old Bastilles are quite impartial. They obey those
+who make _coups d'etat_ until the day when they clutch them. What do
+these words matter to them, Equity, Truth, Conscience, which moreover in
+certain circles do not move men any more than stones? They are the cold
+and gloomy servants of the just and of the unjust. They take whatever is
+given them. All is good to them. Are they guilty? Good! Are they
+innocent? Excellent! This man is the organizer of an ambush. To prison!
+This man is the victim of an ambush! Enter him in the prison register!
+In the same room. To the dungeon with all the vanquished!
+
+These hideous Bastilles resemble that old human justice which possessed
+precisely as much conscience as they have, which condemned Socrates and
+Jesus, and which also takes and leaves, seizes and releases, absolves
+and condemns, liberates and incarcerates, opens and shuts, at the will
+of whatever hand manipulates the bolt from outside.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+
+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'etat_ 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. Veron who publishes in his "Memoires" 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 Theatre Francais, were on the first floor of a
+house which, like M. Grevy's residence, had an exit into the Rue
+Fontaine Moliere.
+
+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'etat_. 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.
+
+"Leon 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 kepi. He galloped quickly off. At one o'clock
+the regiments were summoned to vote on the _coup d'etat_. 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 Valerien. 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. Honore. Moreover, the
+conflict reveals itself. They sound the tocsin at the Chapelle Brea. One
+barricade overturned sets twenty barricades on their feet. There is the
+barricade of the Schools in the Rue St. Andre des Arts, the barricade of
+the Rue du Temple, the barricade of the Carrefour Phelippeaux 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
+Barriere 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 Negrier. 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 Elysee.
+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 Hotel de Ville; the Sauboul brigade at the
+Pantheon; 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 Elysees 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 Poissioniere); in the
+Salle St. Jean at the Hotel 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 Elysee. 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.
+
+
+
+
+THE THIRD DAY--THE MASSACRE.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+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 Elysee. 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 Elysee, 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 Elysee, 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
+Aures. 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'Orleans, the second time by the Duc de Nemours.
+
+Such were these colonels.
+
+Saint-Arnaud spoke to them for some time in a low tone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE COMMITTEE
+
+As soon as it was daylight we had assembled in the house of our
+imprisoned colleague, M. Grevy. 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 Conciergerie as soon
+as the surprise which we premeditated upon the Prefecture of Police and
+the Hotel 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 Theatre Francais, 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. Grevy'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-Moliere.
+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'etat_.
+
+  "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 Theodore 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'Herault 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. Behic, 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. Behic 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. Behic had reclosed the door, and had disappeared. He
+reappeared later on under the Empire--a Minister.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+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
+Elysee. Yvan knew through Conneau the details of what had taken place
+during the night at the Elysee, 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'etat_.
+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 Elysee, 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 Mole 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 Elysee, horsed, ready to start, the postilions in their saddles.
+
+In the stables of the Elysee 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 Bicetre,
+together with Croce Spinelli, Genillier, Hippolyte Magen, a talented and
+courageous writer, Goudouneche, 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 metres 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 Bicetre, 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 centimetres 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, Arsene 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 Arsene 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."
+
+
+[13] The above is a free rendering of the original, which is as follows:--
+
+    Des rayons du matin l'horizon se colore,
+    Le jour vient eclairer notre tendre entretien,
+    Mais est-il un sourire aux levres de l'aurore.
+                       Aussi doux que le tien?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+BONAPARTE'S FAMILIAR SPIRITS
+
+M. Merimee 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. Merimee has wrongly given himself out as one of the confederates of
+the _coup d'etat_. He had, however, nothing to boast of in this.
+
+The truth is that M. Merimee 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. Merimee, at the date of the 2d
+December, had any direct relations with Louis Bonaparte. This ensued
+later on. At first Merimee only knew Morny.
+
+Morny and Merimee were both intimate at the Elysee, but on a different
+footing. Morny can be believed, but not Merimee. Morny was in the great
+secrets, Merimee in the small ones. Commissions of gallantry formed his
+vocation.
+
+The familiars of the Elysee 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 Merimee.
+
+This is what made the fortune of M. Merimee.
+
+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 Elysee a literary ornament was wanted. A little savor of the
+Academy is not out of place in a brigand's cavern. M. Merimee 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 "Abbe of La Belle-Poule." The answer is
+known which he made to a princess who asked him, "What is the Elysee?" 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 Philarete Chasles, an ill-tempered writer who
+had become Minister of the Marine, which caused Beranger 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 Abbe 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
+Elysee 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 Jerome'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 Elysee, wretched as it was, holds a place in the age. The Elysee, has
+engendered catastrophes and ridicule.
+
+One cannot pass it over in silence.
+
+The Elysee 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 Elysee has been the laboratory, the counting-house, the
+confessional, the alcove, the den of the reign. The Elysee 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 Elysee 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 Elysee, 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 Elysee
+existed. The grotesque side does not prevent the tragic side. There is at
+the Elysee a room which has seen the second abdication, the abdication
+after Waterloo. It is at the Elysee that Napoleon the First ended and
+that Napoleon the Third began. It is at the Elysee 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.
+
+
+[14] Better known afterwards as Persigny.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+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,
+Lamoriciere, Cavaignac, and Changarnier were his four stepping-stones to
+advancement. At Paris, in 1851, he met Lamoriciere, 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 Elysee, 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'etat_, 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_."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+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 Theophile 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 Conciergerie with
+my two sons and my two imprisoned friends. These great hearts and great
+minds, Vacquerie, Meurice, Charles, and Francois 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 Cremieux, 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'etat_, 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+ITEMS AND INTERVIEWS
+
+Lamoriciere on the same morning found means to convey to me by Madame de
+Courbonne[15] 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.
+
+Lamoriciere, 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 Lamoriciere, 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, Lamoriciere 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,
+Leflo, Changarnier, Bedeau, and Lamoriciere 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. Serriere, the courageous printer,
+came to tell us what had happened at the _Presse_. Serriere published
+the _Presse_ and the _Avenement du Peuple_, the latter a new name for
+the _Evenement_, 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 Serriere an order prohibiting the printing of any article
+signed "Nusse." A Commissary of Police accompanied Lieutenant Pape.
+This Commissary had notified Serriere of a "decree of the President of
+the Republic," suppressing the _Avenement 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'etat_ 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 Serriere, "We have orders
+to concentrate in our own quarters." And Serriere, 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. Merimee,
+his exact opposite, coming towards me.
+
+"Oh!" said M. Merimee, "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 Merimee about Morny, we had the
+following conversation:--Merimee 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 Liege. I have the honor of his acquaintance. He is a
+sharper."
+
+There was this difference between Merimee and myself: I despised Morny,
+and he esteemed him.
+
+Morny reciprocated his feeling. It was natural.
+
+I waited until Merimee 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 Leflo, 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 Leflo were invited, and had made an
+appointment there with General Canrobert. But the ball did not form a
+part of Madame Leflo'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 Leflo 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 Leflo, "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 _Cesar_, and Canrobert _Certain_."
+
+
+[15] No. 16, Rue d'Anjou, Saint Honore.
+
+[16] The author still has in his possession the note written by
+Lamoriciere.
+
+[17] Later on, the wound having got worse, he was obliged to have his
+leg taken off.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+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 Elysee on their side, that
+the day would be decisive.
+
+The moment drew near when the _coup d'etat_ 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'etat_, 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. Boule, 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. Boule 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-Andre-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, Netre 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'etat_ 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 cafe 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 cafe, 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
+letter[18] 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 "Eugene
+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 Valerien. 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 Hotel 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 Cevres, on the Quai Lepelletier, and in the
+Rue de la Cite, to be silently occupied, and that if it should chance
+that the leaders of the _coup d'etat_, owing to the combat in the centre
+of Paris growing more serious, should be forced to withdraw the troops
+from the Hotel 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 Hotel 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 Hotel 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.
+
+
+[18] The original of this note is in the hands of the author of this
+book. It was handed to us by M. Avenel on the part of M. Bocage.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+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 Elysee, as for us, the critical moment was drawing nigh. From
+the preceding evening they were nursing their resources. The _coup
+d'etat_ 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'etat_; 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+
+MY VISIT TO THE BARRICADE
+
+My coachman deposited me at the corner of Saint Eustache, and said to
+me, "Here you are in the hornets' nest."
+
+He added, "I will wait for you in the Rue de la Vrilliere, near the
+Place des Victoires. Take your time."
+
+I began walking from barricade to barricade.
+
+In the first I met De Flotte, who offered to serve me as a guide. There
+is not a more determined man than De Flotte. I accepted his offer; he
+took me everywhere where my presence could be of use.
+
+On the way he gave me an account of the steps taken by him to print our
+proclamations; Boule's printing-office having failed him, he had applied
+to a lithographic press, at No. 30, Rue Bergere, and at the peril of
+their lives two brave men had printed 500 copies of our decrees. These
+two true-hearted workmen were named, the one Rubens, the other Achille
+Poincellot.
+
+While walking I made jottings in pencil (with Baudin's pencil, which I
+had with me); I registered facts at random; I reproduce this page here.
+These living facts are useful for History; the _coup d'etat_ is there,
+as though freshly bleeding.
+
+"Morning of the 4th. It looks as if the combat was suspended. Will it
+burst forth again? Barricades visited by me: one at the corner of
+Saint Eustache. One at the Oyster Market. One in the Rue Mauconseil.
+One in the Rue Tiquetonne. One in the Rue Mandar (Rocher de Cancale).
+One barring the Rue du Cadran and the Rue Montorgueil. Four closing
+the Petit-Carreau. The beginning of one between the Rue des Deux
+Portes and the Rue Saint Sauveur, barring the Rue Saint Denis. One,
+the largest, barring the Rue Saint Denis, at the top of the Rue
+Guerin-Boisseau. One barring the Rue Grenetat. One farther on in the
+Rue Grenetat, barring the Rue Bourg-Labbe (in the centre an overturned
+flour wagon; a good barricade). In the Rue Saint Denis one barring the
+Rue de Petit-Lion-Saint-Sauveur. One barring the Rue du Grand
+Hurleur, with its four corners barricaded. This barricade has already
+been attacked this morning. A combatant, Massonnet, a comb-maker of
+154, Rue Saint Denis, received a ball in his overcoat; Dupapet, called
+'the man with the long beard,' was the last to stay on the summit of
+the barricade. He was heard to cry out to the officers commanding the
+attack, 'You are traitors!' He is believed to have been shot. The
+troops retired--strange to say without demolishing the barricade. A
+barricade is being constructed in the Rue du Renard. Some National
+Guards in uniform watch its construction, but do not work on it. One
+of them said to me, 'We are not against you, you are on the side of
+Right.' They add that there are twelve or fifteen barricades in the
+Rue Rambuteau. This morning at daybreak the cannon had fired
+'steadily,' as one of them remarks, in the Rue Bourbon-Villeneuve. I
+visit a powder manufactory improvised by Leguevel at a chemist's
+opposite the Rue Guerin-Boisseau.
+
+"They are constructing the barricades amicably, without angering any
+one. They do what they can not to annoy the neighborhood. The combatants
+of the Bourg-Labbe barricades are ankle-deep in mud on account of the
+rain. It is a perfect sewer. They hesitate to ask for a truss of straw.
+They lie down in the water or on the pavement.
+
+"I saw there a young man who was ill, and who had just got up from his
+bed with the fever still on him. He said to me, 'I am going to my death'
+(he did so).
+
+"In the Rue Bourbon-Villeneuve they had not even asked a mattress of the
+'shopkeepers,' although, the barricade being bombarded, they needed them
+to deaden the effect of the balls.
+
+"The soldiers make bad barricades, because they make them too well. A
+barricade should be tottering; when well built it is worth nothing; the
+paving-stones should want equilibrium, 'so that they may roll down on
+the troopers,' said a street-boy to me, 'and break their paws.' Sprains
+form a part of barricade warfare.
+
+"Jeanty Sarre is the chief of a complete group of barricades. He
+presented his first lieutenant to me, Charpentier, a man of thirty-six,
+lettered and scientific. Charpentier busies himself with experiments
+with the object of substituting gas for coal and wood in the firing of
+china, and he asks permission to read a tragedy to me 'one of these
+days.' I said to him, 'We shall make one.'
+
+"Jeanty Sarre is grumbling at Charpentier; the ammunition is failing.
+Jeanty Sarre, having at his house in the Rue Saint Honore a pound of
+fowling-powder and twenty army cartridges, sent Charpentier to get them.
+Charpentier went there, and brought back the fowling-powder and the
+cartridges, but distributed them to the combatants on the barricades
+whom he met on the way. 'They were as though famished,' said he.
+Charpentier had never in his life touched a fire-arm. Jeanty Sarre
+showed him how to load a gun.
+
+"They take their meals at a wine-seller's at the corner, and they warm
+themselves there. It is very cold. The wine-seller says, 'Those who are
+hungry, go and eat.' A combatant asked him, 'Who pays?' 'Death,' was the
+answer. And in truth some hours afterwards he had received seventeen
+bayonet thrusts.
+
+"They have not broken the gas-pipes--always for the sake of not doing
+unnecessary damage. They confine themselves to requisitioning the
+gasmen's keys, and the lamplighters' winches in order to open the pipes.
+In this manner they control the lighting or extinguishing.
+
+"This group of barricades is strong, and will play an important part. I
+had hoped at one moment that they would attack it while I was there. The
+bugle had approached, and then had gone away again. Jeanty Sarre tells
+me 'it will be for this evening.'
+
+"His intention is to extinguish the gas in the Rue du Petit-Carreau and
+all the adjoining streets, and to leave only one jet lighted in the Rue
+du Cadran. He has placed sentinels as far as the corner of the Rue Saint
+Denis; at that point there is an open side, without barricades, but
+little accessible to the troops, on account of the narrowness of the
+streets, which they can only enter one by one. Thence little danger
+exists, an advantage of narrow streets; the troops are worth nothing
+unless massed together. The soldier does not like isolated action; in
+war the feeling of elbow to elbow constitutes half the bravery. Jeanty
+Sarre has a reactionary uncle with whom he is not on good terms, and who
+lives close by at No. 1, Rue du Petit-Carreau.--'What a fright we shall
+give him presently!' said Jeanty Sarre to me, laughing. This morning
+Jeanty Sarre has inspected the Montorgueil barricade. There was only one
+man on it, who was drunk, and who put the barrel of his gun against his
+breast, saying, 'No thoroughfare.' Jeanty Sarre disarmed him.
+
+"I go to the Rue Pagevin. There at the corner of the Place des Victoires
+there is a well-constructed barricade. In the adjoining barricade in the
+Rue Jean Jacques Rousseau, the troops this morning made no prisoners.
+The soldiers had killed every one. There are corpses as far as the Place
+des Victoires. The Pagevin barricade held its own. There are fifty men
+there, well armed. I enter. 'Is all going on well?' 'Yes.' 'Courage.' I
+press all these brave hands; they make a report to me. They had seen a
+Municipal Guard smash in the head of a dying man with the butt end of
+his musket. A pretty young girl, wishing to go home, took refuge in the
+barricade. There, terrified, she remained for an hour. When all danger
+was over, the chef of the barricade caused her to be reconducted home by
+the eldest of his men.
+
+"As I was about to leave the barricade Pagevin, they brought me a
+prisoner, a police spy, they said.
+
+"He expected to be shot. I had him set at liberty."
+
+Bancel was in this barricade of the Rue Pagevin. We shook hands.
+
+He asked me,--
+
+"Shall we conquer?"
+
+"Yes," I answered.
+
+We then could hardly entertain a doubt.
+
+De Flotte and Bancel wished to accompany me, fearing that I should be
+arrested by the regiment guarding the Bank.
+
+The weather was misty and cold, almost dark. This obscurity concealed
+and helped us. The fog was on our side.
+
+As we reached the corner of the Rue de la Vrilliere, a group on
+horseback passed by.
+
+It consisted of a few others, preceded by a man who seemed a soldier,
+but who was not in uniform. He wore a cloak with a hood.
+
+De Flotte nudged me with his elbow, and whispered,--
+
+"Do you know Fialin?"
+
+I answered,--
+
+"No."
+
+"Have you seen him?
+
+"No."
+
+"Do you wish to see him?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Look at him."
+
+I looked at him.
+
+This man in truth was passing before us. It was he who preceded the
+group of officers. He came out of the Bank. Had he been there to effect
+a new forced loan? The people who were at the doors looked at him with
+curiosity, and without anger. His entire bearing was insolent. He turned
+from time to time to say a word to one of his followers. This little
+cavalcade "pawed the ground" in the mist and in the mud. Fialin had the
+arrogant air of a man who caracoles before a crime. He gazed at the
+passers-by with a haughty look. His horse was very handsome, and, poor
+beast, seemed very proud. Fialin was smiling. He had in his hand the
+whip that his face deserved.
+
+He passed by. I never saw the man except on this occasion.
+
+De Flotte and Bancel did not leave me until they had seen me get into my
+vehicle. My true-hearted coachman was waiting for me in the Rue de la
+Vrilliere. He brought me back to No 15, Rue Richelieu.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+
+THE BARRICADE OF THE RUE MESLAY
+
+The first barricade of the Rue Saint Martin was erected at the junction
+of the Rue Meslay. A large cart was overturned, placed across the
+street, and the roadway was unpaved; some flag-stones of the footway
+were also torn up. This barricade, the advanced work of defence of the
+whole revolted street, could only form a temporary obstacle. No portion
+of the piled-up stones was higher than a man. In a good third of the
+barricade the stones did not reach above the knee. "It will at all
+events be good enough to get killed in," said a little street Arab who
+was rolling numerous flag-stones to the barricade. A hundred combatants
+took up their position behind it. Towards nine o'clock the movements of
+the troops gave warning of the attack. The head of the column of the
+Marulaz Brigade occupied the corner of the street on the side of the
+boulevard. A piece of artillery, raking the whole of the street, was
+placed in position before the Porte Saint Martin. For some time both
+sides gazed on each other in that moody silence which precedes an
+encounter; the troops regarding the barricade bristling with guns, the
+barricade regarding the gaping cannon. After a while the order for a
+general attack was given. The firing commenced. The first shot passed
+above the barricade, and struck a woman who was passing some twenty
+paces in the rear, full in the breast. She fell, ripped open. The fire
+became brisk without doing much injury to the barricade. The cannon was
+too near; the bullets flew too high.
+
+The combatants, who had not yet lost a man, received each bullet with a
+cry of "Long live the Republic!" but without firing. They possessed few
+cartridges, and they husbanded them. Suddenly the 49th regiment
+advanced in close column order.
+
+The barricade fired.
+
+The smoke filled the street; when it cleared away, there could be seen
+a dozen men on the ground, and the soldiers falling back in disorder by
+the side of the houses. The leader of the barricade shouted, "They are
+falling back. Cease firing! Let us not waste a ball."
+
+The street remained for some time deserted. The cannon recommenced
+fining. A shot came in every two minutes, but always badly aimed. A man
+with a fowling-piece came up to the leader of the barricade, and said
+to him, "Let us dismount that cannon. Let us kill the gunners."
+
+"Why!" said the chief, smiling, "they are doing us no harm, let us do
+none to them."
+
+Nevertheless the sound of the bugle could be distinctly heard on the
+other side of the block of houses which concealed the troops echelloned
+on the Square of Saint Martin, and it was manifest that a second attack
+was being prepared.
+
+This attack would naturally be furious, desperate, and stubborn.
+
+It was also evident that, if this barricade were carried, the entire
+street would be scoured. The other barricades were still weaker than
+the first, and more feebly defended. The "middle class" had given their
+guns, and had re-entered their houses. They lent their street, that was
+all.
+
+It was therefore necessary to hold the advanced barricade as long as
+possible. But what was to be done, and how was the resistance to be
+maintained? They had scarcely two shots per man left.
+
+An unexpected source of supply arrived.
+
+A young man, I can name him, for he is dead--Pierre Tissie,[19] who was
+a workman, and who also was a poet, had worked during a portion of the
+morning at the barricades, and at the moment when the firing began he
+went away, stating as his reason that they would not give him a gun. In
+the barricade they had said, "There is one who is afraid."
+
+Pierre Tissie was not afraid, as we shall see later on.
+
+He left the barricade.
+
+Pierre Tissie had only his knife with him, a Catalan knife; he opened
+it at all hazards, he held it in his hand, and went on straight before
+him.
+
+As he came out of the Rue Saint Sauveur, he saw at the corner of a
+little lonely street, in which all the windows were closed, a soldier
+of the line standing sentry, posted there doubtlessly by the main guard
+at a little distance.
+
+This soldier was at the halt with his gun to his shoulder ready to
+fire.
+
+He heard the step of Pierre Tissie, and cried out,--
+
+"Who goes there?"
+
+"Death!" answered Pierre Tissie.
+
+The soldier fired, and missed Pierre Tissie, who sprang on him, and
+struck him down with a blow of his knife.
+
+The soldier fell, and blood spurted out of his mouth.
+
+"I did not know I should speak so truly," muttered Pierre Tissie.
+
+And he added, "Now for the ambulance!"
+
+He took the soldier on his back, picked up the gun which had fallen to
+the ground, and came back to the barricade. "I bring you a wounded
+man," said he.
+
+"A dead man," they exclaimed.
+
+In truth the soldier had just expired.
+
+"Infamous Bonaparte!" said Tissie. "Poor red breeches! All the same, I
+have got a gun."
+
+They emptied the soldier's pouch and knapsack. They divided the
+cartridges. There were 150 of them. There were also two gold pieces of
+ten francs, two days' pay since the 2d of December. These were thrown
+on the ground, no one would take them.
+
+They distributed the cartridges with shouts of "Long live the Republic!"
+
+Meanwhile the attacking party had placed a mortar in position by the
+side of the cannon.
+
+The distribution of the cartridges was hardly ended when the infantry
+appeared, and charged upon the barricade with the bayonet. This second
+assault, as had been foreseen, was violent and desperate. It was
+repulsed. Twice the soldiers returned to the charge, and twice they
+fell back, leaving the street strewn with dead. In the interval between
+the assaults, a shell had pierced and dismantled the barricade, and the
+cannon began to fire grape-shot.
+
+The situation was hopeless; the cartridges were exhausted. Some began
+to throw down their guns and go away. The only means of escape was by
+the Rue Saint Sauveur, and to reach the corner of the Rue Saint Sauveur
+it was necessary to get over the lower part of the barricade, which
+left nearly the whole of the fugitives unprotected. There was a perfect
+rain of musketry and grape-shot. Three or four were killed there, one,
+like Baudin, by a ball in his eye. The leader of the barricade suddenly
+noticed that he was alone with Pierre Tissie, and a boy of fourteen
+years old, the same who had rolled so many stones for the barricade. A
+third attack was pending, and the soldiers began to advance by the side
+of the houses.
+
+"Let us go," said the leader of the barricade.
+
+"I shall remain," said Pierre Tissie.
+
+"And I also," said the boy.
+
+And the boy added,--
+
+"I have neither father nor mother. As well this as anything else."
+
+The leader fired his last shot, and retired like the others over the
+lower part of the barricade. A volley knocked off his hat. He stooped
+down and picked it up again. The soldiers were not more than
+twenty-five paces distant.
+
+He shouted to the two who remained,--
+
+"Come along!"
+
+"No," said Pierre Tissie.
+
+"No," said the boy.
+
+A few moments afterwards the soldiers scaled the barricade already half
+in ruins.
+
+Pierre Tissie and the boy were killed with bayonet thrusts.
+
+Some twenty muskets were abandoned in this barricade.
+
+
+[19] It must not be forgotten that this has been written in exile, and
+that to name a hero was to condemn him to exile.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+
+THE BARRICADE OF THE MAIRIE OF THE FIFTH ARRONDISSEMENT
+
+National Guards in uniform filled the courtyard of the Mairie of the
+Fifth Arrondissement. Others came in every moment. An ex-drummer of the
+Garde Mobile had taken a drum from a lower room at the side of the
+guard-room, and had beaten the call to arms in the surrounding streets.
+Towards nine o'clock a group of fourteen or fifteen young men, most of
+whom were in white blouses, entered the Mairie, shouting, "Long live
+the Republic!" They were armed with guns. The National Guard received
+them with shouts of "Down with Louis Bonaparte!" They fraternized in
+the courtyard. Suddenly there was a movement. It was caused by the
+arrival of the Representatives Doutre and Pelletier.
+
+"What is to be done?" shouted the crowd.
+
+"Barricades," said Pelletier.
+
+They unharnessed the horses, which the carter led away, and they turned
+the cart round without upsetting it across the wide roadway of the
+faubourg. The barricade was completed in a moment. A truck came up.
+They took it and stood it against the wheels of the cart, just as a
+screen is placed before a fireplace.
+
+The remainder was made up of casks and paving-stones. Thanks to the
+flour-cart the barricade was lofty, and reached to the first story of
+the houses. It intersected the faubourg at the corner of the little Rue
+Saint Jean. A narrow entrance had been contrived at the barricade at
+the corner of the street.
+
+"One barricade is not sufficient," said Doutre, "we must place the
+Mairie between two barriers, so as to be able to defend both sides at
+the same time."
+
+They constructed a second barricade, facing the summit of the faubourg.
+This one was low and weakly built, being composed only of planks and of
+paving-stones. There was about a hundred paces distance between the two
+barricades.
+
+There were three hundred men in this space. Only one hundred had guns.
+The majority had only one cartridge.
+
+The firing began about ten o'clock. Two companies of the line appeared
+and fired several volleys. The attack was only a feint. The barricade
+replied, and made the mistake of foolishly exhausting its ammunition.
+The troops retired. Then the attack began in earnest. Some Chasseurs de
+Vincennes emerged from the corner of the boulevard.
+
+Following out the African mode of warfare, they glided along the side
+of the walls, and then, with a run, they threw themselves upon the
+barricade.
+
+No more ammunition in the barricade. No quarter to be expected.
+
+Those who had no more powder or balls threw down their guns. Some
+wished to reoccupy their position in the Mairie, but it was impossible
+for them to maintain any defence there, the Mairie being open and
+commanded from every side; they scaled the walls and scattered
+themselves about in the neighboring houses; others escaped by the
+narrow passage of the boulevard which led into the Rue Saint Jean; most
+of the combatants reached the opposite side of the boulevard, while
+those who had a cartridge left fired a last volley upon the troops from
+the height of the paving-stones. Then they awaited their death. All
+were killed.
+
+One of those who succeeded in slipping into the Rue Saint Jean, where
+moreover they ran the gauntlet of a volley from their assailants, was
+M.H. Coste, Editor of the _Evenement_ and of the _Avenement du Peuple_.
+
+M. Coste had been a captain in the Garde Mobile. At a bend in the
+street, which placed him out of reach of the balls, M. Conte noticed in
+front of him the drummer of the Garde Mobile, who, like him, had
+escaped by the Rue Saint Jean, and who was profiting by the loneliness
+of the street to get rid of his drum.
+
+"Keep your drum," cried he to him.
+
+"For what purpose?"
+
+"To beat the call to arms."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"At Batignolles."
+
+"I will keep it," said the drummer.
+
+These two men came out from the jaws of death, and at once consented to
+re-enter them.
+
+But how should they cross all Paris with this drum? The first patrol
+which met them would shoot them. A porter of an adjoining house, who
+noticed their predicament, gave them a packing-cloth. They enveloped
+the drum in it, and reached Batignolles by the lonely streets which
+skirt the walls.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+THE BARRICADE OF THE RUE THEVENOT
+
+Georges Biscarrat was the man who had given the signal for the looting
+in the Rue de l'Echelle.
+
+I had known Georges Biscarrat ever since June, 1848. He had taken part
+in that disastrous insurrection. I had had an opportunity of being
+useful to him. He had been captured, and was kneeling before the
+firing-party; I interfered, and I saved his life, together with that of
+some others, M., D., D., B., and that brave-hearted architect Rolland,
+who when an exile, later on, so ably restored the Brussels Palace of
+Justice.
+
+This took place on the 24th June, 1848, in the underground floor of No.
+93, Boulevard Beaumarchais, a house then in course of construction.
+
+Georges Biscarrat became attached to me. It appeared that he was the
+nephew of one of the oldest and best friends of my childhood, Felix
+Biscarrat, who died in 1828. Georges Biscarrat came to see me from time
+to time, and on occasions he asked my advice or gave me information.
+
+Wishing to preserve him from evil influences, I had given him, and he
+had accepted, this guiding maxim, "No insurrection except for Duty and
+for Right."
+
+What was this hooting in the Rue de l'Echelle? Let us relate the
+incident.
+
+On the 2d of December, Bonaparte had made an attempt to go out. He had
+ventured to go and look at Paris. Paris does not like being looked at
+by certain eyes; it considers it an insult, and it resents an insult
+more than a wound. It submits to assassination, but not to the leering
+gaze of the assassin. It took offence at Louis Bonaparte.
+
+At nine o'clock in the morning, at the moment when the Courbevoie
+garrison was descending upon Paris, the placards of the _coup d'etat_
+being still fresh upon the walls, Louis Bonaparte had left the Elysee,
+had crossed the Place de la Concorde, the Garden of the Tuileries, and
+the railed courtyard of the Carrousel, and had been seen to go out, by
+the gate of the Rue de l'Echelle. A crowd assembled at once. Louis
+Bonaparte was in a general's uniform; his uncle, the ex-King Jerome,
+accompanied him, together with Flahaut, who kept in the near. Jerome
+wore the full uniform of a Marshal of France, with a hat with a white
+feather; Louis Bonaparte's horse was a head before Jerome's horse.
+Louis Bonaparte was gloomy, Jerome attentive, Flahaut beaming. Flahaut
+had his hat on one side. There was a strong escort of Lancers. Edgar
+Ney followed. Bonaparte intended to go as far as the Hotel de Ville.
+Georges Biscarrat was there. The street was unpaved, the road was being
+macadamized; he mounted on a heap of stones, and shouted, "Down with
+the Dictator! Down with the Praetorians!" The soldiers looked at him
+with bewilderment, and the crowd with astonishment. Georges Biscarrat
+(he told me so himself) felt that this cry was too erudite, and that it
+would not be understood, so he shouted, "Down with Bonaparte! Down with
+the Lancers!"
+
+The effect of this shout was electrical. "Down with Bonaparte! Down
+with the Lancers!" cried the people, and the whole street became stormy
+and turbulent. "Down with Bonaparte!" The outcry resembled the
+beginning of an execution; Bonaparte made a sudden movement to the
+right, turned back, and re-entered the courtyard of the Louvre.
+
+Georges Biscarrat felt it necessary to complete his shout by a
+barricade.
+
+He said to the bookseller, Benoist Mouilhe, who had just opened his
+shop, "Shouting is good, action is better." He returned to his house in
+the Rue du Vert Bois, put on a blouse and a workman's cap, and went
+down into the dark streets. Before the end of the day he had made
+arrangements with four associations--the gas-fitters, the last-makers,
+the shawl-makers, and the hatters.
+
+In this manner he spent the day of the 2d of December.
+
+The day of the 3d was occupied in goings and comings "almost useless."
+So Biscarrat told Versigny, and he added, "However I have succeeded in
+this much, that the placards of the _coup d'etat_ have been everywhere
+torn down, so much so that in order to render the tearing down more
+difficult the police have ultimately posted them in the public
+conveniences--their proper place."
+
+On Thursday, the 4th, early in the morning, Georges Biscarrat went to
+Ledouble's restaurant, where four Representatives of the People usually
+took their meals, Brives, Bertlhelon, Antoine Bard, and Viguier,
+nicknamed "Father Viguier." All four were there. Viguier related what
+we had done on the preceding evening, and shared my opinion that the
+closing catastrophe should be hurried on, that the Crime should be
+precipitated into the abyss which befitted it. Biscarrat came in. The
+Representatives did not know hire, and stared at him. "Who are you?"
+asked one of them. Before he could answer, Dr. Petit entered, unfolded
+a paper, and said,--
+
+"Does any one know Victor Hugo's handwriting?"
+
+"I do," said Biscarrat. He looked at the paper. It was my proclamation
+to the army. "This must be printed," said Petit. "I will undertake it,"
+said Biscarrat. Antoine Bard asked him, "Do you know Victor Hugo?" "He
+saved my life," answered Biscarrat. The Representatives shook hands
+with him.
+
+Guilgot arrived. Then Versigny. Versigny knew Biscarrat. He had seen
+him at my house. Versigny said, "Take care what you do. There is a man
+outside the door." "It is a shawl-maker," said Biscarrat. "He has come
+with me. He is following me." "But," resumed Versigny, "he is wearing a
+blouse, beneath which he has a handkerchief. He seems to be hiding
+this, and he has something in the handkerchief."
+
+"Sugar-plums," said Biscarrat.
+
+They were cartridges.
+
+Versigny and Biscarrat went to the office of the _Siecle_; at the
+_Siecle_ thirty workmen, at the risk of being shot, offered to print my
+Proclamation. Biscarrat left it with them, and said to Versigny, "Now I
+want my barricade."
+
+The shawl-maker walked behind them. Versigny and Biscarrat turned their
+steps towards the top of the Saint Denis quarter. When they drew near
+to she Porte Saint Denis they heard the hum of many voices. Biscarrat
+laughed and said to Versigny, "Saint Denis is growing angry, matters
+are improving." Biscarrat recruited forty combatants on the way,
+amongst whom was Moulin, head of the association of leather-dressers.
+Chapuis, sergeant-major of the National Guard, brought them four
+muskets and ten swords. "Do you know where there are any more?" asked
+Biscarrat. "Yes, at the Saint Sauveur Baths." They went there, and
+found forty muskets. They gave them swords and cartridge-pouches.
+Gentlemen well dressed, brought tin boxes containing powder and balls.
+Women, brave and light-hearted, manufactured cartridges. At the first
+door adjoining the Rue du Hasard-Saint-Sauveur they requisitioned iron
+bars and hammers from a large courtyard belonging to a locksmith.
+Having the arms, they had the men. They speedily numbered a hundred.
+They began to tear up the pavements. It was half-past ten. "Quick!
+quick!" cried Georges Biscarrat, "the barricade of my dreams!" It was
+in the Rue Thevenot. The barrier was constructed high and formidable.
+To abridge. At eleven o'clock Georges Biscarrat had completed his
+barricade. At noon he was killed there.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+
+OSSIAN AND SCIPIO
+
+Arrests grew more numerous.
+
+Towards noon a Commissary of Police, named Boudrot, appeared at the
+divan of the Rue Lepelletier. He was accompanied by the police agent
+Delahodde. Delahodde was that traitorous socialist writer, who, upon
+being unmasked, had passed from the Secret Police to the Public Police
+Service. I knew him, and I record this incident. In 1832 he was a
+master in the school at which were my two sons, then boys, and he had
+addressed poetry to me. At the same time he was acting the spy upon me.
+The Lepelletier divan was the place of meeting of a large number of
+Republican journalists. Delahodde knew them all. A detachment of the
+Republican Guard occupied the entrances to the cafe. Then ensued an
+inspection of all the ordinary customers, Delahodde walking first, with
+the Commissary behind him. Two Municipal Guards followed them. From
+time to time Delahodde looked round and said, "Lay hold of this man."
+In this manner some score of writers were arrested, among whom were
+Hennett de Kesler.[20] On the preceding evening Kesler had been on the
+Saint Antoine barricade. Kesler said to Delahodde, "You are a miserable
+wretch." "And you are an ungrateful fellow," replied Delahodde; "_I am
+saving your life_." Curious words; for it is difficult to believe that
+Delahodde was in the secret of what was to happen on the fatal day of
+the Fourth.
+
+At the head-quarters of the Committee encouraging information was
+forwarded to us from every side. Testelin, the Representative of Lille,
+is not only a learned man, but a brave man. On the morning of the 3d he
+had reached, shortly after me, the Saint Antoine barricade, where
+Baudin had just been killed. All was at an end in that direction.
+Testelin was accompanied by Charles Gambon, another dauntless man.[21]
+The two Representatives wandered through the agitated and dark streets,
+little followed, in no way understood, seeking a ferment of insurgents,
+and only finding a swarming of the curious. Testelin, nevertheless,
+having come to the Committee, informed us of the following:--At the
+corner of a street of the Faubourg Saint Antoine Gambon and himself had
+noticed a crowd. They had gone up to it. This crowd was reading a bill
+placarded on a wall. It was the Appeal to Arms signed "Victor Hugo."
+Testelin asked Gambon, "Have you a pencil?" "Yes," answered Gambon.
+Testelin took the pencil, went up to the placard, and wrote his name
+beneath mine, then he gave the pencil to Gambon, who in turn wrote his
+name beneath that of Testelin. Upon this the crowd shouted, "Bravo!
+these are true-hearted men!" "Shout 'Long live the Republic!'" cried
+Testelin. All shouted "Long live the Republic!" "And from above, from
+the open windows," added Gambon, "women clapped their hands."
+
+"The little hands of women applauding are a good sign," said Michel de
+Bourges.
+
+As has been seen, and we cannot lay too much stress upon the fact, what
+the Committee of Resistance wished was to prevent the shedding of blood
+as much as possible. To construct barricades, to let them be destroyed,
+and to reconstruct them at other points, to avoid the army, and to wear
+it out, to wage in Paris the war of the desert, always retreating,
+never yielding, to take time for an ally, to add days to days; on the
+one hand to give the people time to understand and to rise, on the
+other, to conquer the _coup d'etat_ by the weariness of the army; such
+was the plan discussed and adopted.
+
+The order was accordingly given that the barricades should be but
+slightly defended.
+
+We repeated in every possible form to the combatants,--
+
+"Shed as little blood as possible! Spare the blood of the soldiers and
+husband your own."
+
+Nevertheless, the struggle once begun, it became impossible in many
+instances, during certain excited hours of fighting, to moderate their
+ardor. Several barricades were obstinately defended, particularly those
+in the Rue Rambuteau, in the Rue Montorgueil, and in the Rue Neuve
+Saint Eustache.
+
+These barricades were commanded by daring leaders.
+
+Here, for the sake of history, we will record a few of these brave men
+fighting outlines who appeared and disappeared in the smoke of the
+combat. Radoux, an architect, Deluc, Mallarmet, Felix Bony, Luneau, an
+ex-Captain of the Republican Guard, Camille Berru, editor of the
+_Avenement_, gay, warmhearted, and dauntless, and that young Eugene
+Millelot, who was destined to be condemned at Cayenne to receive 200
+lashes, and to expire at the twenty-third stroke, before the very eyes
+of his father and brother, proscribed and convicts like himself.
+
+The barricade of the Rue Aumaire was amongst those which were not
+carried without resistance. Although raised in haste, it was fairly
+constructed. Fifteen or sixteen resolute men defended it; two were
+killed.
+
+The barricade was carried with the bayonet by a battalion of the 16th
+of the line. This battalion, hurled on the barricade at the double, was
+received by a brisk fusillade; several soldiers were wounded.
+
+The first who fell in the soldiers' ranks was an officer. He was a
+young man of twenty-five, lieutenant of the first company, named Ossian
+Dumas; two balls broke both of his legs as though by a single blow.
+
+At that time there were in the army two brothers of the name of Dumas,
+Ossian and Scipio. Scipio was the elder. They were near relatives of
+the Representative, Madier de Montjau.
+
+These two brothers belonged to a poor but honored family. The elder had
+been educated at the Polytechnic School, the other at the School of
+Saint Cyr.
+
+Scipio was four years older than his brother. According to that
+splendid and mysterious law of ascent, which the French Revolution has
+created, and which, so to speak, has placed a ladder in the centre of a
+society hitherto caste-bound and inaccessible, Scipio Dumas' family had
+imposed upon themselves the most severe privations in order to develop
+his intellect and secure his future. His relations, with the touching
+heroism of the poor of the present era, denied themselves bread to
+afford him knowledge. In this manner he attained to the Polytechnic
+School, where he quickly became one of the best pupils.
+
+Having concluded his studies, he was appointed an officer in the
+artillery, and sent to Metz. It then became his turn to help the boy
+who had to mount after him. He held out his hand to his younger
+brother. He economized the modest pay of an artillery lieutenant, and,
+thanks to him, Ossian became an officer like Scipio. While Scipio,
+detained by duties belonging to his position, remained at Metz, Ossian
+was incorporated in an infantry regiment, and went to Africa. There he
+saw his first service.
+
+Scipio and Ossian were Republicans. In October, 1851, the 16th of the
+line, in which Ossian was serving, was summoned to Paris. It was one of
+the regiments chosen by the ill-omened hand of Louis Bonaparte, and on
+which the _coup d'etat_ counted.
+
+The 2d of December arrived.
+
+Lieutenant Ossian Dumas obeyed, like nearly all his comrades, the order
+to take up arms; but every one round him could notice his gloomy
+attitude.
+
+The day of the 3d was spent in marches and counter-marches. On the 4th
+the combat began. The 16th, which formed part of the Herbillon Brigade,
+was told off to capture the barricades of the Rues Beaubourg,
+Trausnonain, and Aumaire. This battle-field was formidable; a perfect
+square of barricades had been raised there.
+
+It was by the Rue Aumaire, and with the regiment of which Ossian formed
+part, that the military leaders resolved to begin action.
+
+At the moment when the regiment, with arms loaded, was about to march
+upon the Rue Aumaire, Ossian Dumas went up to his captain, a brave and
+veteran officer, with whom he was a favorite, and declared that he
+would not march a step farther, that the deed of the 2d of December was
+a crime, that Louis Bonaparte was a traitor, that it was for them,
+soldiers, to maintain the oath which Bonaparte violated; and that, as
+for himself, he would not lend his sword to the butchery of the
+Republic.
+
+A halt was made. The signal of attack was awaited; the two officers,
+the old captain and the young lieutenant, conversed in a low tone.
+
+"And what do you want to do?" asked the captain.
+
+"Break my sword."
+
+"You will be taken to Vincennes."
+
+"That is all the same to me."
+
+"Most certainly dismissed."
+
+"Possibly."
+
+"Perhaps shot."
+
+"I expect it."
+
+"But there is no longer any time; you should have resigned yesterday."
+
+"There is always time to avoid committing a crime."
+
+The captain, as may be seen, was simply one of those professional
+heroes, grown old in the leather stock, who know of no country but the
+flag, and no other law but military discipline. Iron arms and wooden
+heads. They are neither citizens nor men. They only recognize honor in
+the form of a general's epaulets. It is of no use talking to them of
+political duties, of obedience to the laws, of the Constitution. What
+do they know about all this? What is a Constitution; what are the most
+holy laws, against three words which a corporal may murmur into the ear
+of a sentinel? Take a pair of scales, put in one side the Gospels, in
+the other the official instructions; now weigh them. The corporal turns
+the balance; the Deity kicks the beam.
+
+God forms a portion of the order of the day of Saint Bartholomew. "Kill
+all. He will recognized his own."
+
+This is what the priests accept, and at times glorify.
+
+Saint Bartholomew has been blessed by the Pope and decorated with the
+Catholic medal.[22]
+
+Meanwhile Ossian Dumas appeared determined. The captain made a last
+effort.
+
+"You will ruin yourself," said he.
+
+"I shall save my honor."
+
+"It is precisely your honor that you are sacrificing."
+
+"Because I am going away?"
+
+"To go away is to desert."
+
+This seemed to impress Ossian Dumas. The captain continued,--
+
+"They are about to fight. In a few minutes the barricade will be
+attacked. Your comrades will fall, dead or wounded. You are a young
+officer--you have not yet been much under fire."
+
+"At all events," warmly interrupted Ossian Dumas, "I shall not have
+fought against the Republic; they will not say I am a traitor."
+
+"No, but they will say that you are a coward."
+
+Ossian made no reply.
+
+A moment afterwards the command was given to attack.
+
+The regiment started at the double. The barricade fired.
+
+Ossian Dumas was the first who fell.
+
+He had not been able to bear that word "coward," and he had remained in
+his place in the first rank.
+
+They took him to the ambulance, and from thence to the hospital.
+
+Let us at once state the conclusion of this touching incident.
+
+Both of his legs were broken. The doctors thought that it would be
+necessary to amputate them both.
+
+General Saint-Arnaud sent him the Cross of Honor.
+
+As is known, Louis Bonaparte hastened to discharge his debt to his
+praetorian accomplices. After having massacred, the sword voted.
+
+The combat was still smoking when the army was brought to the
+ballot-box.
+
+The garrison of Paris voted "Yes." It absolved itself.
+
+With the rest of the army it was otherwise. Military honor was
+indignant, and roused the civic virtue. Notwithstanding the pressure
+which was exercised, although the regiments deposited their votes in
+the shakos of their colonels, the army voted "No" in many districts of
+France and Algeria.
+
+The Polytechnic School voted "No" in a body. Nearly everywhere the
+artillery, of which the Polytechnic School is the cradle, voted to the
+same effect as the school.
+
+Scipio Dumas, it may be remembered, was at Metz.
+
+By some curious chance it happened that the feeling of the artillery,
+which everywhere else had pronounced against the _coup d'etat_,
+hesitated at Metz, and seemed to lean towards Bonaparte.
+
+Scipio Dumas, in presence of this indecision set an example. He voted
+in a loud voice, and with an open voting paper, "No."
+
+Then he sent in his resignation. At the same time that the Minister at
+Paris received the resignation of Scipio Dumas, Scipio Dumas at Metz,
+received his dismissal, signed by the Minister.
+
+After Scipio Dumas' vote, the same thought had come at the same time to
+both the Government and to the officer, to the Government that the
+officer was a dangerous man, and that they could no longer employ him,
+to the officer that the Government was an infamous one, and that he
+ought no longer to serve it.
+
+The resignation and the dismissal crossed on the way. By this word
+"dismissal" must be understood the withdrawal of employment.
+
+According to our existing military laws it is in this manner that they
+now "break" an officer. Withdrawal of employment, that is to say, no
+more service, no more pay; poverty.
+
+Simultaneously with his dismissal, Scipio Dumas learnt the news of the
+attack on the barricade of the Rue Aumaire, and that his brother had
+both his legs broken. In the fever of events he had been a week without
+news of Ossian. Scipio had confined himself to writing to his brother
+to inform him of his vote and of his dismissal, and to induce him to do
+likewise.
+
+His brother wounded! His brother at the Val-de. Grace! He left
+immediately for Paris.
+
+He hastened to the hospital. They took him to Ossian's bedside. The
+poor young fellow had had both his legs amputated on the preceding day.
+
+At the moment when Scipio, stunned, appeared at his bedside, Ossian
+held in his hand the cross which General Saint-Arnaud had just sent
+him.
+
+The wounded man turned towards the aide-de-camp who had brought it, and
+said to him,--
+
+"I will not have this cross. On my breast it would be stained with the
+blood of the Republic."
+
+And perceiving his brother, who had just entered, he held out the cross
+to him, exclaiming,--
+
+"You take it. You have voted "No," and you have broken your sword! It
+is you who have deserved it!"
+
+
+[20] Died in exile in Guernsey. See the "Pendant l'Exil," under the
+heading _Actes et Paroles_, vol. ii.
+
+[21] Died in exile at Termonde.
+
+[22] Pro Hugonotorum strage. Medal struck at Rome in 1572.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+
+THE QUESTION PRESENTS ITSELF
+
+It was one o'clock in the afternoon.
+
+Bonaparte had again become gloomy.
+
+The gleams of sunshine on such countenances as these last very short
+time.
+
+He had gone back to his private room, had seated himself before the
+fire, with his feet on the hobs, motionless, and no one any longer
+approached him except Roquet.
+
+What was he thinking of?
+
+The twistings of the viper cannot be foreseen.
+
+What this man achieved on this infamous day I have told at length in
+another book. See "Napoleon the Little."
+
+From time to time Roquet entered and informed him of what was going on.
+Bonaparte listened in silence, deep in thought, marble in which a
+torrent of lava boiled.
+
+He received at the Elysee the same news that we received in the Rue
+Richelieu; bad for him, good for us. In one of the regiments which had
+just voted, there were 170 "Noes:" This regiment has since been
+dissolved, and scattered abroad in the African army.
+
+They had counted on the 14th of the line which had fired on the people
+in February. The Colonel of the 14th of the line had refused to
+recommence; he had just broken his sword.
+
+Our appeal had ended by being heard. Decidedly, as we have seen, Paris
+was rising. The fall of Bonaparte seemed to be foreshadowed. Two
+Representatives, Fabvier and Crestin, met in the Rue Royale, and
+Crestin, pointing to the Palace of the Assembly, said to Fabvier, "We
+shall be there to-morrow."
+
+One noteworthy incident. Mazes became eccentric, the prison unbent
+itself; the interior experienced an undefinable reverberation from the
+outside. The warders, who the preceding evening had been insolent to
+the Representatives when going for their exercise in the courtyard, now
+saluted them to the ground. That very morning of Thursday, the 4th, the
+governor of the prison had paid a visit to the prisoners, and had said
+to them, "It is not my fault." He brought them books and writing-paper,
+a thing which up to that time he had refused. The Representative
+Valentin was in solitary confinement; on the morning of the 4th his
+warder suddenly became amiable, and offered to obtain for him news from
+outside, through his wife, who, he said, had been a servant in General
+Leflo's household. These were significant signs. When the jailer smiles
+it means that the jail is half opening.
+
+We may add, what is not a contradiction, that at the same time the
+garrison at Mazas was being increased. 1200 more men were marched in,
+in detachments of 100 men each, spacing out their arrivals in "little
+doses" as an eye-witness remarked to us. Later on 400 men. 100 litres
+of brandy were distributed to them. One litre for every sixteen men.
+The prisoners could hear the movement of artillery round the prison.
+
+The agitation spread to the most peaceable quarters. But the centre of
+Paris was above all threatening. The centre of Paris is a labyrinth of
+streets which appears to be made for the labyrinth of riots. The Ligue,
+the Fronde, the Revolution--we must unceasingly recall these useful
+facts--the 14th of July, the 10th of August, 1792, 1830, 1848, have
+come out from thence. These brave old streets were awakened. At eleven
+o'clock in the morning from Notre Dame to the Porte Saint Martin there
+were seventy-seven barricades. Three of them, one in the Rue Maubuee,
+another in the Rue Bertin-Poiree, another in the Rue Guerin-Boisseau,
+attained the height of the second stories; the barricade of the Porte
+Saint Denis was almost as bristling and as formidable as the barrier of
+the Faubourg Saint Antoine in June, 1848. The handful of the
+Representatives of the People had swooped down like a shower of sparks
+on these famous and inflammable crossroads. The beginning of the fire.
+The fire had caught. The old central market quarter, that city which is
+contained in the city, shouted, "Down with Bonaparte!" They hooted the
+police, they hissed the troops. Some regiments seemed stupefied. They
+cried, "Throw up your butt ends in the air!" From the windows above,
+women encouraged the construction of the barricades. There was powder
+there, there were muskets. Now, we were no longer alone. We saw rising
+up in the gloom behind us the enormous head of the people. Hope at the
+present time was on our side. The oscillation of uncertainty had at
+length become steady, and we were, I repeat, almost perfectly
+confident.
+
+There had been a moment when, owing to the good news pouring in upon
+us, this confidence had become so great that we who had staked our
+lives on this great contest, seized with an irresistible joy in the
+presence of a success becoming hourly more certain, had risen from our
+seats, and had embraced each other. Michel de Bourges was particularly
+angered against Bonaparte, for he had believed his word, and had even
+gone so far as to say, "He is my man." Of the four of us, he was the
+most indignant. A gloomy flash of victory shone in him. He struck the
+table with his fist, and exclaimed, "Oh! the miserable wretch!
+To-morrow--" and he struck the table a second time, "to-morrow his
+head shall fall in the Place de Greve before the Hotel de Ville."
+
+I looked at him.
+
+"No," said I, "this man's head shall not fall."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"I do not wish it."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because," said I, "if after such a crime we allow Louis Bonaparte to
+live we shall abolish the penalty of death."
+
+This generous Michel de Bourges remained thoughtful for a moment, then
+he pressed my hand.
+
+Crime is an opportunity, and always gives us a choice, and it is better
+to extract from it progress than punishment. Michel de Bourges realized
+this.
+
+Moreover this incident shows to what a pitch our hopes had been raised.
+
+Appearances were on our side, actual facts not so. Saint-Arnaud had his
+orders. We shall see them.
+
+Strange incidents took place.
+
+Towards noon a general, deep in thought, was on horseback in the Place
+de la Madeleine, at the head of his wavering troops. He hesitated.
+
+A carriage stopped, a woman stepped out and conversed in a low tone
+with the general. The crowd could see her. The Representative Raymond,
+who lived at No 4, Place de la Madeleine, saw her from his window. This
+woman was Madame K. The general stooping down on his horse, listened,
+and finally made the dejected gesture of a vanquished man. Madame K.
+got back into her carriage. This man, they said, loved that woman. She
+could, according to the side of her beauty which fascinated her victim,
+inspire either heroism or crime. This strange beauty was compounded of
+the whiteness of an angel, combined with the look of a spectre.
+
+It was the look which conquered.
+
+This man no longer hesitated. He entered gloomily into the enterprise.
+
+From twelve to two o'clock there was in this enormous city given over
+to the unknown an indescribable and fierce expectation. All was calm
+and awe-striking. The regiments and the limbered batteries quitted the
+faubourg and stationed themselves noiselessly around the boulevards.
+Not a cry in the ranks of the soldiery. An eye-witness said, "The
+soldiers march with quite a jaunty air." On the Quai de la Ferronnerie,
+heaped up with regiments ever since the morning of the 2d of December,
+there now only remained a post of Municipal Guards. Everything ebbed
+back to the centre, the people as well as the army; the silence of the
+army had ultimately spread to the people. They watched each other.
+
+Each soldier had three days' provisions and six packets of cartridges.
+
+It has since transpired that at this moment 10,000 francs were daily
+spent in brandy for each brigade.
+
+Towards one o'clock, Magnan went to the Hotel de Ville, had the reserve
+limbered under his own eyes, and did not leave until all the batteries
+were ready to march.
+
+Certain suspicious preparations grew more numerous. Towards noon the
+State workmen and the hospital corps had established a species of huge
+ambulance at No. 2, Faubourg Montmartre. A great heap of litters was
+piled up there. "What is all this for?" asked the crowd.
+
+Dr. Deville, who had attended Espinasse when he had been wounded,
+noticed him on the boulevard, and asked him, "Up to what point are you
+going?"
+
+Espinasse's answer is historical.
+
+He replied, "To the end."
+
+At two o'clock five brigades, those of Cotte, Bourgon, Canrobert, Dulac,
+and Reybell, five batteries of artillery, 16,400 men,[23] infantry and
+cavalry, lancers, cuirassiers, grenadiers, gunners, were echelloned
+without any ostensible reason between the Rue de la Paix and the Faubourg
+Poissonniere. Pieces of cannon were pointed at the entrance of every
+street; there were eleven in position on the Boulevard Poissonniere alone.
+The foot soldiers had their guns to their shoulders, the officers their
+swords drawn. What did all this mean? It was a curious sight, well worth
+the trouble of seeing, and on both sides of the pavements, on all the
+thresholds of the shops, from all the stories of the houses, an
+astonished, ironical, and confiding crowd looked on.
+
+Little by little, nevertheless, this confidence diminished, and irony
+gave place to astonishment; astonishment changed to stupor. Those who
+have passed through that extraordinary minute will not forget it. It
+was evident that there was something underlying all this. But what?
+Profound obscurity. Can one imagine Paris in a cellar? People felt as
+though they were beneath a low ceiling. They seemed to be walled up in
+the unexpected and the unknown. They seemed to perceive some mysterious
+will in the background. But after all they were strong; they were the
+Republic, they were Paris; what was there to fear! Nothing. And they
+cried, "Down with Bonaparte!" The troops continued to keep silence, but
+the swords remained outside their scabbards, and the lighted matches of
+the cannon smoldered at the corners of the streets. The cloud grew
+blacker every minute, heavier and more silent. This thickening of the
+darkness was tragical. One felt the coming crash of a catastrophe, and
+the presence of a villain; snake-like treason writhed during this
+night, and none can foresee where the downward slide of a terrible
+design will stop when events are on a steep incline.
+
+What was coming out of this thick darkness?
+
+
+[23] 16,410 men, the figures taken from the Ministry of War.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+
+THE MASSACRE
+
+Suddenly a window was opened.
+
+Upon Hell.
+
+Dante, had he leaned over the summit of the shadow, would have been able
+to see the eighth circle of his poem; the funereal Boulevard Montmartre.
+
+Paris, a prey to Bonaparte; a monstrous spectacle. The gloomy armed men
+massed together on this boulevard felt an appalling spirit enter into
+them; they ceased to be themselves, and became demons.
+
+There was no longer a single French soldier, but a host of indefinable
+phantoms, carrying out a horrible task, as though in the glimmering
+light of a vision.
+
+There was no longer a flag, there was no longer law, there was no longer
+humanity, there was no longer a country, there was no longer France;
+they began to assassinate.
+
+The Schinderhannes division, the brigades of Mandrin, Cartouche,
+Poulailler, Trestaillon, and Tropmann appeared in the gloom, shooting
+down and massacring.
+
+No; we do not attribute to the French army what took place during this
+mournful eclipse of honor.
+
+There have been massacres in history, abominable ones assuredly, but
+they have possessed some show of reason; Saint Bartholomew and the
+Dragonnades are explained by religion, the Sicilian Vespers and the
+butcheries of September are explained by patriotism; they crush the
+enemy or annihilate the foreigner; these are crimes for a good cause;
+but the carnage of the Boulevard Montmartre is a crime without an
+ostensible reason.
+
+The reason exists, however. It is hideous.
+
+Let us give it.
+
+Two things stand erect in a State, the Law and the People.
+
+A man murders the Law. He feels the punishment approaching, there only
+remains one thing for him to do, to murder the People. He murders the
+People.
+
+The Second of December was the Risk, the Fourth was the Certainty.
+
+Against the indignation which arose they opposed the Terror.
+
+The Fury, Justice, halted petrified before the Fury, Extermination.
+Against Erinnyes they set up Medusa.
+
+To put Nemesis to flight, what a terrifying triumph!
+
+To Louis Napoleon pertains this glory, which is the summit of his shame.
+
+Let us narrate it.
+
+Let us narrate what History had never seen before.
+
+The assassination of a people by a man.
+
+Suddenly, at a given signal, a musket shot being fired, no matter where,
+no matter by whom, the shower of bullets poured upon the crowd. A shower
+of bullets is also a crowd; it is death scattered broadcast. It does not
+know whither it goes, nor what it does; it kills and passes on.
+
+But at the same time it has a species of soul; it is premeditated, it
+executes a will. This was an unprecedented moment. It seemed as though a
+handful of lightnings was falling upon the people. Nothing simpler. It
+formed a clear solution to the difficulty; the rain of lead overwhelmed
+the multitude. What are you doing there? Die! It is a crime to be
+passing by. Why are you in the street? Why do you cross the path of the
+Government? The Government is a cut-throat. They have announced a thing,
+they must certainly carry it out; what is begun must assuredly be
+achieved; as Society is being saved, the People must assuredly be
+exterminated.
+
+Are there not social necessities? Is it not essential that Beville
+should have 87,000 francs a year and Fleury 95,000 francs? Is it not
+essential that the High Chaplain, Menjaud, Bishop of Nancy, should have
+342 francs a day, and that Bassano and Cambaceres should each have 383
+francs a day, and Vaillant 468 francs, and Saint-Arnaud 822 francs? Is
+it not necessary that Louis Bonaparte should have 76,712 francs a day?
+Could one be Emperor for less?
+
+In the twinkling of an eye there was a butchery on the boulevard a
+quarter of a league long. Eleven pieces of cannon wrecked the
+Sallandrouze carpet warehouse. The shot tore completely through
+twenty-eight houses. The baths of Jouvence were riddled. There was a
+massacre at Tortoni's. A whole quarter of Paris was filled with an
+immense flying mass, and with a terrible cry. Everywhere sudden death. A
+man is expecting nothing. He falls. From whence does this come? From
+above, say the Bishops' _Te Deum_; from below, says Truth.
+
+From a lower place than the galleys, from a lower place than Hell.
+
+It is the conception of a Caligula, carried out by a Papavoine.
+
+Xavier Durrieu comes upon the boulevard. He states,--
+
+"I have taken sixty steps, I have seen sixty corpses."
+
+And he draws back. To be in the street is a Crime, to be at home is a
+Crime. The butchers enter the houses and slaughter. In slaughter-house
+slang the soldiers cry, "Let us pole-axe the lot of them."
+
+Adde, a bookseller, of 17, Boulevard Poissonniere, is standing before his
+door; they kill him. At the same moment, for the field of murder is vast,
+at a considerable distance from there, at 5, Rue de Lancry, M. Thirion de
+Montauban, owner of the house, is at his door; they kill him. In the Rue
+Tiquetonne a child of seven years, named Boursier, is passing by; they
+kill him. Mdlle. Soulac, 196, Rue du Temple, opens her window; they kill
+her. At No. 97, in the same street, two women, Mesdames Vidal and
+Raboisson, sempstresses, are in their room; they kill them. Belval, a
+cabinet-maker, 10, Rue de la Lune, is at home; they kill him. Debaecque,
+a merchant, 45, Rue du Sentier, is in his own house; Couvercelle,
+florist, 257, Rue Saint Denis, is in his own house; Labitte, a jeweller,
+55, Boulevard Saint Martin, is in his own house; Monpelas, perfumer, 181,
+Rue Saint Martin, is in his own house; they kill Monpelas, Labitte,
+Couvercelle, and Debaecque. They sabre at her own home, 240, Rue Saint
+Martin, a poor embroideress, Mdlle. Seguin, who not having sufficient
+money to pay for a doctor, died at the Beaujon hospital, on the 1st of
+January, 1852, on the same day that the Sibour _Te Deum_ was chanted at
+Notre Dame. Another, a waistcoat-maker, Francoise Noel, was shot down at
+20, Rue du Faubourg Montmartre, and died in the Charite. Another, Madame
+Ledaust, a working housekeeper, living at 76, Passage du Caire, was shot
+down before the Archbishop's palace, and died at the Morgue. Passers-by,
+Mdlle. Gressier, living at 209, Faubourg Saint Martin; Madame Guilard,
+living at 77, Boulevard Saint Denis; Madame Gamier, living at 6,
+Boulevard Bonne Nouvelle, who had fallen, the first named beneath the
+volleys on the Boulevard Montmartre, the two others on the Boulevard
+Saint Denis, and who were still alive, attempted to rise, and became
+targets for the soldiers, bursting with laughter, and this time fell back
+again dead. Deeds of gallantry ware performed. Colonel Rochefort, who was
+probably created General for this, charged in the Rue do la Paix at the
+head of his Lancers a flock of nurses, who were put to flight.
+
+Such was this indescribable enterprise. All the men who took part in it
+were instigated by hidden influences; all had something which urged them
+forward; Herbillon had Zaatcha behind him; Saint-Arnaud had Kabylia;
+Renault had the affair of the Saint-Andre and Saint Hippolyte villages;
+Espinasse, Rome and the storming of the 30th of June; Magnan, his debts.
+
+Must we continue? We hesitate. Dr. Piquet, a man of seventy, was killed
+in his drawing-room by a ball in his stomach; the painter Jollivart, by
+a ball in the forehead, before his easel, his brains bespattered his
+painting. The English captain, William Jesse, narrowly escaped a ball
+which pierced the ceiling above his head; in the library adjoining the
+Magasins du Prophete, a father, mother, and two daughters were sabred.
+Lefilleul, another bookseller, was shot in his shop on the Boulevard
+Poissonniere; in the Rue Lepelletier, Boyer, a chemist, seated at his
+counter, was "spitted" by the Lancers. A captain, killing all before
+him, took by storm the house of the Grand Balcon. A servant was killed
+in the shop of Brandus. Reybell through the volleys said to Sax, "And I
+also am discoursing sweet music." The Cafe Leblond was given over to
+pillage. Billecoq's establishment was bombarded to such a degree that it
+had to be pulled down the next day. Before Jouvain's house lay a heap of
+corpses, amongst them an old man with his umbrella, and a young man with
+his eye-glass. The Hotel de Castille, the Maison Doree, the Petite
+Jeannette, the Cafe de Paris, the Cafe Anglais became for three hours
+the targets of the cannonade. Raquenault's house crumbled beneath the
+shells; the bullets demolished the Montmartre Bazaar.
+
+None escaped. The guns and pistols were fired at close quarters.
+
+New Year's-day was not far off, some shops were full of New Year's
+gifts. In the passage du Saumon, a child of thirteen, flying before the
+platoon-firing, hid himself in one of these shops, beneath a heap of
+toys. He was captured and killed. Those who killed him laughingly
+widened his wounds with their swords. A woman told me, "The cries of the
+poor little fellow could be heard all through the passage." Four men
+were shot before the same shop. The officer said to them, "This will
+teach you to loaf about." A fifth named Mailleret, who was left for dead,
+was carried the next day with eleven wounds to the Charite. There he
+died.
+
+They fired into the cellars by the air-holes.
+
+A workman, a currier, named Moulins, who had taken refuge in one of
+these shot-riddled cellars, saw through the cellar air-hole a passer-by,
+who had been wounded in the thigh by a bullet, sit down on the pavement
+with the death rattle in his throat, and lean against a shop. Some
+soldiers who heard this rattle ran up and finished off the wounded man
+with bayonet thrusts.
+
+One brigade killed the passer-by from the Madeleine to the Opera,
+another from the Opera to the Gymmase; another from the Boulevard Bonne
+Nouvelle to the Porte Saint Denis; the 75th of the line having carried
+the barricade of the Porte Saint Denis, it was no longer a fight, it was
+a slaughter. The massacre radiated--a word horribly true--from the
+boulevard into all the streets. It was a devil-fish stretching out its
+feelers. Flight? Why? Concealment? To what purpose? Death ran after you
+quicker than you could fly. In the Rue Pagevin a soldier said to a
+passer-by, "What are you doing here?" "I am going home." The soldier
+kills the passer-by. In the Rue des Marais they kill four young men in
+their own courtyard. Colonel Espinasse exclaimed, "After the bayonet,
+cannon!" Colonel Rochefort exclaimed, "Thrust, bleed, slash!" and he
+added, "It is an economy of powder and noise." Before Barbedienne's
+establishment an officer was showing his gun, an arm of considerable
+precision, admiringly to his comrades, and he said, "With this gun I can
+score magnificent shots between the eyes." having said this, he aimed at
+random at some one, and succeeded. The carnage was frenzied. While the
+butchering under the orders of Carrelet filled the boulevard, the
+Bourgon brigade devastated the Temple, the Marulaz brigade devastated
+the Rue Rambuteau; the Renault division distinguished itself on the
+"other side of the water." Renault was that general, who, at Mascara,
+had given his pistols to Charras. In 1848 he had said to Charras,
+"Europe must be revolutionized." And Charras had said, "Not quite so
+fast!" Louis Bonaparte had made him a General of Division in July, 1851.
+The Rue aux Ours was especially devastated. Morny that evening said to
+Louis Bonaparte, "The 15th Light Infantry have scored a success. They
+have cleaned out the Rue aux Ours."
+
+At the corner of the Rue du Sentier an officer of Spahis, with his sword
+raised, cried out, "This is not the sort of thing! You do not understand
+at all. Fire on the women." A woman was flying, she was with child, she
+falls, they deliver her by the means of the butt-ends of their muskets.
+Another, perfectly distracted, was turning the corner of a street. She
+was carrying a child. Two soldiers aimed at her. One said, "At the
+woman!" And he brought down the woman. The child rolled on the pavement.
+The other soldier said, "At the child!" And he killed the child.
+
+A man of high scientific repute, Dr. Germain See, declares that in one
+house alone, the establishment of the Jouvence Baths, there were at six
+o'clock, beneath a shed in the courtyard, about eighty wounded, nearly
+all of whom (seventy, at least) were old men, women, and children. Dr.
+See was the first to attend to them.
+
+In the Rue Mandar, there was, stated an eye-witness, "a rosary of
+corpses," reaching as far as the Rue Neuve Saint Eustache. Before the
+house of Odier twenty-six corpses. Thirty before the hotel Montmorency.
+Fifty-two before the Varietes, of whom eleven were women. In the Rue
+Grange-Bateliere there were three naked corpses. No. 19, Faubourg
+Montmartre, was full of dead and wounded.
+
+A woman, flying and maddened, with dishevelled hair and her arms raised
+aloft, ran along the Rue Poissonniere, crying, "They kill! they kill!
+they kill! they kill! they kill!"
+
+The soldiers wagered. "Bet you I bring down that fellow there." In this
+manner Count Poninsky was killed whilst going into his own house, 52,
+Rue de la Paix.
+
+I was anxious to know what I ought to do. Certain treasons, in order to
+be proved, need to be investigated. I went to the field of murder.
+
+In such mental agony as this, from very excess of feeling one no longer
+thinks, or if one thinks, it is distractedly. One only longs for some
+end or other. The death of others instills in you so much horror that
+your own death becomes an object of desire; that is to say, if by dying,
+you would be in some degree useful! One calls to mind deaths which have
+put an end to angers and to revolts. One only retains this ambition, to
+be a useful corpse.
+
+I walked along terribly thoughtful.
+
+I went towards the boulevards; I saw there a furnace; I heard there a
+thunderstorm.
+
+I saw Jules Simon coming up to me, who during these disastrous days
+bravely risked a precious life. He stopped me. "Where are you going?" he
+asked me. "You will be killed. What do you want?" "That very thing,"
+said I.
+
+We shook hands.
+
+I continued to go on.
+
+I reached the boulevard; the scene was indescribable. I witnessed this
+crime, this butchery, this tragedy. I saw that reign of blind death, I
+saw the distracted victims fall around me in crowds. It is for this that
+I have signed myself in this book AN EYE-WITNESS.
+
+Destiny entertains a purpose. It watches mysteriously over the future
+historian. It allows him to mingle with exterminations and carnages, but
+it does not permit him to die, because it wishes him to relate them.
+
+In the midst of this inexpressible Pandemonium, Xavier Durrieu met me as
+I was crossing the bullet-swept boulevard. He said to me, "Ah, here you
+are. I have just met Madame D. She is looking for you." Madame D.[24]
+and Madame de la R.,[25] two noble and brave women, had promised Madame
+Victor Hugo, who was ill in bed, to ascertain where I was, and to give
+her some news of me. Madame D. had heroically ventured into this carnage.
+The following incident happened to her. She stopped before a heap of
+bodies, and had had the courage to manifest her indignation; at the cry
+of horror to which she gave vent, a cavalry soldier had run up behind
+her with a pistol in his hand, and had it not been for a quickly opened
+door through which she threw herself, and which saved her, she would
+have been killed.
+
+It is well known that the total slaughter in this butchery is
+unrecorded. Bonaparte has kept these figures hidden in darkness. Such is
+the habit of those who commit massacres. They are scarcely likely to
+allow history to certify the number of the victims. These statistics are
+an obscure multitude which quickly lose themselves in the gloom. One of
+the two colonels of whom we have had a glimpse in pages 223-225 of this
+work, has stated that his regiment alone had killed "at least 2,500
+persons." This would be more than one person per soldier. We believe
+that this zealous colonel exaggerates. Crime sometimes boasts of its
+blackness.
+
+Lireux, a writer, arrested in order to be shot, and who escaped by a
+miracle, declares that he saw "more than 800 corpses."
+
+Towards four o'clock the post-chaises which were in the courtyard of the
+Elysee were unhorsed and put up.
+
+This extermination, which an English witness, Captain William Jesse,
+calls "a wanton fusillade," lasted from two till five o'clock. During
+these three terrible hours, Louis Bonaparte carried out what he had been
+premeditating, and completed his work. Up to that time the poor little
+"middle-class" conscience was almost indulgent. Well, what of it? It was
+a game at Prince, a species of state swindling, a conjuring feat on a
+large scale; the sceptics and the knowing men said, "It is a good joke
+played upon those idiots." Suddenly Louis Bonaparte grew uneasy and
+revealed all his policy. "Tell Saint-Arnaud to execute my orders."
+Saint-Arnaud obeyed, the _coup d'etat_ acted according to its own code
+of laws, and from that appalling moment an immense torrent of blood
+began to flow across this crime.
+
+They left the corpses lying on the pavements, wild-looking, livid,
+stupefied, with their pockets turned inside out. The military murderer
+is thus condemned to mount the villainous scale of guilt. In the morning
+an assassin, in the evening a thief.
+
+When night came enthusiasm and joy reigned at the Elysee. These men
+triumphed. Conneau has ingeniously related the scene. The familiar
+spirits were delirious with joy. Fialin addressed Bonaparte in
+hail-fellow-well-met style. "You had better break yourself of that,"
+whispered Vieillard. In truth this carnage made Bonaparte Emperor. He
+was now "His Majesty." They drank, they smoked like the soldiers on the
+boulevards; for having slaughtered throughout the day, they drank
+throughout the night; wine flowed upon the blood. At the Elysee they
+were amazed at the result. They were enraptured; they loudly expressed
+their admiration. "What a capital idea the Prince had had! How well the
+thing had been managed! This was much better than flying the country, by
+Dieppe, like D'Haussez; or by Membrolle, like Guernon-Ranville; or being
+captured, disguised as a footboy, and blacking the boots of Madame de
+Saint Fargeau, like poor Polignac!" "Guizot was no cleverer than
+Polignac," exclaimed Persigny. Fleury turned to Morny: "Your theorists
+would not have succeeded in a _coup d'etat_." "That is true, they were
+not particularly vigorous," answered Morny. He added, "And yet they were
+clever men,--Louis Philippe, Guizot, Thiers--" Louis Bonaparte, taking
+his cigarette from his lips, interrupted, "If such are clever men, I
+would rather be an ass--"
+
+"A hyena in an ass's skin," says History.
+
+
+[24] No. 20, Cite Rodier.
+
+[25] Rue Caumartin. See pages 142, 145-148.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+
+THE APPOINTMENT MADE WITH THE WORKMEN'S SOCIETIES
+
+What had become of our Committee during these tragic events, and what
+was it doing? It is necessary to relate what took place.
+
+Let us go back a few hours.
+
+At the moment when this strange butchery began, the seat of the
+Committee was still in the Rue Richelieu. I had gone back to it after
+the exploration which I had thought it proper to make at several of the
+quarters in insurrection, and I gave an account of what I had seen to my
+colleagues. Madier de Montjau, who also arrived from the barricades,
+added to my report details of what he had seen. For some time we heard
+terrible explosions, which appeared to be close by, and which mingled
+themselves with our conversation. Suddenly Versigny came in. He told us
+that horrible events were taking place on the Boulevards; that the
+meaning of the conflict could not yet be ascertained, but that they were
+cannonading, and firing volleys of musket-balls, and that the corpses
+bestrewed the pavement; that, according to all appearances, it was a
+massacre,--a sort of Saint Bartholomew improvised by the coup d'etat;
+that they were ransacking the houses at a few steps from us, and that
+they were killing every one. The murderers were going from door to door,
+and were drawing near. He urged us to leave Grevy's house without delay.
+It was manifest that the Insurrectionary Committee would be a "find" for
+the bayonets. We decided to leave, whereupon M. Dupont White, a man
+distinguished for his noble character and his talent, offered us a
+refuge at his house, 11, Rue Monthabor. We went out by the back-door of
+Grevy's house, which led into 1, Rue Fontaine Moliere, but leisurely,
+and two by two, Madier de Montjau with Versigny, Michel de Bourges with
+Carnot, myself arm-in-arm with Jules Favre. Jules Favre, dauntless and
+smiling as ever, wrapped a comforter over his mouth, and said, "I do not
+much mind being shot, but I do mind catching cold."
+
+Jules Favre and I reached the rear of Saint Roch, by the Rue des
+Moulins. The Rue Veuve Saint Roch was thronged with a mass of affrighted
+passers-by, who came from the Boulevards flying rather than walking. The
+men were talking in a loud voice, the women screaming. We could hear the
+cannon and the ear-piercing rattle of the musketry. All the shops were
+being shut. M. de Falloux, arm-in-arm with M. Albert de Resseguier, was
+striding down the Rue de Saint Roch and hurrying to the Rue Saint
+Honore. The Rue Saint Honore presented a scene of clamorous agitation.
+People were coming and going, stopping, questioning one another,
+running. The shopkeepers, at the threshold of their half-opened doors,
+asked the passers-by what was taking place, and were only answered by
+this cry, "Oh, my God!" People came out of their houses bareheaded and
+mingled with the crowd. A fine rain was falling. Not a carriage in the
+street. At the corner of the Rue Saint Roch and Rue Saint Honore we
+heard voices behind us saying, "Victor Hugo is killed."
+
+"Not yet," said Jules Favre, continuing to smile, and pressing my arm.
+
+They had said the same thing on the preceding day to Esquiros and to
+Madier de Montjau. And this rumor, so agreeable to the Reactionaries,
+had even reached my two sons, prisoners in the Conciergerie.
+
+The stream of people driven back from the Boulevards and from the Rue
+Richelieu flowed towards the Rue de la Paix. We recognized there some of
+the Representatives of the Right who had been arrested on the 2d, and
+who were already released. M. Buffet, an ex-minister of M. Bonaparte,
+accompanied by numerous other members of the Assembly, was going towards
+the Palais Royal. As he passed close by us he pronounced the name of
+Louis Bonaparte in a tone of execration.
+
+M. Buffet is a man of some importance; he is one of the three political
+advisers of the Right; the two others are M. Fould and M. Mole.
+
+In the Rue Monthabor, two steps from the Rue Saint Honore, there was
+silence and peace. Not one passer-by, not a door open, not a head out of
+window.
+
+In the apartment into which we were conducted, on the third story, the
+calm was not less perfect. The windows looked upon an inner courtyard.
+Five or six red arm-chairs were drawn up before the fire; on the table
+could be seen a few books which seemed to me works on political economy
+and executive law. The Representatives, who almost immediately joined us
+and who arrived in disorder, threw down at random their umbrellas and
+their coats streaming with water in the corner of this peaceful room. No
+one knew exactly what was happening; every one brought forward his
+conjectures.
+
+The Committee was hardly seated in an adjoining little room when our
+ex-colleague, Leblond, was announced. He brought with him King the
+delegate of the working-men's societies. The delegate told us that the
+committee of the societies were sitting in permanent session, and had
+sent him to us. According to the instructions of the Insurrectionary
+Committee, they had done what they could to lengthen the struggle by
+evading too decisive encounters. The greater part of the associations
+had not yet given battle; nevertheless the plot was thickening. The
+combat had been severe during the morning. The Association of the Rights
+of Man was in the streets; the ex-constituent Beslay had assembled, in
+the Passage du Caire, six or seven hundred workmen from the Marais, and
+had posted them in the streets surrounding the Bank. New barricades
+would probably be constructed during the evening, the forward movement
+of the resistance was being precipitated, the hand-to-hand struggle
+which the Committee had wished to delay seemed imminent, all was rushing
+forward with a sort of irresistible impulse. Should we follow it, or
+should we stop? Should we run the risk of bringing matters to an end
+with one blow, which should be the last, and which would manifestly
+leave one adversary on the ground--either the Empire or the Republic?
+The workmen's societies asked for our instructions; they still held in
+reserve their three or four thousand combatants; and they could,
+according to the order which the Committee should give them, either
+continue to restrain them or send them under fire without delay. They
+believed themselves curtain of their adherents; they would do whatever
+we should decide upon, while not hiding from us that the workmen wished
+for an immediate conflict, and that it would be somewhat hazardous to
+leave them time to become calm.
+
+The majority of the members of the Committee were still in favor of a
+certain slackening of action which should tend to prolong the struggle;
+and it was difficult to say that they were in the wrong. It was certain
+that if they could protract the situation in which the _coup d'etat_ had
+thrown Paris until the next week, Louis Bonaparte was lost. Paris does
+not allow herself to be trampled upon by an army for a whole week.
+Nevertheless, I was for my own part impressed with the following:--The
+workmen's societies offered us three or four thousand combatants, a
+powerful assistance;--the workman does not understand strategy, he lives
+on enthusiasm, abatements of ardor discourage him; his zeal is not
+extinguished, but it cools:--three thousand to-day would be five hundred
+to-morrow. And then some serious incident had just taken place on the
+Boulevards. We were still ignorant of what it actually was: we could not
+foresee what consequences it might bring about; but seemed to me
+impossible that the still unknown, but yet violent event, which had just
+taken place would not modify the situation, and consequently change our
+plan of battle. I began to speak to this effect. I stated that we ought
+to accept the offer of the associations, and to throw them at once into
+the struggle; I added that revolutionary warfare often necessitates
+sudden changes of tactics, that a general in the open country and before
+the enemy operates as he wishes; it is all clear around him; he knows
+the effective strength of his soldiers, the number of his regiments; so
+many men, so many horses, so many cannons, he knows his strength, and
+the strength of his enemy, he chooses his hour and his ground, he has a
+map under his eyes, he sees what he is doing. He is sure of his
+reserves, he possesses them, he keeps them back, he utilizes them when
+he wishes, he always has them by him. "But for ourselves," cried I, "we
+are in an undefined and inconceivable position. We are stepping at a
+venture upon unknown risks. Who is against us? We hardly know. Who is
+with us? We are ignorant. How many soldiers? How many guns? How many
+cartridges? Nothing! but the darkness. Perhaps the entire people,
+perhaps no one. Keep a reserve! But who would answer for this reserve?
+It is an army to-day, it will be a handful of dust to-morrow. We only
+can plainly distinguish our duty, as regards all the rest it is black
+darkness. We are guessing at everything. We are ignorant of everything.
+We are fighting a blind battle! Let us strike all the blows that can be
+struck, let us advance straight before us at random, let us rush upon
+the danger! And let us have faith, for as we are Justice and the Law,
+God must be with us in this obscurity. Let us accept this glorious and
+gloomy enterprise of Right disarmed yet still fighting."
+
+The ex-constituent Leblond and the delegate King being consulted by the
+Committee, seconded my advice. The Committee decided that the societies
+should be requested in our name to come down into the streets
+immediately, and to call out their forces. "But we are keeping nothing
+for to-morrow," objected a member of the Committee, "what ally shall we
+have to-morrow?" "Victory," said Jules Favre. Carnot and Michel de
+Bourges remarked that it would be advisable for those members of the
+association who belonged to the National Guard to wear their uniforms.
+This was accordingly settled.
+
+The delegate King rose,--"Citizen Representatives," said he, "these
+orders will be immediately transmitted, our friends are ready, in a few
+hours they will assemble. To-night barricades and the combat!"
+
+I asked him, "Would it be useful to you if a Representative, a member of
+the Committee, were with you to-night with his sash girded?"
+
+"Doubtless," he answered.
+
+"Well, then," resumed I, "here I am! Take me."
+
+"We will all go," exclaimed Jules Favre.
+
+The delegate observed that it would suffice for one of us to be there at
+the moment when the societies should make their appearance, and that he
+could then notify the other members of the Committee to come and join
+him. It was settled that as soon as the places of meeting and the
+rallying-points should be agreed upon, he would send some one to let me
+know, and to take me wherever the societies might be. "Before an hour's
+time you shall hear from me," said he on leaving us.
+
+As the delegates were going away Mathieu de la Drome arrived. On coming
+in he halted on the threshold of the door, he was pale, he cried out to
+us, "You are no longer in Paris, you are no longer under the Republic;
+you are in Naples and under King Bomba."
+
+He had come from the boulevards.
+
+Later on I again saw Mathieu de la Drome. I said to him, "Worse than
+Bomba,--Satan."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+
+THE VERIFICATION OF MORAL LAWS
+
+The carnage of the Boulevard Montmartre constitutes the originality of
+the _coup d'etat_. Without this butchery the 2d of December would only
+be an 18th Brumaire. Owing to the massacre Louis Bonaparte escapes the
+charge of plagiarism.
+
+Up to that time he had only been an imitator. The little hat at Boulogne,
+the gray overcoat, the tame eagle appeared grotesque. What did this parody
+mean? people asked. He made them laugh; suddenly he made
+them tremble.
+
+He who becomes detestable ceases to be ridiculous.
+
+Louis Bonaparte was more than detestable, he was execrable.
+
+He envied the hugeness of great crimes; he wished to equal the worst.
+This striving after the horrible has given him a special place to
+himself in the menagerie of tyrants. Petty rascality trying to emulate
+deep villainy, a little Nero swelling himself to a huge Lacenaire; such
+is this phenomenon. Art for art, assassination for assassination.
+
+Louis Bonaparte has created a special genus.
+
+It was in this manner that Louis Bonaparte made his entry into the
+Unexpected. This revealed him.
+
+Certain brains are abysses. Manifestly for a long time past Bonaparte
+had harbored the design of assassinating in order to reign.
+Premeditation haunts criminals, and it is in this manner that treason
+begins. The crime is a long time present in them, but shapeless and
+shadowy, they are scarcely conscious of it; souls only blacken
+gradually. Such abominable deeds are not invented in a moment; they do
+not attain perfection at once and at a single bound; they increase and
+ripen, shapeless and indecisive, and the centre of the ideas in which
+they exist keeps them living, ready for the appointed day, and vaguely
+terrible. This design, the massacre for a throne, we feel sure, existed
+for a long time in Louis Bonaparte's mind. It was classed among the
+possible events of this soul. It darted hither and thither like a
+_larva_ in an aquarium, mingled with shadows, with doubts, with desires,
+with expedients, with dreams of one knows not what Caesarian socialism,
+like a Hydra dimly visible in a transparency of chaos. Hardly was he
+aware that he was fostering this hideous idea. When he needed it, he
+found it, armed and ready to serve him. His unfathomable brain had
+darkly nourished it. Abysses are the nurseries of monsters.
+
+Up to this formidable day of the 4th December, Louis Bonaparte did not
+perhaps quite know himself. Those who studied this curious Imperial
+animal did not believe him capable of such pure and simple ferocity.
+They saw in him an indescribable mongrel, applying the talents of a
+swindler to the dreams of an Empire, who, even when crowned, would be a
+thief, who would say of a parricide, What roguery! Incapable of gaining
+a footing on any height, even of infamy, always remaining half-way
+uphill, a little above petty rascals, a little below great malefactors.
+They believed him clever at effecting all that is done in gambling-hells
+and in robbers' caves, but with this transposition, that he would cheat
+in the caves, and that he would assassinate in the gambling-hells.
+
+The massacre of the Boulevards suddenly unveiled this spirit. They saw it
+such as it really was: the ridiculous nicknames "Big-beak," "Badinguet,"
+vanished; they saw the bandit, they saw the true _contraffatto_ hidden
+under the false Bonaparte.
+
+There was a shudder! It was this then which this man held in reserve!
+
+Apologies have been attempted, they could but fail. It is easy to praise
+Bonaparte, for people have praised Dupin; but it is an exceedingly
+complicated operation to cleanse him. What is to be done with the 4th
+of December? How will that difficulty be surmounted? It is far more
+troublesome to justify than to glorify; the sponge works with greater
+difficulty than the censer; the panegyrists of the _coup d'etat_ have
+lost their labor. Madame Sand herself, although a woman of lofty
+intellect, has failed miserably in her attempt to rehabilitate
+Bonaparte, for the simple reason that whatever one may do, the
+death-roll reappears through this whitewashing.
+
+No! no! no extenuation whatever is possible. Unfortunate Bonaparte. The
+blood is drawn. It must be drunk.
+
+The deed of the 4th of December is the most colossal dagger-thrust that
+a brigand let loose upon civilization has ever effected, we will not say
+upon a people, but upon the entire human race. The stroke was most
+monstrous, and struck Paris to the ground. Paris on the ground is
+Conscience, is Reason, is all human liberty on the ground; it is the
+progress of centuries lying on the pavement; it is the torch of Justice,
+of Truth, and of Life reversed and extinguished. This is what Louis
+Bonaparte effected the day when he effected this.
+
+The success of the wretch was complete. The 2d of December was lost;
+the 4th of December saved the 2d of December. It was something like
+Erostratus saving Judas. Paris understood that all had not yet been told
+as regards deeds of horror, and that beneath the oppressor there was the
+garbage-picker. It was the case of a swindler stealing Cesar's mantle.
+This man was little, it is true, but terrifying. Paris consented to this
+terror, renounced the right to have the last word, went to bed and
+simulated death. Suffocation had its share in the matter. This crime
+resembled, too, no previous achievements. Even after centuries have
+passed, and though he should be an Aeschylus or a Tacitus, any one
+raising the cover would smell the stench. Paris resigned herself, Paris
+abdicated, Paris surrendered; the novelty of the treason proved its
+chief strength; Paris almost ceased to be Paris; on the next day the
+chattering of this terrified Titan's teeth could be heard in the
+shadows.
+
+Let us lay a stress upon this, for we must verify the laws of morality.
+Louis Bonaparte remained, even after the 4th of December, Napoleon the
+Little. This enormity still left him a dwarf. The size of the crime does
+not change the stature of the criminal, and the pettiness of the
+assassin withstands the immensity of the assassination.
+
+Be that as it may, the Pigmy had the better of the Colossus. This
+avowal, humiliating as it is, cannot be evaded.
+
+Such are the blushes to which History, that greatly dishonored one, is
+condemned.
+
+
+
+
+THE FOURTH DAY--THE VICTORY.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+WHAT HAPPENED DURING THE NIGHT--THE RUE TIQUETONNE
+
+Just as Mathieu de la Drome had said, "You are under King Bomba,"
+Charles Gambon entered. He sank down upon a chair and muttered, "It is
+horrible." Bancel followed him. "We have come from it," said Bancel.
+Gambon had been able to shelter himself in the recess of a doorway. In
+front of Barbedienne's alone he had counted thirty-seven corpses. What
+was the meaning of it all? To what purpose was this monstrous
+promiscuous murder? No one could understand it. The Massacre was a
+riddle.
+
+We were in the Sphinx's Grotto.
+
+Labrousse came in. It was urgently necessary that we should leave Dupont
+White's house. It was on the point of being surrounded. For some moments
+the Rue Monthabor, ordinarily so deserted, was becoming thronged with
+suspicious figures. Men seemed to be attentively watching number Eleven.
+Some of these men, who appeared to be acting in concert, belonged to the
+ex-"Club of Clubs," which, owing to the manoeuvres of the Reactionists,
+exhaled a vague odor of the police. It was necessary that we should
+disperse. Labrousse said to us, "I have just seen Longe-pied roving
+about."
+
+We separated. We went away one by one, and each in his own direction. We
+did not know where we should meet again, or whether we should meet
+again. What was going to happen and what was about to become of us all?
+No one knew. We were filled with a terrible dread.
+
+I turned up towards the Boulevards, anxious to see what was taking
+place.
+
+What was taking place I have just related.
+
+Bancel and Versigny had rejoined me.
+
+As I left the Boulevards, mingled with the whirl of the terrified crowd,
+not knowing where I was going, returning towards the centre of Paris, a
+voice suddenly whispered in my ear, "There is something over there which
+you ought to see." I recognized the voice. It was the voice of E.P.
+
+E.P. is a dramatic author, a man of talent, for whom under Louis
+Philippe I had procured exemption from military service. I had not seen
+him for four or five years. I met him again in this tumult. He spoke to
+me as though we had seen each other yesterday. Such are these times of
+bewilderment. There is no time to greet each other "according to the
+rules of society." One speaks as though all were in full flight.
+
+"Ah! it is you!" I exclaimed. "What do you want with me?"
+
+He answered me, "I live in a house over there."
+
+And he added,-
+
+"Come."
+
+He drew me into a dark street. We could hear explosions. At the bottom
+of the street could be seen the ruins of a barricade. Versigny and
+Bancel, as I have just said, were with me. E.P. turned to them.
+
+"These gentlemen can come," said he.
+
+I asked him,--
+
+"What street is this?"
+
+"The Rue Tiquetonne."
+
+We followed him.
+
+I have elsewhere told this tragical event.[26]
+
+E.P. stopped before a tall and gloomy house. He pushed open a
+street-door which was not shut, then another door and we entered into a
+parlor perfectly quiet and lighted by a lamp.
+
+This room appeared to adjoin a shop. At the end could be distinguished
+two beds side by side, one large and one small. Above the little bed
+hung a woman's portrait, and above the portrait a branch of holy
+box-tree.
+
+The lamp was placed over the fireplace, where a little fire was burning.
+
+Near the lamp upon a chair there was an old woman leaning forward,
+stooping down, folded in two as though broken, over something which was
+in the shadow, and which she held in her arms. I drew near. That which
+she held in her arms was a dead child.
+
+The poor woman was silently sobbing.
+
+E.P., who belonged to the house, touched her on the shoulder, and
+said,--
+
+"Let us see it."
+
+The old woman raised her head, and I saw on her knees a little boy, pale,
+half-undressed, pretty, with two red holes in his forehead.
+
+The old woman stared at me, but she evidently did not see me, she
+muttered, speaking to herself,--
+
+"And to think that he called me 'Granny' this morning!"
+
+E.P. took the child's hand, the hand fell back again.
+
+"Seven years old," he said to me.
+
+A basin was on the ground. They had washed the child's face; two tiny
+streams of blood trickled from the two holes.
+
+At the end of the room, near a half-opened clothes-press, in which could
+be seen some linen, stood a woman of some forty years, grave, poor, clean,
+fairly good-looking.
+
+"A neighbor," E.P. said to me.
+
+He explained to me that a doctor lived in the house, that the doctor had
+come down and had said, "There is nothing to be done." The child had
+been hit by two balls in the head while crossing the street to "get out
+of the way." They had brought him back to his grandmother, who "had no
+one left but him."
+
+The portrait of the dead mother hung above the little bed.
+
+The child had his eyes half open, and that inexpressible gaze of the
+dead, where the perception of the real is replaced by the vision of the
+infinite. The grandmother spoke through her sobs by snatches: "God! is
+it possible? Who would have thought it?--What brigands!"
+
+She cried out,--
+
+"Is this then the Government?"
+
+"Yes," I said to her.
+
+We finished undressing the child. He had a top in his pocket. His head
+rolled from one shoulder to the other; I held him and I kissed him on
+the brow; Versigny and Bancel took off his stockings. The grandmother
+suddenly started up.
+
+"Do not hurt him!" she cried.
+
+She took the two little white and frozen feet in her old hands, trying
+to warm them.
+
+When the poor little body was naked, they began to lay it out. They took
+a sheet from the clothes-press.
+
+Then the grandmother burst into bitter lamentation.
+
+She cried out,--
+
+"They shall give him back to me!"
+
+She drew herself up and gazed at us, and began to pour forth incoherent
+utterances, in which were mingled Bonaparte, and God, and her little
+one, and the school to which he went, and her daughter whom she had
+lost, and even reproaches to us. She was livid, haggard, as though
+seeing a vision before her, and was more of a phantom than the dead
+child.
+
+Then she again buried her face in her hands, placed her folded arms on
+her child, and once more began to sob.
+
+The woman who was there came up to me, and without saying a word, wiped
+my mouth with a handkerchief. I had blood upon my lips.
+
+What could be done? Alas! We went out overwhelmed.
+
+It was quite dark. Bancel and Versigny left me.
+
+
+[26] "Les Chatiments."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+WHAT HAPPENED DURING THE NIGHT--THE MARKET QUARTER
+
+I came back to my lodging, 19, Rue Richelieu.
+
+The massacre seemed to be at an end; the fusillades were heard no
+longer. As I was about to knock at the door I hesitated for a moment; a
+man was there who seemed to be waiting. I went straight up to this man,
+and I said to him,--
+
+"You seem to be waiting for somebody?"
+
+He answered,--
+
+"Yes."
+
+"For whom?"
+
+"For you."
+
+And he added, lowering his voice, "I have come to speak to you."
+
+I looked at this man. A street-lamp shone on him. He did not avoid the
+light.
+
+He was a young man with a fair beard, wearing a blue blouse, and who had
+the gentle bearing of a thinker and the robust hands of a workman.
+
+"Who are you?" I asked him.
+
+He answered,--"I belong to the Society of the Last-makers. I know you
+very well, Citizen Victor Hugo."
+
+"From whom do you come?" I resumed.
+
+He answered still in a whisper,--
+
+"From Citizen King."
+
+"Very good," said I.
+
+He then told me his name. As he has survived the events of the night of
+the 4th, and as he since escaped the denunciations, it can be understood
+that we will not mention his name here, and that we shall confine
+ourselves to terming him throughout the course of this story by his
+trade, calling him the "last-maker."[27]
+
+"What do you want to say to me?" I asked him.
+
+He explained that matters were not hopeless, that he and his friends
+meant to continue the resistance, that the meeting-places of the
+Societies had not yet been settled, but that they would be during the
+evening, that my presence was desired, and that if I would be under the
+Colbert Arcade at nine o'clock, either himself or another of their men
+would be there, and would serve me as guide. We decided that in order to
+make himself known, the messenger, when accosting me, should give the
+password, "What is Joseph doing?"
+
+I do not know whether he thought he noticed any doubt or mistrust on my
+part. He suddenly interrupted himself, and said,--
+
+"After all, you are not bound to believe me. One does not think of
+everything: I ought to have asked them to give me a word in writing. At
+a time like this one distrusts everybody."
+
+"On the contrary," I said to him, "one trusts everybody. I will be in
+the Colbert Arcade at nine o'clock."
+
+And I left him.
+
+I re-entered my asylum. I was tired, I was hungry, I had recourse to
+Charamaule's chocolate and to a small piece of bread which I had still
+left. I sank down into an arm-chair, I ate and I slept. Some slumbers
+are gloomy. I had one of those slumbers, full of spectres; I again saw
+the dead child and the two red holes in his forehead, these formed two
+mouths: one said "Morny," and the other "Saint-Arnaud." History is not
+made, however, to recount dreams. I will abridge. Suddenly I awoke. I
+started: "If only it is not past nine o'clock!" I had forgotten to wind
+up my watch. It had stopped. I went out hastily. The street was lonely,
+the shops were shut. In the Place Louvos I heard the hour striking
+(probably from Saint Roch); I listened. I counted nine strokes. In a few
+moments I was under the Colbert Arcade. I peered into the darkness. No
+one was under the Arcade.
+
+I felt that it was impossible to remain there, and have the appearance
+of waiting about; near the Colbert Arcade there is a police-station, and
+the patrols were passing every moment. I plunged into the street. I
+found no one there. I went as far as the Rue Vivienne. At the corner of
+the Rue Vivienne a man was stopping before a placard and was trying to
+deface it or to tear it down. I drew near this man, who probably took me
+for a police agent, and who fled at the top of his speed. I retraced my
+steps. Near the Colbert Arcade, and just as I reached the point in the
+street where they post the theatrical bills, a workman passed me, and
+said quickly, "What is Joseph doing?"
+
+I recognized the last-maker.
+
+"Come," he said to me.
+
+We set out without speaking and without appearing to know each other, he
+walking some steps before me.
+
+We first went to two addresses, which I cannot mention here without
+pointing out victims for the proscription. In these two houses we got no
+news; no one had come there on the part of the societies.
+
+"Let us go to the third place," said the last-maker, and he explained to
+me that they had settled among them three successive meeting-places, in
+case of need, so as to be always sure of finding each other if,
+perchance, the police discovered the first or even the second
+meeting-place, a precaution which for our part we adopted as much as
+possible with regard to our meetings of the Left end of the Committee.
+
+We had reached the market quarter. Fighting had been going on there
+throughout the day. There were no longer any gas-lamps in the streets.
+We stopped from time to time, and listened so as not to run headlong
+into the arms of a patrol. We got over a paling of planks almost
+completely destroyed, and of which barricades had probably been made,
+and we crossed the extensive area of half-demolished houses which at
+that epoch encumbered the lower portions of the Rue Montmartre and Rue
+Montorgueil. On the peaks of the high dismantled gables could be seen a
+flickering red glow, doubtless the reflection of the bivouac-fires of the
+soldiers encamped in the markets and in the neighborhood of Saint
+Eustache. This reflection lighted our way. The last-maker, however,
+narrowly escaped falling into a deep hole, which was no less than the
+cellar of a demolished house. On coming out of this region, covered with
+ruins, amongst which here and there a few trees might be perceived, the
+remains of gardens which had now disappeared, we entered into narrow,
+winding, and completely dark streets, where it was impossible to
+recognize one's whereabouts. Nevertheless the last-maker walked on as
+much at his ease as in broad daylight, and like a man who is going
+straight to his destination. Once he turned round to me, and said to
+me,--
+
+"The whole of this quarter is barricaded; and if, as I hope, our friends
+come down, I will answer that they will hold it for a long time."
+
+Suddenly he stopped. "Here is one," said he. In truth, seven or eight
+paces before us was a barricade entirely constructed of paving-stones,
+not exceeding a man's height, and which in the darkness appeared like a
+ruined wall. A narrow passage had been formed at one end. We passed
+through it. There was no one behind the barricade.
+
+"There has already been fighting here a short time ago," said the
+last-maker in a low voice; and he added, after a pause, "We are getting
+near."
+
+The unpaving had left holes, of which we had to be careful. We strode,
+and sometimes jumped, from paving-stone to paving-stone. Notwithstanding
+the intense darkness, there yet hovered about an indefinable glimmer; on
+our way we noticed before us on the ground, close to the foot-pavement,
+something which looked like a stretched-out form. "The devil!" muttered
+my guide, "we were just going to walk upon it." He took a little wax
+match from his pocket and struck it on his sleeve; the flame flashed
+out. The light fell upon a pallid face, which looked at us with fixed
+eyes. It was a corpse lying there; it was an old man. The last-maker
+rapidly waved the match from his head to his feet. The dead man was
+almost in the attitude of a crucified man; his two arms were stretched
+out; his white hair, red at the ends, was soaking in the mud; a pool of
+blood was beneath him; a large blackish patch on his waistcoat marked
+the place where the ball had pierced his breast; one of his braces was
+undone; he had thick laced boots on his feet. The last-maker lifted up
+one of his arms, and said, "His collar-bone is broken." The movement
+shook the head, and the open mouth turned towards us as though about to
+speak to us. I gazed at this vision; I almost listened. Suddenly it
+disappeared.
+
+This face re-entered the gloom; the match had just gone out.
+
+We went away in silence. After walking about twenty paces, the
+last-maker, as though talking to himself, said in a whisper, "Don't know
+him."
+
+We still pushed forward. From the cellars to the roofs, from the
+ground-floors to the garrets, there was not a light in the house. We
+appeared to be groping in an immense tomb.
+
+A man's voice, firm and sonorous, suddenly issued out of the darkness,
+and shouted to us, "Who goes there?"
+
+"Ah, there they are!" said the last-maker, and he uttered a peculiar
+whistle.
+
+"Come on," resumed the voice.
+
+It was another barricade. This one, a little higher than the first, and
+separated from it by a distance of about a hundred paces, was, as far as
+could be seen, constructed of barrels filled with paving-stones. On the
+top could be seen the wheels of a truck entangled between the barrels;
+planks and beams were intermingled. A passage had been contrived still
+narrower than the gangway of the other barricade.
+
+"Citizens," said the last-maker, as he went into the barricade, "how
+many of you are there here?"
+
+The voice which had shouted, "Who goes there?" answered,--
+
+"There are two of us."
+
+"Is that all?"
+
+"That is all."
+
+They were in truth two,--two men who alone during that night, in that
+solitary street, behind that heap of paving-stones, awaited the
+onslaught of a regiment.
+
+Both wore blouses; they were two workmen; with a few cartridges in their
+pockets, and a musket upon each of their shoulders.
+
+"So then," resumed the last-maker, in an impatient tone, "our friends
+have not yet come!"
+
+"Well, then," I said to him, "let us wait for them."
+
+The last-maker spoke for a short time in a low tone, and probably told
+my name to one of the two defenders of the barricade, who came up to me
+and saluted me. "Citizen Representative," said he, "it will be very warm
+here shortly."
+
+"In the meantime," answered I laughingly, "it is cold."
+
+It was very cold, in truth. The street which was completely unpaved
+behind the barricade, was nothing better than a sewer, ankle deep in
+water.
+
+"I say that it will be warm," resumed the workman, "and that you would
+do well to go farther off."
+
+The last-maker put his hand on his shoulder: "Comrade, it is necessary
+that we should remain here. The meeting-place is close by, in the
+ambulance."
+
+"All the same," resumed the other workman, who was very short, and who
+stood up on a paving-stone; "the Citizen Representative would do well to
+go farther off."
+
+"I can very well be where you are," said I to him.
+
+The street was quite dark, nothing could be seen of the sky. Inside the
+barricade on the left, on the side where the passage was, could be seen
+a high paling of badly joined planks, through which shone in places a
+feeble light. Above the paling rose out, lost in the darkness, a house
+of six or seven storys; the ground floor, which was being repaired, and
+which was under-pinned, being closed in by these planks. A ray of light
+issuing from between the planks fell on the opposite wall, and lighted
+up an old torn placard, on which could be read, "Asnieres. Water
+tournaments. Grand ball."
+
+"Have you another gun?" asked the last-maker of the taller of the two
+workmen.
+
+"If we had three guns we should be three men," answered the workman.
+
+The little one added, "Do you think that the good will is wanting? There
+are plenty of musicians, but there are no clarionets."
+
+By the side of the wooden paling could be seen a little, narrow and low
+door, which looked more like the door of a stall than the door of a
+shop. The shop to which this door belonged was hermetically sealed. The
+door seemed to be equally closed. The last-maker went up to it and
+pushed it gently. It was open.
+
+"Let us go in," he said.
+
+I went in first, he followed me, and shut the door behind me. We were in
+a room on the ground floor. At the end, on the left, a half-opened door
+emitted the reflection of a light. The room was only lighted by this
+reflection. A counter and a species of stove, painted in black and
+white, could be dimly distinguished.
+
+A short, half-suffocated, intermittent gurgling could be heard, which
+seemed to come from an adjoining room on the same side as the light. The
+last-maker walked quickly to the half-opened door. I crossed the room
+after him, and we found ourselves in a sort of vast shed, lighted by one
+candle. We were on the other side of the plank paling. There was only
+the plank paling between ourselves and the barricade.
+
+This species of shed was the ground floor in course of demolition. Iron
+columns, painted red, and fixed into stone sockets at short distances
+apart, supported the joists of the ceiling; facing the street, a huge
+framework standing erect, and denoting the centre of the surrounding
+paling, supported the great cross-beam of the first story, that is to
+say, supported the whole house. In a corner were lying some masons'
+tools, a heap of rubbish, and a large double ladder. A few straw-bottomed
+chairs were scattered here and there. The damp ground served for the
+flooring. By the side of a table, on which stood a candle in the midst
+of medicine bottles, an old woman and a young girl of about eight years
+old--the woman seated, the child squatting before a great basketful of
+old linen--were making lint. The end of the room, which was lost in the
+darkness, was carpeted with a litter of straw, on which three mattresses
+had been thrown. The gurgling noise came from there.
+
+"It is the ambulance," said the last-maker.
+
+The old woman turned her head, and seeing us, shuddered convulsively,
+and then, reassured probably by the blouse of the last-maker, she got up
+and came towards us.
+
+The last-maker whispered a few words in her ear. She answered, "I have
+seen nobody."
+
+Then she added, "But what makes me uneasy is that my husband has not yet
+come back. They have done nothing but fire muskets the whole evening."
+
+Two men were lying on two of the mattresses at the end of the room. A
+third mattress was unoccupied and was waiting.
+
+The wounded man nearest to me had received a musket ball in his stomach.
+He it was who was gurgling. The old woman came towards the mattress with
+a candle, and whispered to us, showing us her fist, "If you could only
+see the hole that that has made! We have stuffed lint as large as this
+into his stomach."
+
+She resumed, "He is not above twenty-five years old. He will be dead
+to-morrow morning."
+
+The other was still younger. He was hardly eighteen. "He has a handsome
+black overcoat," said the woman. "He is most likely a student." The
+young man had the whole of the lower part of his face swathed in
+blood-stained linen. She explained to us that he had received a ball in
+the mouth, which had broken his jaw. He was in a high fever, and gazed
+at us with lustrous eyes. From time to time he stretched his right arm
+towards a basin full of water in which a sponge was soaking; he took the
+sponge, carried it to his face, and himself moistened his bandages.
+
+It seemed to me that his gaze fastened upon me in a singular manner. I
+went up to him, I stooped down, and I gave him my hand, which he took in
+his own. "Do you know me?" I asked him. He answered "Yes," by a pressure
+of the hand which went to my heart.
+
+The last-maker said to me, "Wait a minute for me here, I shall be back
+directly; I want to see in this neighborhood, if there is any means of
+getting a gun."
+
+He added,--
+
+"Would you like one for yourself?"
+
+"No," answered I. "I shall remain here without a gun. I only take a half
+share in the civil war; I am willing to die, I am not willing to kill."
+
+I asked him if he thought his friends were going to come. He declared
+that he could not understand it, that the men from the societies ought
+to have arrived already, that instead of two men in the barricade there
+should be twenty, that instead of two barricades in the street there
+should have been ten, and that something must have happened; he added,--
+
+"However, I will go and see; promise to wait for me here."
+
+"I promise you," I answered, "I will wait all night if necessary."
+
+He left me.
+
+The old woman had reseated herself near the little girl, who did not
+seem to understand much of what was passing round her, and who from time
+to time raised great calm eyes towards me. Both were poorly clad, and it
+seemed to me that the child had stockingless feet. "My man has not yet
+come back," said the old woman, "my poor man has not yet come back. I
+hope nothing has happened to him!" With many heart-rending "My God's,"
+and all the while quickly picking her lint, she wept. I could not help
+thinking with anguish of the old man we had seen stretched on the
+pavement at a few paces distant.
+
+A newspaper was lying on the table. I took it up, and I unfolded it. It
+was the _P----_, the rest of the title had been torn off. A
+blood-stained hand was plainly imprinted on it. A wounded man on
+entering had probably placed his hand on the table on the spot where the
+newspaper lay. My eyes fell upon these lines:--
+
+"M. Victor Hugo has just published an appeal to pillage and
+assassination."
+
+In these terms the journal of the Elysee described the proclamation
+which I had dictated to Baudin, and which may be read in page 103 of
+this History.
+
+As I threw back the paper on the table one of the two defenders of the
+barricade entered. It was the short man.
+
+"A glass of water," said he. By the side of the medicine bottles there
+was a decanter and a glass. He drank, greedily. He held in his hand a
+morsel of bread and a sausage, which he was biting.
+
+Suddenly we heard several successive explosions, following one after
+another, and which seemed but a short distance off. In the silence of
+this dark night it resembled the sound of a load of wood being shot on
+to the pavement.
+
+The calm and serious voice of the other combatant shouted from outside,
+"It is beginning."
+
+"Have I time to finish my bread?" asked the little one.
+
+"Yes," said the other.
+
+The little one then turned to me.
+
+"Citizen Representative," said he to me, "those are volleys. They are
+attacking the barricades over there. Really you must go away."
+
+I answered him, "But you yourselves are going to stay here."
+
+"As for us, we are armed," resumed he; "as for you, you are not. You
+will only get yourself killed without benefiting any one. If you had a
+gun, I should say nothing. But you have not. You must go away."
+
+"I cannot," I answered him. "I am waiting for some one."
+
+He wished to continue and to urge me. I pressed his hand.
+
+"Let me do as I like," said I.
+
+He understood that my duty was to remain, and no longer persisted.
+
+There was a pause. He again began to bite his bread. The gurgling of the
+dying man alone was audible. At that moment a sort of deep and hollow
+booming reached us. The old woman started from her chair, muttering, "It
+is the cannon!"
+
+"No," said the little man, "it is the slamming of a street-door." Then
+he resumed, "There now! I have finished my bread," and he dusted one
+hand against the other, and went out.
+
+In the meantime the explosions continued, and seemed to come nearer. A
+noise sounded in the shop. It was the last-maker who was coming back. He
+appeared on the threshold of the ambulance. He was pale.
+
+"Here I am," said he, "I have come to fetch you. We must go home. Let us
+be off at once."
+
+I arose from the chair where I had seated myself. "What does this mean?
+Will they not come?"
+
+"No," he answered, "no one will come. All is at an end."
+
+Then he hastily explained that he had gone through the whole of the
+quarter in order to find a gun, that it was labor lost, that he had
+spoken to "two or three," that we must abandon all hope of the
+societies, _that they would not come down_, that what had been done
+during the day had appalled every one, that the best men were terrified,
+that the boulevards were "full of corpses," that the soldiers had
+committed "horrors," that the barricade was about to be attacked, that
+on his arrival he had heard the noise of footsteps in the direction of
+the crossway, that it was the soldiers who were advancing, that we could
+do nothing further there, that we must be off, that this house was
+"stupidly chosen," that there was no outlet in the rear, that perhaps we
+should already find it difficult to get out of the street, and that we
+had only just time.
+
+He told this all panting, briefly, jerkily, and interrupted at every
+moment with this ejaculation, "And to think that they have no arms, and
+to think that I have no gun!"
+
+As he finished we heard from the barricade a shout of "Attention!" and
+almost immediately a shot was fired.
+
+A violent discharge replied to this shot.
+
+Several balls struck the paling of the ambulance, but they were too
+obliquely aimed, and none pierced it. We heard the glass of several
+broken windows falling noisily into the street.
+
+"There is no longer time," said the last-maker calmly; "the barricade is
+attacked."
+
+He took a chair and sat down. The two workmen were evidently excellent
+marksmen. Two volleys assailed the barricade, one after the other. The
+barricade answered with animation. Then the fire ceased. There was a
+pause.
+
+"Now they are coming at us with the bayonet! They are coming at the
+double!" said a voice in the barricade.
+
+The other voice said, "Let us be off." A last musket-shot was fired.
+Then a violent blow which we interpreted as a warning shook our wooden
+wall. It was in reality one of the workmen who had thrown down his gun
+when going away; the gun in falling had struck the paling of the
+ambulance. We heard the rapid steps of the two combatants, as they ran
+off.
+
+Almost at the same moment a tumult of voices, and of butt ends of
+muskets striking the paving-stones, filled the barricade.
+
+"It is taken," said the last-maker, and he blew out the candle.
+
+To the silence which enveloped this street a moment before succeeded a
+sort of ill-omened tumult. The soldiers knocked at the doors of the
+houses with the butt-ends of their muskets. It was by a miracle that the
+shop-door escaped them. If they had merely pushed against it, they would
+have seen that it was not shut, and would have entered.
+
+A voice, probably the voice of an officer, cried out, "Light up the
+windows!" The soldiers swore. We heard them say, "Where are those
+blackguard Reds? Let us search the houses." The ambulance was plunged in
+darkness. Not a word was spoken, not a breath could be heard; even the
+dying man, as though he divined the danger, had ceased to gurgle. I felt
+the little girl pressing herself against my legs.
+
+A soldier struck the barrels, and said laughingly,--
+
+"Here is something to make a fire with to-night."
+
+Another resumed,--
+
+"Which way have they gone? They were at least thirty. Let us search the
+houses."
+
+We heard one raising objections to this,--
+
+"Nonsense! What do you want to do on a night like this? Enter the houses
+of the 'middle classes' indeed! There is some waste ground over yonder.
+They have taken refuge there."
+
+"All the same," repeated the others, "let us search the houses."
+
+At this moment a musket-shot was fired from the end of the street.
+
+This shot saved us.
+
+In fact, it was probably one of the two workmen who had fired in order
+to draw off their attention from us.
+
+"That comes from over there," cried the soldiers, "They are over there!"
+and all starting off at once in the direction from which the shot had
+been fired, they left the barricade and ran down the street at the top
+of their speed.
+
+The last-maker and myself got up.
+
+"They are no longer there," whispered he. "Quick! let us be off."
+
+"But this poor woman," said I. "Are we going to leave her here?"
+
+"Oh," she said, "do not be afraid, I have nothing to fear; as for me, I
+am an ambulance. I am taking care of the wounded. I shall even relight
+my candle when you are gone. What troubles me is that my poor husband
+has not yet come back!"
+
+We crossed the shop on tiptoe. The last-maker gently opened the door and
+glanced out into the street. Some inhabitants had obeyed the order to
+light up their windows, and four or five lighted candles here and there
+flickered in the wind upon the sills of the windows. The street was no
+longer completely dark.
+
+"There is no one about now," said the last-maker; "but let us make
+haste, for they will probably come back."
+
+We went out: the old woman closed the door behind us, and we found
+ourselves in the street. We got over the barricade and hurried away as
+quickly as possible. We passed by the dead old man. He was still there,
+lying on the pavement indistinctly revealed by the flickering glimmer
+from the windows; he looked as though he was sleeping. As we reached the
+second barricade we heard behind us the soldiers, who were returning.
+
+We succeeded in regaining the streets in course of demolition. There we
+were in safety. The sound of musketry still reached us. The last-maker
+said, "They are fighting in the direction of the Rue de Clery." Leaving
+the streets in course of demolition, we went round the markets, not
+without risk of falling into the hands of the patrols, by a number of
+zigzags, and from one little street to another little street. We reached
+the Rue Saint Honore.
+
+At the corner of the Rue de l'Arbre Sec the last-maker and I separated,
+"For in truth," said he to me, "two run more danger than one." And I
+regained No. 19, Rue Richelieu.
+
+While crossing the rue des Bourdonnais we had noticed the bivouac of the
+Place Saint Eustache. The troops who had been dispatched for the attack
+had not yet come back. Only a few companies were guarding it. We could
+hear shouts of laughter. The soldiers were warming themselves at large
+fires lighted here and there. In the fire which was nearest to us we
+could distinguish in the middle of the brazier the wheels of the
+vehicles which had served for the barricades. Of some there only
+remained a great hoop of red-hot iron.
+
+
+[27] We may now, after twenty-six years, give the name of this loyal
+and courageous man. His name was Galoy (and not Galloix, as certain
+historians of the _coup d'etat_ have printed it while recounting, after
+their fashion, the incidents which we are about to read).
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+WHAT HAPPENED DURING THE NIGHT.--THE PETIT CARREAU
+
+On the same night, almost at the same moment, at a few paces distant, a
+villainous deed was being perpetrated.
+
+After the taking of the barricade, where Pierre Tissie was killed,
+seventy or eighty combatants had retired in good order by the Rue Saint
+Sauveur. They had reached the Rue Montorgueil, and had rejoined each
+other at the junction of the Rue du Petit Carreau and the Rue du Cadran.
+At this point the street rises. At the corner of the Rue du Petit
+Carreau and the Rue de Clery there was a deserted barricade, fairly high
+and well built. There had been fighting there during the morning. The
+soldiers had taken it, but had not demolished it. Why? As we have said,
+there were several riddles of this nature during this day.
+
+The armed band which came from the Rue Saint Denis had halted there and
+had waited. These men were astonished at not being pursued. Had the
+soldiers feared to follow them into the little narrow streets, where
+each corner of the houses might conceal an ambuscade? Had a counter
+order been given? They hazarded various conjectures. Moreover they heard
+close by, evidently on the boulevard, a terrific noise of musketry, and
+a cannonade which resembled continuous thunder. Having no more
+ammunition, they were reduced to listen. If they had known what was
+taking place there, they would have understood why they were not
+pursued. The butchery of the boulevard was beginning. The generals
+employed in the massacre had suspended fighting for awhile.
+
+The fugitives of the boulevard streamed in their direction, but when
+they perceived the barricade they turned back. Some, however, joined
+them indignant, and crying out for vengeance. One who lived in the
+neighborhood ran home and brought back a little tin barrel full of
+cartridges.
+
+These were sufficient for an hour's fighting. They began to construct a
+barricade at the corner of the Rue du Cadran. In this manner the Rue du
+Petit Carreau, closed by two barricades, one towards the Rue de Clery,
+the other at the corner of the Rue du Cadran, commanded the whole of the
+Rue Montorgueil. The space between these two barricades formed a perfect
+citadel. The second barricade was stronger than the first.
+
+These men nearly all wore coats. Some of them rolled the paving-stones
+with gloves on.
+
+Few workmen were amongst them, but those who were there were intelligent
+and energetic. These workmen were what might be termed the "pick of the
+crowd."
+
+Jeanty Sarre had rejoined them; he at once became their leader.
+
+Charpentier accompanied him, too brave to abandon the enterprise, but
+too much a dreamer to become a commander.
+
+Two barricades, enclosing in the same manner some forty yards of the Rue
+Montorgueil, had just been constructed at the top of the Rue Mauconseil.
+
+Three other barricades, extremely feebly constructed, again intersected
+the Rue Montorgueil in the space which separates the Rue Mauconseil from
+Saint Eustache.
+
+Evening was closing in. The fusillade was ceasing upon the boulevard. A
+surprise was possible. They established a sentry-post at the corner of
+the Rue du Cadran, and sent a main-guard in the direction of the Rue
+Montmartre. Their scouts came in to report some items of information. A
+regiment seemed to be preparing to bivouac in the Place des Victoires.
+
+Their position, to all appearance strong, was not so in reality. There
+were too few in number to defend at the same time the two barricades on
+the Rue de Clery and the Rue Montorgueil, and the soldiers arriving in
+the rear hidden by the second barricade would have been upon them
+without being even noticed. This determined them to establish a post in
+the Rue de Clery. They put themselves in communication with the
+barricades of the Rue du Cadran and with the two Mauconseil barricades.
+These two last barricades were only separated from them by a space of
+about 150 paces. They were about six feet high, fairly solid, but only
+guarded by six workmen who had built them.
+
+Towards half-past four, in the twilight--the twilight begins early in
+December--Jeanty Sarre took four men with him and went out to
+reconnoitre. He thought also of raising an advanced barricade in one of
+the little neighboring streets. On the way they found one which had been
+abandoned, and which had been built with barrels. The barrels, however,
+were empty, only one contained any paving-stones, and the barricade
+could not have been held for two minutes. As they left this barricade
+they were assailed by a sharp discharge of musketry. A company of
+infantry, hardly visible in the dusk, was close upon them.
+
+They fell back hastily; but one of them, who was a shoemaker of the
+Faubourg du Temple, was hit, and had remained on the pavement. They went
+back and brought him away. He had the thumb of the right hand smashed.
+"Thank God!" said Jeanty Sarre, "they have not killed him." "No," said
+the poor man, "it is my bread which they have killed."
+
+And he added, "I can no longer work; who will maintain my children?"
+
+They went back, carrying the wounded man. One of them, a medical
+student, bound up his wound.
+
+The sentries, whom it was necessary to post in every direction, and who
+were chosen from the most trustworthy men, thinned and exhausted the
+little central land. There were scarcely thirty in the barricade itself.
+
+There, as in the Quarter of the Temple, all the streetlamps were
+extinguished; the gas-pipes cut; the windows closed and unlighted; no
+moon, not even stars. The night was profoundly dark.
+
+They could hear distant fusillades. The soldiers were firing from around
+Saint Eustache, and every three minutes sent a ball in their direction,
+as much as to say, "We are here." Nevertheless they did not expect an
+attack before the morning.
+
+Dialogues like the following took place amongst them:--
+
+"I wish I had a truss of straw," said Charpentier; "I have a notion that
+we shall sleep here to-night."
+
+"Will you be able to get to sleep?" asked Jeanty Sarre.
+
+"I? Certainly I shall go to sleep."
+
+He did go to sleep, in fact, a few moments later.
+
+In this gloomy network of narrow streets, intersected with barricades,
+and blockaded by soldiers, two wine-shops had remained open. They made
+more lint there, however, than they drank wine; the orders of the chiefs
+were only to drink reddened water.
+
+The doorway of one of these wine-shops opened exactly between the two
+barricades of the Petit Cancan. In it was a clock by which they
+regulated the sentries' relief. In a back room they had locked up two
+suspicious-looking persons who had intermingled with the combatants. One
+of these men at the moment when he was arrested said, "I have come to
+fight for Henri V." They kept them under lock and key, and placed a
+sentry at the door.
+
+An ambulance had been established in an adjoining room. There the
+wounded shoemaker was lying upon a mattress thrown upon the ground.
+
+They had established, in case of need, another ambulance in the Rue du
+Cadran. An opening had been effected at the corner of the barricade on
+this side, so that the wounded could be easily carried away.
+
+Towards half-past nine in the evening a man came up to the barricade.
+
+Jeanty Sarre recognized him.
+
+"Good day, Denis," said he.
+
+"Call me, Gaston," said the man.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because--"
+
+"Are you your brother?"
+
+"Yes, I am my brother. For to-day."
+
+"Very well. Good-day, Gaston."
+
+They heartily shook hands.
+
+It was Denis Dussoubs.
+
+He was pale, calm, and bleeding; he had already been fighting during the
+morning. At the barricade of the Faubourg Saint Martin a ball had grazed
+his breast, but had been turned off by some money in his pocket, and had
+only broken the skin. He had had the rare good fortune of being
+scratched by a ball. It was like the first touch from the claws of
+death. He wore a cap, his hat having been left behind in the barricade
+where he had fought: and he had replaced his bullet-pierced overcoat,
+which was made of Belleisle cloth, by a pea-jacket bought at a
+slop-shop.
+
+How had he reached the barricade of the Petit Carreau? He could not say.
+He had walked straight before him. He had glided from street to street.
+Chance takes the predestined by the hand, and leads them straight to
+their goal through the thick darkness.
+
+At the moment when he entered the barricade they cried out to him, "Who
+goes there?" He answered, "The Republic!"
+
+They saw Jeanty Sarre shake him by the hand. They asked Jeanty Sarre,--
+
+"Who is he?"
+
+Jeanty Sarre answered,--
+
+"It is some one."
+
+And he added,--
+
+"We were only sixty a short time since. We are a hundred now."
+
+All pressed round the new-comer. Jeanty Sarre offered him the command.
+
+"No," said he, "I do not understand the tactics of barricade fighting. I
+should be a bad chief, but I am a good soldier. Give me a gun."
+
+They seated themselves on the paving-stones. They exchanged their
+experiences of what had been done. Denis described to them the fighting
+on the Faubourg Saint Martin. Jeanty Sarre told Denis of the fighting in
+the Rue Saint Denis.
+
+During all this time the generals were preparing a final assault,--what
+the Marquis of Clermont-Tonnerre, in 1822, called the "Coup de Collier,"
+and what, in 1789, the Prince of Lambese had called the "Coup de Bas."
+Throughout all Paris there was now only this point which offered any
+resistance. This knot of barricade, this labyrinth of streets, embattled
+like a redoubt, was the last citadel of the People and of Right. The
+generals invested it leisurely, step by step, and on all sides. They
+concentrated their forces. They, the combatants of this fateful hour,
+knew nothing of what was being done. Only from time to time they
+interrupted their recital of events and they listened. From the right
+and from the left, from the front, from the rear, from every side, at
+the same time, an unmistakable murmur, growing every moment louder, and
+more distinct, hoarse, piercing, fear-inspiring, reached them through
+the darkness. It was the sound of the battalions marching and charging
+at the trumpet-command in all the adjoining streets. They resumed their
+gallant conversation, and then in another moment they stopped again and
+listened to that species of ill-omened chant, chanted by Death, which
+was approaching.
+
+Nevertheless some still thought that they would not be attacked till the
+next morning. Night combats are rare in street-warfare. They are more
+"risky" than all the other conflicts. Few generals venture upon them.
+But amongst the old hands of the barricade, from certain never-failing
+signs, they believed that an assault was imminent.
+
+In fact, at half-past ten at night, and not at eight o'clock as General
+Magnan has said in the despicable document which he calls his report--a
+special movement was heard in the direction of the markets. This was the
+marching of the troops. Colonel de Lourmel had determined to make the
+attack. The 51st of the Line, posted at Saint Eustache, entered the Rue
+Montorgueil. The 2d battalion formed the advanced guard. The Grenadiers
+and the Light Infantry, hurled forward at the double, quickly carried
+the three little barricades which were on the other side of the vacant
+space of the Rue Mauconseil, and the feebly defended barricades of the
+adjoining streets. It was at that very moment that the barricade near
+which I was happened to be carried.
+
+From the barricade of the Petit Carreau they heard the night-strife draw
+near through the darkness, with a fitful noise, strange and appalling.
+First a great tumult, then volleys, then silence, and then all began
+again. The flashing of the fusillades suddenly delineated in the darkness
+the outlines of the houses, which appeared as though they themselves
+were affrighted.
+
+The decisive moment drew near.
+
+The outpost had fallen back upon the barricades. The advanced posts of
+the Rue de Clery and the Rue du Cadran had come back. They called over
+the roll. Not one of those of the morning was missing.
+
+They were, as we have said, about sixty combatants, and not a hundred,
+as the Magnan report has stated.
+
+From the upper extremity of the street where they were stationed it was
+difficult to ascertain what was happening. They did not exactly know how
+many barricades they were in the Rue Montorgueil between them and Saint
+Eustache, whence the troops were coming. They only knew that their
+nearest point of resistance was the double Mauconseil barricade, and
+that, when all was at an end there, it would be their turn.
+
+Denis had posted himself on the inner side of the barricade in such a
+manner that half his body was above the top, and from there he watched.
+The glimmer which came from the doorway of the wine-shop rendered his
+gestures visible.
+
+Suddenly he made a sign. The attack on the Mauconseil redoubt was
+beginning.
+
+The soldiers, in fact, after having some time hesitated before this
+double wall of paving-stones, lofty, well-built, and which they supposed
+was well defended, had ended by rushing upon it, and attacking it with
+blows of their guns.
+
+They were not mistaken. It was well defended. We have already said that
+there were only six men in this barricade, the six workmen who had built
+it. Of the six one only had three cartridges, the others had only two
+shots to fire. These six men heard the regiment advancing and the roll
+of the battery which was followed on it, and did not stir. Each remained
+silent at his post of battle, the barrel of his gun between two
+paving-stones. When the soldiers were within range they fired, and the
+battalion replied.
+
+"That is right. Rage away, Red Breeches," said, laughingly, the man who
+had three shots to fire.
+
+Behind them, the men of the Petit Carreau were crowded round Denis and
+Jeanty Sarre, and leaning on the crest of their barricade, stretching
+their necks towards the Mauconseil redoubt, they watched them like the
+gladiators of the next combat.
+
+The six men of this Mauconseil redoubt resisted the onslaught of the
+battalion for nearly a quarter of an hour. They did not fire together,
+"in order," one of them said, "to make the pleasure last the longer."
+The pleasure of being killed for duty; a noble sentence in this
+workman's mouth. They did not fall back into the adjoining streets until
+after having exhausted their ammunition. The last, he who had three
+cartridges, did not leave until the soldiers were actually scaling the
+summit of the barricade.
+
+In the barricade of the Petit Carreau not a word was spoken; they
+followed all the phases of this struggle, and they pressed each other's
+hands.
+
+Suddenly the noise ceased, the last musket-shot was fired. A moment
+afterwards they saw the lighted candles being placed in all the windows
+which looked on on the Mauconseil redoubt. The bayonets and the brass
+ornaments on the shakos sparkled there. The barricade was taken.
+
+The commander of the battalion, as is always the custom in similar
+circumstances, had sent orders into the adjoining houses to light up all
+the windows.
+
+This was done at the Mauconseil redoubt.
+
+Seeing that their hour had come, the sixty combatants of the barricade
+of the Petit Carreau mounted their heap of paving-stones, and shouted
+with one voice, in the midst of the darkness, this piercing cry, "Long
+live the Republic!"
+
+No one answered them.
+
+They could only hear the battalion loading their guns.
+
+This acted upon them as a species of signal for action. They were all
+worn out with fatigue, having been on their feet since the preceding
+day, carrying paving-stones or fighting, the greater part had neither
+eaten nor slept.
+
+Charpentier said to Jeanty Sarre,--
+
+"We shall all be killed."
+
+"Shall we really!" said Jeanty Sarre.
+
+Jeanty Sarre ordered the door of the wine-shop to be closed, so that
+their barricade, completely shrouded in darkness, would give them some
+advantage over the barricade which was occupied by the soldiers and
+lighted up.
+
+In the meantime the 51st searched the streets, carried the wounded into
+the ambulances, and took up their position in the double barricade of
+the Rue Mauconseil. Half an hour thus elapsed.
+
+Now, in order to clearly understand what is about to follow, the reader
+must picture to himself in this silent street, in this darkness of the
+night, at from sixty to eighty yards apart, within speaking distance,
+these two redoubts facing each other, and able as in an Iliad to address
+each other.
+
+On one side the Army, on the other side the People, the darkness over
+all.
+
+The species of truce which always precedes decisive encounters drew to a
+close. The preparations were completed on both sides. The soldiers could
+be heard forming into order of battle, and the captains giving out their
+commands. It was evident that the struggle was at hand.
+
+"Let us begin," said Charpentier; and he raised his gun.
+
+Denis held his arm back. "Wait," he said.
+
+Then an epic incident was seen.
+
+Denis slowly mounted the paving-stones of the barricade, ascended to the
+top, and stood there erect, unarmed and bareheaded.
+
+Thence he raised his voice, and, facing the soldiers, he shouted to
+them, "Citizens!"
+
+At this word a sort of electric shudder ensued which was felt from one
+barricade to the other. Every sound was hushed, every voice was silent,
+on both sides reigned a deep religious and solemn silence. By the
+distant glimmer of a few lighted windows the soldiers could vaguely
+distinguish a man standing above a mass of shadows, like a phantom who
+was speaking to them in the night.
+
+Denis continued,--
+
+"Citizens of the Army! Listen to me!"
+
+The silence grew still more profound.
+
+He resumed,--
+
+"What have you come to do here? You and ourselves, all of us who are in
+this street, at this hour, with the sword or gun in hand, what are we
+about to do? To kill each other! To kill each other, citizens! Why?
+Because they have raised a misunderstanding between us! Because we
+obey--you your discipline--we our Right! You believe that you are
+carrying out your instructions; as for us, we know that we are doing our
+duty. Yes! it is Universal Suffrage, it is the Right of the Republic, it
+is our Right that we are defending, and our Right, soldiers, is your
+Right. The Army is the People, as the People is the Army. We are the
+same nation, the some country, the same men. My God! See, is there any
+Russian blood in my veins, in me who am speaking to you? Is there any
+Prussian blood in your veins, in you who are listening to me? No! Why
+then should we fight? It is always an unfortunate thing for a man to
+fire upon a man. Nevertheless, a gun-shot between a Frenchman and an
+Englishman can be understood; but between a Frenchman and a Frenchman,
+ah! that wounds Reason, that wounds France, that wounds our mother!"
+
+All anxiously listened to him. At this moment from the opposite
+barricade a voice shouted to him,--
+
+"Go home, then!"
+
+At this coarse interruption an angry murmur ran through Denis's
+companions, and several guns could be heard being loaded. Denis
+restrained them by a sign.
+
+This sign possessed a strange authority.
+
+"Who is this man?" the combatants behind the barricade asked each other.
+Suddenly they cried out,--
+
+"He is a Representative of the People!"
+
+Denis had, in fact, suddenly assumed his brother Gaston's sash.
+
+What he had premeditated was about to be accomplished; the hour of the
+heroic falsehood had arrived. He cried out,--
+
+"Soldiers, do you know what the man is who is speaking to you at this
+moment? He is not only a citizen, he is a Legislator! He is a
+Representative chosen by Universal Suffrage! My name is Dussoubs, and I
+am a Representative of the People. It is in the name of the National
+Assembly, it is in the name of the Sovereign Assembly, it is in the name
+of the People, and in the name of the Law, that I summon you to hear me.
+Soldiers, you are the armed force. Well, then, when the Law speaks, the
+armed force listens."
+
+This time the silence was not broken.
+
+We reproduce these words almost literally; such as they are, and such as
+they have remained graven on the memory of those who heard them; but
+what we cannot reproduce, and what should be added to these words, in
+order to realize the effect, is the attitude, the accent, the thrill of
+emotion, the vibration of the words issuing from this noble breast, the
+intense impression produced by the terrible hour and place.
+
+Denis Dussoubs continued: "He spoke for some twenty minutes," an
+eye-witness has told me. Another has said, "He spoke with a loud voice;
+the whole street heard him." He was vehement, eloquent, earnest; a judge
+for Bonaparte, a friend for the soldiers. He sought to rouse them by
+everything which could still vibrate in them; he recalled to them their
+true wars, their true victories, the national glory, the ancient
+military honor, the flag. He told them that all this was about to be
+slain by the bullets from their guns. He adjured them, he ordered them
+to join themselves to the People and to the Law; and then suddenly
+coming back to the first words which he had pronounced, carried away by
+that fraternity with which his soul overflowed, he interrupted himself
+in the middle of a half-completed sentence, and cried out:--
+
+"But to what purpose are all these words? It is not all this that is
+wanted, it is a shake of the hand between brothers! Soldiers, you are
+there opposite us, at a hundred paces from us, in a barricade, with the
+sword drawn, with guns pointed; you are aiming directly at me; well
+then, all of us who are here love you! There is not one of us who would
+not give his life for one of you. You are the peasants of the fields of
+France; we are the workmen of Paris. What, then, is in question? Simply
+to see each other, to speak to each other, and not to cut each other's
+throats. Shall we try this? Say! Ah! as for myself in this frightful
+battle-field of civil war, I would rather die than kill. Look now, I am
+going to get off this barricade and come to you. I am unarmed; I only
+know that you are my brothers. I am confident, I am calm; and if one of
+you presents his bayonet at me, I will offer him my hand."
+
+He finished speaking.
+
+A voice cried out from the opposite barricade, "Advance in order!"
+
+Then they saw him slowly descend the dimly-lighted crest of the
+barricade, paving-stone by paving-stone, and plunge with head erect into
+the dark street.
+
+From the barricade all eyes followed him with an inexpressible anxiety.
+Hearts ceased beating, mouths no longer breathed.
+
+No one attempted to restrain Denis Dussoubs. Each felt that he was going
+where he ought to go. Charpentier wished to accompany him. "Would you
+like me to go with you?" he cried out to him. Dussoubs refused, with a
+shake of the head.
+
+Dussoubs, alone and grave, advanced towards the Mauconseil Barricade.
+The night was so dark that they lost sight of him immediately. They
+could distinguish only for a few seconds his peaceable and intrepid
+bearing. Then he disappeared. They could no longer see anything. It was
+an inauspicious moment. The night was dark and dumb. There could only be
+heard in this thick darkness the sound of a measured and firm step dying
+away in the distance.
+
+After some time, how long no one could reckon, so completely did emotion
+eclipse thought amongst the witnesses of this marvellous scene, a
+glimmer of light appeared in the barricade of the soldiers; it was
+probably a lantern which was being brought or taken away. By the flash
+they again saw Dussoubs, he was close to the barricade, he had almost
+reached it, he was walking towards it with his arms stretched out like
+Christ.
+
+Suddenly the word of command, "Fire!" was heard.
+
+A fusillade burst forth.
+
+They had fired upon Dussoubs when he was at the muzzles of their guns.
+
+Dussoubs fell.
+
+Then he raised himself and cried, "Long live the Republic!"
+
+Another bullet struck him, he fell again. Then they saw him raise
+himself once more, and heard him shout in a loud voice, "I die with the
+Republic."
+
+These were his last words.
+
+In this manner died Denis Dussoubs.
+
+It was not vainly that he had said to his brother, "Your sash will be
+there."
+
+He was anxious that this sash should do its duty. He determined in the
+depths of his great soul that this sash should triumph either through
+the law or through death.
+
+That is to say, in the first case it would save Right, in the second
+save Honor.
+
+Dying, he could say, "I have succeeded."
+
+Of the two possible triumphs of which he had dreamed, the gloomy triumph
+was not the less splendid.
+
+The insurgent of the Elysee thought that he had killed a Representative
+of the People, and boasted of it. The sole journal published by the
+_coup d'etat_ under these different titles _Patrie_, _Univers_,
+_Moniteur_, _Parisien_, etc., announced on the next day, Friday, the
+5th, "that the ex-Representative Dussoubs (Gaston) had been killed at
+the barricade of the Rue Neuve Saint Eustache, and that he bore 'a red
+flag in his hand.'"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+WHAT WAS DONE DURING THE NIGHT--THE PASSAGE DU SAUMON
+
+When those on the barricade of the Petit Carreau saw Dussoubs fall, so
+gloriously for his friends, so shamefully for his murderers, a moment of
+stupor ensued. Was it possible? Did they really see this before them?
+Such a crime committed by our soldiers? Horror filled every soul.
+
+This moment of surprise did not last long. "Long live the Republic!"
+shouted the barricade with one voice, and it replied to the ambuscade by
+a formidable fire.
+
+The conflict began. A mad conflict on the part of the _coup d'etat_, a
+struggle of despair on the side of the Republic. On the side of the
+soldiers an appalling and cold blooded resolution, a passive and
+ferocious obedience, numbers, good arms, absolute chiefs, pouches filled
+with cartridges. On the side of the People no ammunition, disorder,
+weariness, exhaustion, no discipline, indignation serving for a leader.
+
+It appears that while Dussoubs was speaking, fifteen grenadiers,
+commanded by a sergeant named Pitrois, had succeeded in gliding in the
+darkness along the houses, and, unperceived and unheard, had taken up
+their position close to the barricade. These fifteen men suddenly formed
+themselves together with lowered bayonets at twenty paces from the
+barricade ready to scale it. A volley received them. They fell back,
+leaving several corpses in the gutter. Major Jeannin cried out, "Finish
+them off." The entire battalion which occupied the Mauconseil barricade,
+then appeared with raised bayonets upon the uneven crest of this
+barricade, and from there without breaking their line, with a sudden,
+but regulated and inexorable movement, sprang into the street. The four
+companies, in close order, and as though mingled and hardly visible,
+seemed like a wave precipitating itself with a great noise from the
+height of the barricade.
+
+At the barricade of the Petit Carreau they noted the manoeuvre, and had
+paused in their fire. "Present," cried Jeanty Sarre, "but do not fire;
+wait for the order."
+
+Each put his gun to his shoulder, then placed the barrels between the
+paving-stones, ready to fire, and waited.
+
+As soon as it had quitted the Mauconseil redoubt, the battalion rapidly
+formed itself into an attacking column, and a moment afterwards they
+heard the intermittent sound of an advance at the double. It was the
+battalion which was coming upon them.
+
+"Charpentier," said Jeanty Sarre, "you have good eyes. Are they midway?"
+
+"Yes," said Charpentier.
+
+"Fire," said Jeanty Sarre.
+
+The barricade fired. The whole street was filled with smoke. Several
+soldiers fell. They could hear the cries of the wounded. The battalion,
+riddled with balls, halted and replied by platoon firing.
+
+Seven or eight combatants whose bodies reached above the barricade,
+which had been made hastily and was too low were hit. Three were killed
+on the spot. One fell wounded by a ball in his stomach, between Jeanty
+Sarre and Charpentier. He shrieked out with pain.
+
+"Quick, to the ambulance:" said Jeanty Sarre.
+
+"Where?"
+
+"In the Rue du Cadran."
+
+Jeanty Sarre and Charpentier picked up the wounded man, the one by the
+feet, the other by the head, and carried him to the du Cadran
+through the passage in the barricade.
+
+During all this time there was continued file firing. There no longer
+seemed anything in the street but smoke, the balls whistling and
+crossing each other, the brief and repeated commands, some plaintive
+cries, and the flash of the guns lighting up the darkness.
+
+Suddenly a loud void died out, "Forwards!" The battalion resumed its
+double-quick march and threw itself upon the barricade.
+
+Then ensued a horrible scene. They fought hand to hand, four hundred on
+the one side, fifty on the other. They seized each other by the collar,
+by the throat, by the mouth, by the hair. There was no longer a
+cartridge in the barricade, but there remained despair. A workman,
+pierced through and through, snatched the bayonet from his belly, and
+stabbed a soldier with it. They did not see each other, but they
+devoured each other. It was a desperate scuffle in the dark.
+
+The barricade did not hold out for two minutes. In several places, it
+may be remembered, it was low. It was rather stridden over than scaled.
+That was all the more heroic. One of the survivors[28] told the writer
+of these lines, "The barricade defended itself very badly, but the men
+died very well."
+
+All this took place while Jeanty Sarre and Charpentier were carrying the
+wounded man to the ambulance in the Rue du Cadran. His wounds having
+been attended to, they came back to the barricade. They had just reached
+it when they heard themselves called by name. A feeble voice close by
+said to them, "Jeanty Sarre! Charpentier!" They turned round and saw one
+of their men who was dying leaning against a wall, and his knees giving
+way beneath him. He was a combatant who had left the barricade. He had
+only been able to take a few steps down the street. He held his hand
+over his breast, where he had received a ball fired at close quarters.
+He said to them in a scarcely audible voice, "The barricade is taken,
+save yourselves."
+
+"No," said Jeanty Sarre, "I must unload my gun." Jeanty Sarre re-entered
+the barricade, fired a last shot and went away.
+
+Nothing could be more frightful than the interior of the captured
+barricade.
+
+The Republicans, overpowered by numbers, no longer offered any
+resistance. The officers cried out, "No prisoners!" The soldiers billed
+those who were standing, and despatched those who had fallen. Many
+awaited their death with their heads erect. The dying raised themselves
+up, and shouted, "Long live the Republic!" Some soldiers ground their
+heels upon the faces of the dead, so that they should not be recognized.
+There, stretched out amongst the corpses, in the middle of the
+barricade, with his hair in the gutter, was seen the all-but namesake of
+Charpentier, Carpentier, the delegate of the committee of the Tenth
+Arrondissement, who had been killed, and had fallen backwards, with two
+balls in his breast. A lighted candle which the soldiers had taken from
+the wine-shop was placed on a paving stone.
+
+The soldiers were infuriated. One would say that they were revenging
+themselves. On whom? A workman, named Paturel, received three balls and
+six bayonet-thrusts, four of which were in the head. They thought that
+he was dead, and they did not renew the attack. He felt them search him.
+They took ten francs which he had about him. He did not die till six
+days later, and he was able to relate the details which are given here.
+We may note, by the way, that the name of Paturel does not figure upon
+any of the lists of the corpses published by M. Bonaparte.
+
+Sixty Republicans were shut up in this redoubt of the Petit Carreau.
+Forty-six were killed there. These men had come there that morning free,
+proud to fight, and joyous to die. At midnight all was at an end. The
+night wagons carried away on the next day nine corpses to the hospital
+cemetery, and thirty-seven to Montmartre.
+
+Jeanty Sarre escaped by a miracle, as well as Charpentier, and a third
+whose name we have not been able to ascertain. They glided along the
+houses and reached the Passage du Saumon. The grated doors which closed
+the Passage during the night only reached to the centre of the archway.
+They climbed it and got over the spikes, at the risk of tearing
+themselves. Jeanty Sarre was the first to climb it; having reached the
+summit, one of the spikes pierced his trousers, hooked them, and Jeanty
+Sarre fell headforemost upon the pavement. He got up again, he was only
+stunned. The other two followed him, and gliding along the bars, all
+three found themselves in the Passage. It was dimly lighted by a lamp
+which shone at one end. In the meanwhile, they heard the soldiers, who
+were pursuing them, coming up. In order to escape by the Rue Montmartre,
+they would have to climb the grated gateway at the other end of the
+Passage; their hands were grazed, their knees were bleeding; they were
+dying of weariness; they were in no condition to recommence a similar
+ascent.
+
+Jeanty Sarre knew where the keeper of the Passage lived. He knocked at
+his window, and begged him to open. The keeper refused.
+
+At this moment the detachment which had been sent in pursuit of them
+reached the grated gateway which they had just climbed. The soldiers,
+hearing a noise in the Passage, passed the barrels of their guns through
+the bars. Jeanty Sarre squeezed himself against the wall behind one of
+those projecting columns which decorate the Passage; but the column was
+very thin, and only half covered him. The soldiers fired, and smoke
+filled the Passage. When it cleared away, Jeanty Sarre saw Charpentier
+stretched on the stones, with his face to the ground. He had been shot
+through the heart. Their other companion lay a few paces from him,
+mortally wounded.
+
+The soldiers did not scale the grated gateway, but they posted a
+sentinel before it. Jeanty Sarre heard them going away by the Rue
+Montmartre. They would doubtless come back.
+
+No means of flight. He felt all the doors round his prison successively.
+One of them at length opened. This appeared to him like a miracle.
+Whoever could have forgotten to shut the door? Providence, doubtless. He
+hid himself behind it, and remained there for more than an hour,
+standing motionless, scarcely breathing. He no longer heard any sound;
+he ventured out. The sentinel was no longer there. The detachment had
+rejoined the battalion.
+
+One of his old friends, a man to whom he had rendered services such as
+are not forgotten, lived in this very Passage du Saumon. Jeanty Sarre
+looked for the number, woke the porter, told him the name of his friend,
+was admitted, went up the stairs, and knocked at the door. The door was
+opened, his friend appeared in his nightshirt, with a candle in his
+hand.
+
+He recognized Jeanty Sarre, and cried out, "You here! What a state you
+are in! Where hove you come from? From what riot? from what madness? And
+then you come to compromise us all here? To have us murdered? To have us
+shot? Now then, what do you want with me?"
+
+"I want you to give me a brush down," said Jeanty Sarre.
+
+His friend took a brush and brushed him, and Jeanty Sarre went away.
+While going down the stairs, Jeanty Sarre cried out to his friend,
+"Thanks!"
+
+Such is the kind of hospitality which we have since received in Belgium,
+in Switzerland, and even in England.
+
+The next day, when they took up the bodies they found on Charpentier a
+note-book and a pencil, and upon Denis Dussoubs a letter. A letter to a
+woman. Even these stoic souls love.
+
+On the 1st of December, Denis Dussoubs began this letter. He did not
+finish it. Here it is:--
+
+  "MY DEAR MARIE,
+
+  "Have you experienced that sweet pain of feeling regret for him who
+  regrets you? For myself since I left you I have known no other
+  affliction than that of thinking of you. Even in my affliction itself
+  there was something sweet and tender, and although I was troubled, I
+  was nevertheless happy to feel in the depths of my heart how greatly
+  I loved you by the regret which you cost me. Why are we separated?
+  Why have I been forced to fly from you? For we were so happy! When I
+  think of our little evenings so free from constraint, of our gay
+  country chats with your sisters, I feel myself seized with a bitter
+  regret. Did we not love each other clearly, my darling? We had no
+  secret from each other because we had no need to have one, and our
+  lips uttered the thoughts of our hearts without our thinking to keep
+  anything back.
+
+  "God has snatched away from us all these blessings, and nothing will
+  console me for having lost them; do you not lament with me the evils
+  of absence?
+
+  "How seldom we see those whom we love! Circumstances take us far from
+  them, and our soul tormented and attracted out of ourselves lives in
+  a perpetual anguish. I feel this sickness of absence. I imagine
+  myself wherever you are. I follow your work with my eyes, or I listen
+  to your words, seated beside you and seeking to divine the word which
+  you are about to utter; your sisters sew by our side. Empty
+  dreams--illusions of a moment--my hand seeks yours; where are you, my
+  beloved one?
+
+  "My life is an exile. Far from those whom I love and by whom I am
+  loved, my heart calls them and consumes away in its grief. No, I do
+  not love the great cities and their noise, towns peopled with
+  strangers where no one knows you and where you know no one, where
+  each one jostles and elbows the other without ever exchanging a
+  smile. But I love our quiet fields, the peace of home, and the voice
+  of friends who greet you. Up to the present I have always lived in
+  contradiction with my nature; my fiery blood, my nature so hostile to
+  injustice, the spectacle of unmerited miseries have thrown me into a
+  struggle of which I do not foresee the issue, a struggle in which
+  will remain to the end without fear and without reproach, that which
+  daily breaks me down and consumes my life.
+
+  "I tell you, my much-loved darling, the secret miseries of my heart;
+  no, I do not blush for what my hand has just written, but my heart is
+  sick and suffering, and I tell it to you. I suffer... I wish to blot
+  out these lines, but why? Could they offend you? What do they contain
+  that could wound my darling? Do I not know your affection, and do I
+  not know that you love me? Yes, you have not deceived me, I did not
+  kiss a lying mouth; when seated on my knees you lulled me with the
+  charm of your words, I believed you. I wished to bind myself to a
+  burning iron bar; weariness preys upon me and devours me. I feel a
+  maddening desire to recover life. Is it Paris that produces this
+  effect upon me? I always yearn to be in places where I am not. I live
+  here to a complete solitude. I believe you, Marie...."
+
+Charpentier's note-book only contained this line, which he had written
+in the darkness at the foot of the barricade while Denis Dussoubs was
+speaking:--
+
+  Admonet et magna testatur voce per umbras.
+
+
+[28] February 18. Louvain.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+OTHER DEEDS OF DARKNESS
+
+Yvan had again seen Conneau. He corroborated the information given in
+the letter of Alexandre Dumas to Bocage; with the fact we had the names.
+On the 3d of December at M. Abbatucci's house, 31, Rue Caumartin, in the
+presence of Dr. Conneau and of Pietri, a Corsican, born at Vezzani,
+named Jacques Francois Criscelli,[29] a man attached to the secret and
+personal service of Louis Bonaparte, had received from Pietri's own
+mouth the offer of 25,000 francs "to take or kill Victor Hugo." He had
+accepted, and said, "That is all very well if I am alone. But suppose
+there are two of us?"
+
+Pietri had answered,--
+
+"Then there will be 50,000 francs."
+
+This communication, accompanied by urgent prayers, had been made to me
+by Yvan in the Rue de Monthabor, while we were still at Dupont White's.
+
+This said, I continue my story.
+
+The massacre of the 4th did not produce the whole of its effect until
+the next day, the 5th. The impulse given by us to the resistance still
+lasted for some hours, and at nightfall, in the labyrinth of houses
+ranging from the Rue du Petit Carreau to the Rue du Temple, there was
+fighting. The Pagevin, Neuve Saint Eustache, Montorgueil, Rambuteau,
+Beaubourg, and Transnonain barricades were gallantly defended. There,
+there was an impenetrable network of streets and crossways barricaded by
+the People, surrounded by the Army.
+
+The assault was merciless and furious.
+
+The barricade of the Rue Montorgueil was one of those which held out the
+longest. A battalion and artillery was needed to carry it. At the last
+moment it was only defended by three men, two shop-clerks and a
+lemonade-seller of an adjoining street. When the assault began the night
+was densely dark, and the three combatants escaped. But they were
+surrounded. No outlets. Not one door was open. They climbed the grated
+gateway of the Passage Verdeau as Jeanty Sarre and Charpentier had
+scaled the Passage du Saumon, had jumped over, and had fled down the
+Passage. But the other grated gateway was closed, and like Jeanty Sarre
+and Charpentier they had no time to climb it. Besides, they heard the
+soldiers corning on both sides. In a corner at the entrance of the
+Passage there were a few planks which had served to close a stall, and
+which the stall-keeper was in the habit of putting there. They hid
+themselves beneath these planks.
+
+The soldiers who had taken the barricade, after having searched the
+streets, bethought themselves of searching the Passage. They also
+climbed over the grated gateway, looked about everywhere with lanterns,
+and found nothing They were going away, when one of them perceived the
+foot of one of these three unfortunate men which was projecting from
+beneath the planks.
+
+They killed all three of them on the spot with bayonet-thrusts. They
+cried out, "Kill us at once! Shoot us! Do not prolong our misery."
+
+The neighboring shop-keepers heard these cries, but dared not open their
+doors or their windows, for fear, as one of them said the next day,
+"that they should do the same to them."
+
+The execution at an end, the executioners left the three victims lying
+in a pool of blood on the pavement of the Passage. One of those
+unfortunate men did not die until eight o'clock next morning.
+
+No one had dared to ask for mercy; no one had dared to bring any help.
+They left them to die there.
+
+One of the combatants of the Rue Beaubourg was more fortunate. They were
+pursuing him. He rushed up a staircase, reached a roof, and from there a
+passage, which proved to be the top corridor of an hotel. A key was in
+the door. He opened it boldly, and found himself face to face with a man
+who was going to bed. It was a tired-out traveller who had arrived at
+the hotel that very evening. The fugitive said to the traveller, "I am
+lost, save me!" and explained him the situation in three words.
+
+The traveller said to him, "Undress yourself, and get into my bed." And
+then he lit a cigar, and began quietly to smoke. Just as the man of the
+barricade had got into bed a knock came at the door. It was the solders
+who were searching the house. To the questions which they asked him the
+traveller answered, pointing to the bed, "We are only two here. We have
+just arrived here. I am smoking my cigar, and my brother is asleep." The
+waiter was questioned, and confirmed the traveller's statement. The
+soldiers went away, and no one was shot.
+
+We will say this, that the victorious soldiers killed less than on the
+preceding day. They did not massacre in all the captured barricades. The
+order had been given on that day to make prisoners. It might also be
+believed that a certain humanity existed. What was this humanity? We
+shall see.
+
+At eleven o'clock at night all was at an end.
+
+They arrested all those whom they found in the streets which had been
+surrounded, whether combatants or not, they had all the wine-shops and
+the _cafes_ opened, they closely searched the houses, they seized all
+the men whom they could find, only leaving the women and the children.
+Two regiments formed in a square carried away all these prisoners
+huddled together. They took them to the Tuileries, and shut them up in
+the vast cellar situated beneath the terrace at the waterside.
+
+On entering this cellar the prisoners felt reassured. They called to
+mind that in June, 1848, a great number of insurgents had been shut up
+there, and later on had been transported. They said to themselves that
+doubtless they also would be transported, or brought before the Councils
+of War, and that they had plenty of time before them.
+
+They were thirsty. Many of them had been fighting since that morning,
+and nothing parches tire mouth so much as biting cartridges. They asked
+for drink. Three pitchers of water were brought to them.
+
+A sort of security suddenly fell upon them. Amongst them were several
+who had been transported in June, 1848, and who had already been in that
+cellar, and who said, "In June they were not so humane. They left us for
+three days without food or drink." Some of them wrapped themselves up in
+their overcoats or cloaks, lay down, and slept. At one o'clock in the
+morning a great noise was heard outside. Soldiers, carrying torches,
+appeared in the cellars, the prisoners who were sleeping woke with a
+start, an officer ordered them to get up.
+
+They made them go out anyhow as they had come in. As they went out they
+coupled them two by two at random, and a sergeant counted them in a loud
+voice. They asked neither their names, nor their professions, nor their
+families, nor who they were, nor whence they came; they contented
+themselves with the numbers. The numbers sufficed for what they were
+about to do.
+
+In this manner they counted 337. The counting having come to an end,
+they ranged them in close columns, still two by two and arm-in-arm. They
+were not tied together, but on each side of the column, on the right and
+on the left, there were three files of soldiers keeping them within
+their ranks, with guns loaded; a battalion was at their head, a
+battalion in their rear. They began to march, pressed together and
+enclosed in this moving frame of bayonets.
+
+At the moment when the column set forward, a young law-student, a fair
+pale Alsatian, of some twenty years, who was in their ranks, asked a
+captain, who was marching by him with his sword drawn,--
+
+"Where are we going?"
+
+The officer made no reply.
+
+Having left the Tuileries, they turned to the right, and followed the
+quay as far as the Pont de la Concorde. They crossed the Pont de la
+Concorde, and again turned to the right. In this manner they passed
+before the esplanade of the Invalides, and reached the lonely quay of
+Gros-Caillou.
+
+As we have just said, they numbered 337, and as they walked two by two,
+there was one, the last, who walked alone. He was one of the most daring
+combatants of the Rue Pagevin, a friend of Lecomte the younger. By
+chance the sergeant, who was posted in the inner file by his side, was a
+native of the same province. On passing under a street-lamp they
+recognized each other. They exchanged quickly a few words in a whisper.
+
+"Where are we going?" asked the prisoner.
+
+"To the military school," answered the sergeant. And he added, "Ah! my
+poor lad!"
+
+And then he kept at a distance from the prisoner.
+
+As this was the end of the column, there was a certain space between the
+last rank of the soldiers who formed the line, and the first rank of the
+company which closed the procession.
+
+As they reached the lonely boulevard of Gros-Caillon, of which we have
+just spoken, the sergeant drew near to the prisoner, and said to him in
+a rapid and low tone,--
+
+"One can hardly see here. It is a dark spot. On the left there are
+trees. Be off!"
+
+"But," said the prisoner, "they will fire at me."
+
+"They will miss you."
+
+"But suppose they kill me?"
+
+"It will be no worse than what awaits you."
+
+The prisoner understood, shook the sergeant's hand, and taking advantage
+of the space between the line of soldiers and rear-ground, rushed with a
+single bound outside the column, and disappeared in the darkness beneath
+the trees.
+
+"A man is escaping!" cried out the officer who commanded the last
+company. "Halt! Fire!"
+
+The column halted. The rear-guard company fired at random in the
+direction taken by the fugitive, and, as the sergeant had foreseen,
+missed him. In a few moments the fugitive had reached the streets
+adjoining the tobacco manufactory, and had plunged into them. They did
+not pursue him. They had more pressing work on hand.
+
+Besides, confusion might have arisen in their ranks, and to recapture
+one they risked letting the 336 escape.
+
+The column continued its march. Having reached the Pont d'Iena, they
+turned to the left, and entered into the Champ de Mars.
+
+There they shot them all.
+
+These 336 corpses were amongst those which were carried to Montmartre
+Cemetery, and which were buried there with their heads exposed.
+
+In this manner their families were enabled to recognize them. The
+Government learned who they were after killing them.
+
+Amongst these 336 victims were a large number of the combatants of the
+Rue Pagevin and the Rue Rambuteau, of the Rue Neuve Saint Eustache and
+the Porte Saint Denis. There were also 100 passers-by, whom they had
+arrested because they happened to be there, and without any particular
+reason.
+
+Besides, we will at once mention that the wholesale executions from the
+3d inst. were renewed nearly every night. Sometimes at the Champ de
+Mars, sometimes at the Prefecture of Police, sometimes at both places at
+once.
+
+When the prisons were full, M. de Maupas said "Shoot!" The fusillades at
+the Prefecture took place sometimes in the courtyard, sometimes in the
+Rue de Jerusalem. The unfortunate people whom they shot were placed
+against the wall which bears the theatrical notices. They had chosen
+this spot because it is close by the sewer-grating of the gutter, so
+that the blood would run down at once, and would leave fewer traces. On
+Friday, the 5th, they shot near this gutter of the Rue de Jerusalem 150
+prisoners. Some one[30] said to me, "On the next day I passed by there,
+they showed the spot; I dug between the paving-stones with the toe of my
+boot, and I stirred up the mud. I found blood."
+
+This expression forms the whole history of the _coup d'etat_, and will
+form the whole history of Louis Bonaparte. Stir up this mud, you will
+find blood.
+
+Let this then be known to History:--
+
+The massacre of the boulevard had this infamous continuation, the secret
+executions. The _coup d'etat_ after having been ferocious became
+mysterious. It passed from impudent murder in broad day to hidden murder
+at night.
+
+Evidence abounds.
+
+Esquiros, hidden in the Gros-Caillou, heard the fusillades on the Champ
+de Mars every night.
+
+At Mazas, Chambolle, on the second night of his incarceration, heard
+from midnight till five o'clock in the morning, such volleys that he
+thought the prison was attacked.
+
+Like Montferrier, Desmoulins bore evidence to blood between the
+paving-stones of the Rue de Jerusalem.
+
+Lieutenant-Colonel Cailland, of the ex-Republican Guard, is crossing the
+Pont Neuf; he sees some _sergents de ville_ with muskets to their
+shoulders, aiming at the passers-by; he says to them, "You dishonor the
+uniform." They arrest him. They search him. A _sergent de ville_ says to
+him, "If we find a cartridge upon you, we shall shoot you." They find
+nothing. They take him to the Prefecture of Police, they shut him up in
+the station-house. The director of the station-house comes and says to
+him, "Colonel, I know you well. Do not complain of being here. You are
+confided to my care. Congratulate yourself on it. Look here, I am one of
+the family, I go and I come, I see, I listen; I know what is going on; I
+know what is said; I divine what is not said. I hear certain noises
+during the night; I see contain traces in the morning. As for myself I
+am not a bad fellow. I am taking care of you. I am keeping you out of
+the way. At the present moment be contented to remain with me. If you
+were not here you would be underground."
+
+An ex-magistrate, General Leflo's brother-in-law, is conversing on the
+Pont de la Concorde with some officers before the steps of the Chamber;
+some policemen come up to him: "You are tampering with the army." He
+protests, they throw him into a vehicle, and they take him to the
+Prefecture of Police. As he arrives there he sees a young man, in a
+blouse and a cap, passing on the quay, who is being shoved along by
+three municipal guards with the butt-ends of their muskets. At an
+opening of the parapet, a guard shouts to him, "Go in there." The man
+goes in. Two guards shoot him in the back. He falls. The third guard
+despatches him with a shot in his ear.
+
+On the 13th the massacres were not yet at an end. On the morning of that
+day, in the dim light of the dawn, a solitary passer-by, going along the
+Rue Saint Honore, saw, between two lines of horse-soldiers, three wagons
+wending their way, heavily loaded. These wagons could be traced by the
+stains of blood which dripped from them. They came from the Champ de
+Mars, and were going to the Montmartre Cemetery. They were full of
+corpses.
+
+
+[29] It was this same Criscelli, who later on at Vaugirard in the Rue du
+Trancy, killed by special order of the Prefect of Police a man named
+Kech, "suspected of plotting the assassination of the Emperor."
+
+[30] The Marquis Sarrazin de Montferrier, a relative of my eldest
+brother. I can now mention his name.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+THE CONSULTATIVE COMMITTEE
+
+Al danger being over, all scruples vanished. Prudent and wise people
+could now give their adherence to the _coup d'etat_, they allowed their
+names to be posted up.
+
+Here is the placard:
+
+  "FRENCH REPUBLIC.
+
+  "_In the name of the French People_.
+
+  "The President of the Republic,
+
+  "Wishing, until the reorganization of the Legislative Body and the
+  Council of State, to be surrounded by men who justly possess the esteem
+  and the confidence of the country,
+
+  "Has created a Consultative committee, which is composed of MM.--
+
+  "Abbatucci, ex-Councillor of the Court of Cassation (of the Loiret).
+  General Achard (of the Moselle).
+  Andre, Ernest (of the Seine).
+  Andre (of the Charente).
+  D'Argout, Governor of the Bank, ex-Minister.
+  General Arrighi of Padua (of Corsica).
+  General de Bar (of the Seine).
+  General Baraguay-d'Hilliers (of Doubs).
+  Barbaroux, ex-Procureur-General (of the Reunion).
+  Baroche, ex-Minister of the Interior and of Foreign Affairs,
+      Vice-President of the Committee (of the Charente-Inferieure).
+  Barret (Ferdinand), ex-Minister (of the Seine).
+  Barthe, ex-Minister, first President (of the Cour de Comptes).
+  Bataille (of the Haute-Vienne).
+  Bavoux (Evariste) (of the Seine-et-Marne).
+  De Beaumont (of the Somme).
+  Berard (of the Lot-et-Garonne).
+  Berger, Prefect of the Seine (of Puy-de-Dome).
+  Bertrand (of the Yonne).
+  Bidault (of the Cher).
+  Bigrel (of the Cotes-du-Nord).
+  Billault, barrister.
+  Bineau, ex-Minister (of the Maine-et-Loire).
+  Boinvilliers, ex-President of the body of barristers (of the Seine).
+  Bonjean, Attorney-General of the Court of Cassation (of the Drome).
+  Boulatignier.
+  Bourbousson (of Vaucluse).
+  Brehier (of the Manche).
+  De Cambaceres (Hubert).
+  De Cambaceres (of the Aisne).
+  Carlier, ex-Prefect of Police.
+  De Casabianca, ex-Minister (of Corsica).
+  General de Castellane, Commander-in-Chief at Lyons.
+  De Caulaincourt (of Calvados).
+  Vice-Admiral Cecile (of the Seine-Inferieure).
+  Chadenet (of the Meuse).
+  Charlemagne (of the Indre).
+  Chassaigne-Goyon (of Puy de Dome).
+  General de Chasseloup-Laubat (of the Seine-Inferieure).
+  Prosper de Chasseloup-Laubat (Charente-Inferieure).
+  Chaix d'Est-Ange, Barrister of Paris (of the Marne).
+  De Chazelles, Mayor of Clermont-Ferrand (of Puy-de-Dome).
+  Collas (of the Gironde).
+  De Crouseilhes, ex-Councillor of the Court of Cassation, ex-Minister
+      (of the Basses-Pyrenees).
+  Curial (of the Orne).
+  De Cuverville (of the Cotes-du-Nord).
+  Dabeaux (of the Haute-Garonne).
+  Dariste (of the Basses-Pyrenees).
+  Daviel, ex-Minister.
+  Delacoste, ex-Commissary-General (of the Rhone).
+  Delajus (of the Charente-Inferieure).
+  Delavau (of the Indre).
+  Deltheil (of the Lot).
+  Denjoy (of the Gironde).
+  Desjobert (of the Seine-Inferieure).
+  Desmaroux (of the Allier).
+  Drouyn de Lhuys, ex-Minister (of the Seine-et-Marne).
+  Theodore Ducos, Minister of the Marine and of the Colonies (of the
+      Seine).
+  Dumas (of the Institut) ex-Minister (of the Nord).
+  Charles Dupin, of the Institut (of the Seine-Inferieure).
+  General Durrieu (of the Landes).
+  Maurice Duval, ex-Prefect.
+  Eschasseriaux (of the Charente-Inferieure).
+  Marshal Excelmans, Grand Chancellor of the Legion of Honor.
+  Ferdinand Favre (of the Loire-Inferieure) General de Flahaut,
+      ex-Ambassador.
+  Fortoul, Minister of Public Instruction (of the Basses-Alpes).
+  Achille Fould, Minister of Finance (of the Seine).
+  De Fourment (of the Somme).
+  Fouquier-d'Herouel (of the Aisne).
+  Fremy (of the Yonne).
+  Furtado (of the Seine).
+  Gasc (of the Haute Garonne).
+  Gaslonde (of the Manche).
+  De Gasparin (ex-Minister).
+  Ernest de Girardin (of the Charente).
+  Augustin Giraud (of Maine-et-Loire).
+  Charles Giraud, of the Institut, member of the Court of Public
+      Instruction, ex-Minister.
+  Godelle (of the Aisne).
+  Goulhot de Saint-Germain (of the Manche).
+  General de Grammont (of the Loire).
+  De Grammont (of the Haute-Saone).
+  De Greslan (of the Reunion).
+  General de Grouchy (of the Gironde).
+  Kallez Claparede (of the Bas-Rhin).
+  General d'Hautpoul, ex-Minister (of the Aude).
+  Hebert (of the Aisne).
+  De Heeckeren (of the Haut-Rhin).
+  D'Herembault (of the Pas-de-Calais).
+  Hermann.
+  Heurtier (of the Loire).
+  General Husson (of the Aube).
+  Janvier (of the Tarn-et-Garonne).
+  Lacaze (of the Hautes-Pyrenees).
+  Lacrosse, ex-Minister (of Finistere).
+  Ladoucette (of the Moselle).
+  Frederic de Lagrange (of the Gers).
+  De Lagrange (of the Gironde).
+  General de La Hitte, ex-Minister.
+  Delangle, ex-Attorney-General.
+  Lanquetin, President of the Municipal Commission.
+  De la Riboissiere (of Ille-et-Vilaine).
+  General Lawoestine.
+  Lebeuf (of the Seine-et-Marne).
+  General Lebreton (of the Eure-et-Loir).
+  Le Comte (of the Yonne).
+  Le Conte (of the Cotes-du-Nord).
+  Lefebvre-Durufle, Minister of Commerce (of the Eure).
+  Lelut (of the Haute-Saone).
+  Lemarois (of the Manche).
+  Lemercier (of the Charente). Lequien (of the Pas-de-Calais).
+  Lestiboudois (of the Nord).
+  Levavasseur (of the Seine-Inferieure).
+  Le Verrier (of the Manche).
+  Lezay de Marnesia (of Loir-et-Cher).
+  General Magnan, Commander-in-chief of the Army of Paris.
+  Magne, Minister of Public Works (of the Dordogne).
+  Edmond Maigne (of the Dordogne).
+  Marchant (of the Nord).
+  Mathieu Bodet, Barrister at the Court of Cassation.
+  De Maupas, Prefect of Police.
+  De Merode (of the Nord).
+  Mesnard, President of the Chamber of the Court of Cassation.
+  Meynadier, ex-Prefect (of the Lozere).
+  De Montalembert (of the Doubs).
+  De Morny (of the Puy-de-Dome).
+  De Mortemart (of the Seine-Inferieure).
+  De Mouchy (of the Oise).
+  De Moustiers (of the Doubs).
+  Lucien Murat (of the Lot).
+  General d'Ornano (of the Indre-et-Loire).
+  Pepin Lehalleur (of the Seine-et-Marne).
+  Joseph Perier, Governor of the Bank.
+  De Persigny (of the Nord).
+  Pichon, Mayor of Arras (of the Pas de Calais).
+  Portalis, First President of the Court of Cassation.
+  Pongerard, Mayor of Pennes (of the Ille-et-Vilaine).
+  General de Preval.
+  De Rance (of Algeria).
+  General Randon, ex-Minister, Governor-General of Algeria.
+  General Regnauld de Saint-Jean-d'Angely, ex-Minister (of the
+      Charente-Inferieure).
+  Renouard de Bussiere (of the Bas-Rhin).
+  Renouard (of the Lozere).
+  General Roge.
+  Rouher, Keeper of the Seals, Minister of Justice (of the Puy-de-Dome).
+  De Royer, ex-Minister, Attorney-General at the Court of Appeal of
+      Paris.
+  General de Saint-Arnaud, Minister of War.
+  De Saint-Arnaud, Barrister at the Court of Appeal of Paris.
+  De Salis (of the Moselle).
+  Sapey (of the Isere).
+  Schneider, ex-Minister.
+  De Segur d'Aguesseau (of the Hautes-Pyrenees).
+  Seydoux (of the Nord).
+  Amedee Thayer.
+  Thieullen (of the Cotes-du-Nord).
+  De Thorigny, ex-Minister.
+  Toupot de Beveaux (of the Haute-Marne).
+  Tourangin, ex-Prefect. Troplong, First President of the Court of
+      Appeal.
+  De Turgot, Minister for Foreign Affairs.
+  Vaillant, Marshal of France.
+  Vaisse, ex-Minister (of the Nord).
+  De Vandeul (of the Haute-Marne).
+  General Vast-Vimeux (of the Charente-Inferieure).
+  Vauchelle, Mayor of Versailles.
+  Viard (of the Meurthe).
+  Vieillard (of the Manche).
+  Vuillefroy.
+  Vuitry, Under-Secretary of State at the Ministry of Finance De Wagram.
+
+  "The President of the Republic,
+
+  "LOUIS NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.
+
+  "Minister of the Interior, DE MORNY."
+
+The name of Bourbousson is found on this list.
+
+It would be a pity if this name were lost.
+
+At the same time as this placard appeared the protest of M. Daru, as
+follows:--
+
+  "I approve of the proceedings of the National Assembly at the Mairie
+  of the Tenth Arrondissement on the 2d of December, 1851, in which I was
+  hindered from participating by force.
+
+  "DARU."
+
+Some of these members of the Consultative Committee came from Mazas or
+from Mount Valerien. They had been detained in a cell for four-and-twenty
+hours, and then released. It may be seen that these legislators bore
+little malice to the man who had made them undergo this disagreeable
+taste of the law.
+
+Many of the personages comprised in this menagerie possessed no other
+renown but the outcry caused by their debts, clamoring around them.
+Such a one had been twice declared bankrupt, but this extenuating
+circumstance was added, "not under his own name:" Another who belonged
+to a literary or scientific circle was reputed to have sold his vote. A
+third, who was handsome, elegant, fashionable, dandified, polished,
+gilded, embroidered, owed his prosperity to a connection which indicated
+a filthiness of soul.
+
+Such people as these gave their adherence with little hesitation to the
+deed which "saved society."
+
+Some others, amongst those who composed this mosaic, possessed no
+political enthusiasm, and merely consented to figure in this list in
+order to keep their situations and their salaries; they were under the
+Empire what they had been before the Empire, neuters, and during the
+nineteen years of the reign, they continued to exercise their military,
+judicial, or administrative functions unobtrusively, surrounded with the
+right and proper respect due to inoffensive idiots.
+
+Others were genuine politicians, belonging to that learned school which
+begins with Guizot, and does not finish with Parieu, grave physicians of
+social order, who reassure the frightened middle-classes, and who
+preserve dead things.
+
+  "Shall I lose my eye?" asked Messer Pancrace.
+  "Not at all, my friend, I hold it in my hand."
+
+In this quasi Council of State there were a goodly number of men of the
+Police, a race of beings then held in esteem, Carlier, Pietri, Maupas,
+etc.
+
+Shortly after the 2d of December under the title of Mixed Commissions,
+the police substituted itself for justice, drew up judgments, pronounced
+sentences, violated every law judicially without the regular magistracy
+interposing the slightest obstacle to this irregular magistracy: Justice
+allowed the police to do what it liked with the satisfied look of a team
+of horses which had just been relieved.
+
+Some of the men inscribed on the list of this commission refused: Leon
+Faucher Goulard, Mortemart, Frederic Granier, Marchand, Maillard
+Paravay, Beugnot. The newspapers received orders not to publish these
+refusals.
+
+M. Beugnot inscribed on his card: "Count Beugnot, who does not belong to
+the Consultative Committee."
+
+M. Joseph Perier went from corner to corner of the streets, pencil in
+hand, scratching out his name from all the placards, saying, "I shall
+take back my name wherever I find it."
+
+General Baraguay d'Hilliers did not refuse. A brave soldier nevertheless;
+he had lost an arm in the Russian war. Later on, he has been Marshall of
+France; he deserved better than to have been created a Marshal by Louis
+Bonaparte. It did not appear likely that he would have come to this.
+During the last days of November General Baraguay d'Hilliers, seated in a
+large arm-chair before the high fireplace of the Conference Hall of the
+National Assembly, was warming himself; some one, one of his colleagues,
+he who is writing these lines, sat down near him on the other side of the
+fireplace. They did not speak to each other, one belonging to the Right,
+the other to the Left; but M. Piscatory came in, who belonged a little to
+the Right and a little to the Left. He addressed himself to Baraguay
+d'Hilliers: "Well, general, do you know what they are saying?"
+
+"What?"
+
+"That one of these days the President will shut the door in our faces."
+
+General Baraguay d'Hilliers answered, and I heard the answer,--"If M.
+Bonaparte should close the door of the Assembly against us, France will
+fling it wide open again."
+
+Louis Bonaparte at one moment thought of entitling this committee the
+"Executive Commission." "No," said Morny to him, "that would be to
+credit them with courage. They will willingly be supporters; they will
+not be proscribers."
+
+General Rulhiere was dismissed for having blamed the passive obedience
+of the army.
+
+Let us here mention an incident. Some days after the 4th of December,
+Emmanuel Arago met M. Dupin, who was going up the Faubourg Saint Honore.
+
+"What!" said Arago, "are you going to the Elysee?"
+
+M. Dupin answered, "I never go to disreputable houses."
+
+Yet he went there.
+
+M. Dupin, it may be remembered, was appointed Attorney-General at the
+Court of Cessation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+THE OTHER LIST
+
+Opposite to the list of adherents should be placed the list of the
+proscribed. In this manner the two sides of the _coup d'etat_ can be
+seen at a glance.
+
+  "DECREE.
+
+  "ARTICLE I.--The ex-Representatives of the Assembly, whose names are
+  found beneath, are expelled from French territory, from Algeria, and
+  from the Colonies, for the sake of public safety:--
+
+  "Edmond Valentine.          Charrassin.
+  Paul Racouchot.             Bandsept.
+  Agricol Perdiguier.         Savoye.
+  Eugene Cholat.              Joly.
+  Louis Latrade.              Combier.
+  Michel Renaud.              Boysset.
+  Joseph Benoist (du Rhone).  Duche.
+  Joseph Burgard.             Ennery.
+  Jean Colfavru.              Guilgot.
+  Joseph Faure (du Rhone).    Hochstuhl.
+  Pierre-Charles Gambon.      Michot Boutet.
+  Charles Lagrange.           Baune.
+  Martin Nadaud.              Bertholon.
+  Barthelemy Terrier.         Schoelcher.
+  Victor Hugo.                De Flotte.
+  Cassal.                     Joigneaux.
+  Signard.                    Laboulaye.
+  Viguier.                    Bruys.
+  Esquiros.                   Gaston Dussoubs.
+  Madier de Montjau.          Guiter.
+  Noel Parfait.               Lafon.
+  Emile Pean.                 Lamarque.
+  Pelletier.                  Pierre Lafranc.
+  Raspail.                    Jules Leroux.
+  Theodore Bac.               Francisque Maigne.
+  Bancel.                     Malardier.
+  Belin (Drome).              Mathieu (de la Drome).
+  Bosse.                      Millotte.
+  Bourzat.                    Roselli-Mollet.
+  Brive.                      Charras.
+  Chavoix.                    Saint-Ferreol.
+  Clement Dulac.              Sommier.
+  Dupout (de Bussac).         Testelin (Nord).
+
+  "ARTICLE II.--In the event, contrary to the present decree, of one of
+  the persons named in Article I. re-entering the prohibited limits, he
+  may be transported for the sake of public safety.
+
+  "Given at the Palace of the Tuileries, at the Cabinet Council assembled,
+  January 9th, 1852.
+
+  "LOUIS BONAPARTE.
+
+  "DE MORNY, Minister of the Interior."
+
+There was besides a list of the "provisionally exiled," on which figured
+Edward Quinet, Victor Chauffour, General Laidet, Pascal Duprat, Versigny,
+Antony Thouret, Thiers, Girardin, and Remusat. Four Representatives,
+Mathe, Greppo, Marc-Dufraisse, and Richardet, were added to the list of
+the "expelled." Representative Miot was reserved for the tortures of the
+casemates of Africa. Thus in addition to the massacres, the victory of
+the _coup d'etat_ was paid for by these figures: eighty-eight
+Representatives proscribed, one killed.
+
+I usually dined at Brussels in a cafe, called the Cafe des Mille
+Colonnes, which was frequented by the exiles. On the 10th of January I
+had invited Michel de Bourges to lunch, and we were sitting at the same
+table. The waiter brought me the _Moniteur Francais_; I glanced over it.
+
+"Ah," said I, "here is the list of the proscribed." I ran my eye over it,
+and I said to Michel de Bourges, "I have a piece of bad news to tell
+you." Michel de Bourges turned pale. I added, "You are not on the list."
+His face brightened.
+
+Michel de Bourges, so dauntless in the face of death, was faint-hearted
+in the face of exile.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+DAVID D'ANGERS
+
+Brutalities and ferocities were mingled together. The great sculptor,
+David d'Angers, was arrested in his own house, 16, Rue d'Assas; the
+Commissary of Police on entering, said to him,--
+
+"Have you any arms in your house?"
+
+"Yes," Said David, "for my defence."
+
+And he added,--
+
+"If I had to deal with civilized people."
+
+"Where are these arms?" rejoined the Commissary. "Let us see them."
+
+David showed him his studio full of masterpieces.
+
+They placed him in a _fiacre_, and drove him to the station-house of the
+Prefecture of Police.
+
+Although there was only space for 120 prisoners, there were 700 there.
+David was the twelfth in a dungeon intended for two. No light nor air. A
+narrow ventilation hole above their heads. A dreadful tub in a corner,
+common to all, covered but not closed by a wooden lid. At noon they
+brought them soup, a sort of warm and stinking water, David told me. They
+stood leaning against the wall, and trampled upon the mattresses which
+had been thrown on the floor, not having room to lie down on them. At
+length, however, they pressed so closely to each other, that they
+succeeded in lying down at full length. Their jailers had thrown them
+some blankets. Some of them slept. At day break the bolts creaked, the
+door was half-opened and the jailers cried out to them, "Get up!" They
+went into the adjoining corridor, the jailer took up the mattresses,
+threw a few buckets of water on the floor, wiped it up anyhow, replaced
+the mattresses on the damp stones, and said to them, "Go back again."
+They locked them up until the next morning. From time to time they
+brought in 100 new prisoners, and they fetched away 100 old ones (those
+who had been there for two or three days). What became of them?--At night
+the prisoners could hear from their dungeon the sound of explosions, and
+in the morning passers-by could see, as we have stated, pools of blood in
+the courtyard of the Prefecture.
+
+The calling over of those who went out was conducted in alphabetical
+order.
+
+One day they called David d'Angers. David took up his packet, and was
+getting ready to leave, when the governor of the jail, who seemed to be
+keeping watch over him, suddenly came up and said quickly, "Stay, M.
+David, stay."
+
+One morning he saw Buchez, the ex-President of the Constituent Assembly,
+coming into his cell "Ah!" said David, "good! you have come to visit the
+prisoners?"--"I am a prisoner," said Buchez.
+
+They wished to insist on David leaving for America. He refused. They
+contented themselves with Belgium. On the 19th December he reached
+Brussels. He came to see me, and said to me, "I am lodging at the Grand
+Monarque, 89, Rue des Fripiers."[31]
+
+And he added laughing, "The Great Monarch--the King. The old
+clothesmen--the Royalists, '89. The Revolution." Chance occasionally
+furnishes some wit.
+
+
+[31] _Anglice_, "old clothes men."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+OUR LAST MEETING
+
+On the 3d of December everything was coming in in our favor. On the 5th
+everything was receding from us. It was like a mighty sea which was going
+out. The tide had come in gloriously, it went out disastrously. Gloomy
+ebb and flow of the people.
+
+And who was the power who said to this ocean, "Thou shalt go no farther?"
+Alas! a pigmy.
+
+These hiding-places of the abyss are fathomless.
+
+The abyss is afraid. Of what?
+
+Of something deeper than itself. Of the Crime.
+
+The people drew back. They drew back on the 5th; on the 6th they
+disappeared.
+
+On the horizon there could be seen nothing but the beginning of a species
+of vast night.
+
+This night has been the Empire.
+
+We found ourselves on the 5th what we were on the 2d. Alone.
+
+But we persevered. Our mental condition was this--desperate, yes;
+discouraged, no.
+
+Items of bad news came to us as good news had come to us on the evening
+of the 3d, one after another. Aubry du Nord was at the Conciergerie. Our
+dear and eloquent Cremieux was at Mazas. Louis Blanc, who, although
+banished, was coming to the assistance of France, and was bringing to us
+the great power of his name and of his mind, had been compelled, like
+Ledru Rollin, to halt before the catastrophe of the 4th. He had not been
+able to get beyond Tournay.
+
+As for General Neumayer, he had not "marched upon Paris," but he had come
+there. For what purpose? To give in his submission.
+
+We no longer possessed a refuge. No. 15, Rue Richelieu, was watched, No.
+11, Rue Monthabor, had been denounced. We wandered about Paris, meeting
+each other here and there, and exchanging a few words in a whisper, not
+knowing where we should sleep, or whether we should get a meal; and
+amongst those heads which did not know what pillow they should have at
+night there was at least one upon which a price was set.
+
+They accosted each other, and this is the sort of conversation they
+held:--
+
+"What has became of So-and-So?"
+
+"He is arrested."
+
+"And So-and-So?"
+
+"Dead."
+
+"And So-and-So?"
+
+"Disappeared."
+
+We held, however, one other meeting. This was on the 6th, at the house of
+the Representative Raymond, in the Place de la Madeleine. Nearly all of
+us met there. I was enabled to shake the hands of Edgar Quinet, of
+Chauffour, of Clement Dulac, of Bancel, of Versigny, of Emile Pean, and I
+again met our energetic and honest host of the Rue Blanche, Coppens, and
+our courageous colleague, Pons Stande, whom we had lost sight of in the
+smoke of the battle. From the windows of the room where we were
+deliberating we could see the Place de la Madeleine and the Boulevards
+militarily occupied, and covered with a fierce and deep mass of soldiers
+drawn up in battle order, and which still seemed to face a possible
+combat. Charamaule came in.
+
+He drew two pistols from his great cloak, placed them on the table, and
+said, "All is at an end. Nothing feasible and sensible remains, except a
+deed of rashness. I propose it. Are you of my opinion, Victor Hugo?"
+
+"Yes," I answered.
+
+I did not know what he was going to say, but I knew that he would only
+say that which was noble.
+
+This was his proposition.
+
+"We number," resumed he, "about fifty Representatives of the People,
+still standing and assembled together. We are all that remains of the
+National Assembly, of Universal Suffrage, of the Law, of Right.
+To-morrow, where shall we be? We do not know. Scattered or dead. The hour
+of to-day is ours; this hour gone and past, we have nothing left but the
+shadow. The opportunity is unique. Let us profit by it."
+
+He stopped, looked at us fixedly with his steadfast gaze, and resumed,--
+
+"Let us take the advantage of this chance of being alive and the good
+fortune of being together. The group which is here is the whole of the
+Republic. Well, then; let us offer in our persons all the Republic to the
+army, and let us make the army fall back before the Republic, and Might
+fall back before Right. In that supreme moment one of the two must
+tremble, Might or Right, and if Right does not tremble Might will
+tremble. If we do not tremble the soldiers will tremble. Let us march
+upon the Crime. If the Law advances, the Crime will draw back. In either
+case we shall have done our duty. Living, we shall be preservers, dead,
+we shall be heroes. This is what I propose."
+
+A profound silence ensued.
+
+"Let us put on our sashes, and let us all go down in a procession, two by
+two, into the Place de la Madeleine. You can see that Colonel before that
+large flight of steps, with his regiment in battle array; we will go to
+him, and there, before his soldiers, I will summon him to come over to
+the side of duty, and to restore his regiment to the Republic. If he
+refuses ..."
+
+Charamaule took his two pistols in his hands.
+
+"... I will blow out his brains."
+
+"Charamaule," said I, "I will be by your side."
+
+"I knew that well," Charamaule said to me.
+
+He added,--
+
+"This explosion will awaken the people."
+
+"But," several cried out, "suppose it does not awaken them?"
+
+"We shall die."
+
+"I am on your side," said I to him.
+
+We each pressed the other's hand. But objections burst forth.
+
+No one trembled, but all criticised the proposal. Would it not be
+madness? And useless madness? Would it not be to play the last card of
+the Republic without any possible chance of success? What good fortune
+for Bonaparte! To crush with one blow all that remained of those who were
+resisting and of those who were combating! To finish with them once for
+all! We were beaten, granted, but was it necessary to add annihilation to
+defeat? No possible chance of success. The brains of an army cannot be
+blown out. To do what Charamaule advised would be to open the tomb,
+nothing more. It would be a magnificent suicide, but it would be a
+suicide. Under certain circumstances it is selfish to be merely a hero. A
+man accomplishes it at once, he becomes illustrious, he enters into
+history, all that is very easy. He leaves to others behind him the
+laborious work of a long protest, the immovable resistance of the exile,
+the bitter, hard life of the conquered who continues to combat the
+victory. Some degree of patience forms a part of politics. To know how
+to await revenge is sometimes more difficult than to hurry on its
+catastrophe. There are two kinds of courage--bravery and perseverance;
+the first belongs to the soldier, the second belongs to the citizen. A
+hap-hazard end, however dauntless, does not suffice. To extricate oneself
+from the difficulty by death, it is only too easily done: what is
+required, what is the reverse of easy, is to extricate one's country from
+the difficulty. No, said those high-minded men, who opposed Charamaule
+and myself, this to-day which you propose to us is the suppression of
+to-morrow; take care, there is a certain amount of desertion in
+suicide....
+
+The word "desertion" grievously wounded Charamaule. "Very well," said he,
+"I abandon the idea."
+
+This scene was exceedingly grand, and Quinet later on, when in exile,
+spoke to me of it with deep emotion.
+
+We separated. We did not meet again.
+
+I wandered about the streets. Where should I sleep? That was the question.
+I thought that No. 19, Rue Richelieu would probably be as much watched as
+No. 15. But the night was cold, and I decided at all hazards to re-enter
+this refuge, although perhaps a hazardous one. I was right to trust myself
+to it. I supped on a morsel of bread, and I passed a very good night. The
+next morning at daybreak on waking I thought of the duties which awaited
+me. I thought that I was abut to go out, and that I should probably not
+come back to the room; I took a little bread which remained, and I
+crumbled it on the window-sill for the birds.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+
+DUTY CAN HAVE TWO ASPECTS
+
+Had it been in the power of the Left at any moment to prevent the _coup
+d'etat_?
+
+We do not think so.
+
+Nevertheless here is a fact which we believe we ought not to pass by in
+silence. On the 16th November, 1851, I was in my study at home at 37, Rue
+de la Tour d'Auvergne; it was about midnight. I was working. My servant
+opened the door.
+
+"Will you see M. ----, sir?"
+
+And he mentioned a name.
+
+"Yes," I said.
+
+Some one came in.
+
+I shall only speak reservedly of this eminent and distinguished man. Let
+it suffice to state that he had the right to say when mentioning the
+Bonapartes "my family."
+
+It is known that the Bonaparte family is divided into two branches, the
+Imperial family and the private family. The Imperial family had the
+tradition of Napoleon, the private family had the tradition of Lucien: a
+shade of difference which, however, had no reality about it.
+
+My midnight visitor took the other corner of the fireplace.
+
+He began by speaking to me of the memoirs of a very highminded and
+virtuous woman, the Princess ----, his mother, the manuscript of which he
+had confided to me, asking my advice as to the utility or the suitability
+of their publication; this manuscript, besides being full of interest,
+possessed for me a special charm, because the handwriting of the Princess
+resembled my mother's handwriting. My visitor, to whom I gave it back,
+turned over the leaves for a few moments, and then suddenly interrupting
+himself, he turned to me and said,--
+
+"The Republic is lost."
+
+I answered,--
+
+"Almost."
+
+He resumed,--
+
+"Unless you save it."
+
+"I?"
+
+"You."
+
+"How so?"
+
+"Listen to me."
+
+Then he set forth with that clearness, complicated at times with
+paradoxes, which is one of the resources of his remarkable mind, the
+situation, at the same time desperate and strong, in which we were
+placed.
+
+This situation, which moreover I realized as well as he himself, was
+this:--
+
+The Right of the Assembly was composed of about 400 members, and the Left
+of about 180. The four hundred of the majority belonged by thirds to
+three parties, the Legitimist party, the Orleanist party, the Bonapartist
+party, and in a body to the Clerical party. The 180 of the minority
+belonged to the Republic. The Right mistrusted the Left, and had taken a
+precaution against the minority.
+
+A Vigilance Committee, composed of sixteen members of the Right, charged
+with impressing unity upon this trinity of parties, and charged with the
+task of carefully watching the Left, such was this precaution. The Left
+at first had confined itself to irony, and borrowing from me a word to
+which people then attached, though wrongly, the idea of decrepitude, had
+called the sixteen Commissioners the "Burgraves." The irony subsequently
+turning into suspicion, the Left had on its side ended by creating a
+committee of sixteen members to direct the Left, and observe the Right;
+these the Right had hastened to name the "Red Burgraves." A harmless
+rejoinder. The result was that the Right watched the Left, and that the
+Left watched the Right, but that no one watched Bonaparte. They were two
+flocks of sheep so distrustful of one another that they forgot the wolf.
+During that time, in his den at the Elysee, Bonaparte was working. He was
+busily employing the time which the Assembly, the majority and the
+minority, was losing in mistrusting itself. As people feel the loosening
+of the avalanche, so they felt the catastrophe tottering in the gloom.
+They kept watch upon the enemy, but they did not turn their attention in
+the true direction. To know where to fix one's mistrust is the secret of
+a great politician. The Assembly of 1851 did not possess this shrewd
+certainty of eyesight, their perspective was bad, each saw the future
+after his own fashion, and a sort of political short-sightedness blinded
+the Left as well as the Right; they were afraid, but not where fear was
+advisable; they were in the presence of a mystery, they had an ambuscade
+before them, but they sought it where it did not exist, and they did not
+perceive where it really lay. Thus it was that these two flocks of sheep,
+the majority, and the minority faced each other affrightedly, and while
+the leaders on one side and the guides on the other, grave and attentive,
+asked themselves anxiously what could be the mewing of the grumbling, of
+the Left on the one side, of the bleatings of the Right on the other,
+they ran the risk of suddenly feeling the four claws of the _coup d'etat_
+fastened in their shoulders.
+
+My visitor said to me,-
+
+"You are one of the Sixteen!"
+
+"Yes," answered I, smiling; "a 'Red Burgrave.'"
+
+"Like me, a 'Red Prince.'"
+
+And his smile responded to mine.
+
+He resumed,--
+
+"You have full powers?"
+
+"Yes. Like the others."
+
+And I added,--
+
+"Not more than the others. The Left has no leaders."
+
+He continued,--
+
+"Yon, the Commissary of Police, is a Republican?'
+
+"Yes."
+
+"He would obey an order signed by you?"
+
+"Possibly."
+
+"_I_ say, without doubt."
+
+He looked at me fixedly.
+
+"Well, then, have the President arrested this night."
+
+It was now my turn to look at him.
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"What I say."
+
+I ought to state that his language was frank, resolute, and
+self-convinced, and that during the whole of this conversation, and now,
+and always, it has given me the impression of honesty.
+
+"Arrest the President!" I cried.
+
+Then he set forth that this extraordinary enterprise was an easy matter;
+that the Army was undecided; that in the Army the African Generals
+counterpoised the President; that the National Guard favored the
+Assembly, and in the Assembly the Left; that Colonel Forestier answered
+for the 8th Legion; Colonel Gressier for the 6th, and Colonel Howyne for
+the 5th; that at the order of the Sixteen of the Left there would be an
+immediate taking up of arms; that my signature would suffice; that,
+nevertheless, if I preferred to call together the Committee, in Secret
+Session, we could wait till the next day; that on the order from the
+Sixteen, a battalion would march upon the Elysee; that the Elysee
+apprehended nothing, thought only of offensive, and not of defensive
+measures, and accordingly would be taken by surprise; that the soldiers
+would not resist the National Guard; that the thing would be done without
+striking a blow; that Vincennes would open and close while Paris slept;
+that the President would finish his night there, and that France, on
+awakening, would learn the twofold good tidings: that Bonaparte was out
+of the fight, and France out of danger.
+
+He added,--
+
+"You can count on two Generals: Neumayer at Lyons, and Lawoestyne at
+Paris."
+
+He got up and leaned against the chimney-piece; I can still see him
+there, standing thoughtfully; and he continued:
+
+"I do not feel myself strong enough to begin exile all over again, but I
+feel the wish to save my family and my country."
+
+He probably thought he noticed a movement of surprise in me, for he
+accentuated and italicized these words.
+
+"I will explain myself. Yes; I wish to save my family and my country. I
+bear the name of Napoleon; but as you know without fanaticism. I am a
+Bonaparte, but not a Bonapartist. I respect the name, but I judge it. It
+already has one stain. The Eighteenth Brumaire. Is it about to have
+another? The old stain disappeared beneath the glory; Austerlitz covered
+Brumaire. Napoleon was absolved by his genius. The people admired him so
+greatly that it forgave him. Napoleon is upon the column, there is an end
+of it, let them leave him there in peace. Let them not resuscitate him
+through his bad qualities. Let them not compel France to remember too
+much. This glory of Napoleon is vulnerable. It has a wound; closed, I
+admit. Do not let them reopen it. Whatever apologists may say and do, it
+is none the less true that by the Eighteenth of Brumaire Napoleon struck
+himself a first blow."
+
+"In truth," said I, "it is ever against ourselves that we commit a
+crime."
+
+"Well, then," he continued, "his glory has survived a first blow, a
+second will kill it. I do not wish it. I hate the first Eighteenth
+Brumaire; I fear the second. I wish to prevent it."
+
+He paused again, and continued,--
+
+"That is why I have come to you to-night. I wish to succor this great
+wounded glory. By the advice which I am giving you, if you can carry it
+out, if the Left carries it out, I save the first Napoleon; for if a
+second crime is superposed upon his glory, this glory would disappear.
+Yes, this name would founder, and history would no longer own it. I will
+go farther and complete my idea. I also save the present Napoleon, for he
+who as yet has no glory will only have come. I save his memory from an
+eternal pillory. Therefore, arrest him."
+
+He was truly and deeply moved. He resumed,--
+
+"As to the Republic, the arrest of Louis Bonaparte is deliverance for
+her. I am right, therefore, in saying that by what I am proposing to you
+I am saving my family and my country."
+
+"But," I said to him, "what you propose to me is a _coup d'etat_."
+
+"Do you think so?"
+
+"Without doubt. We are the minority, and we should commit an act which
+belongs to the majority. We are a part of the Assembly. We should be
+acting as though we were the entire Assembly. We who condemn all
+usurpation should ourselves become usurpers. We should put our hands upon
+a functionary whom the Assembly alone has the right of arresting. We, the
+defenders of the Constitution, we should break the Constitution. We, the
+men of the Law, we should violate the Law. It is a _coup d'etat_."
+
+"Yes, but a _coup d'etat_ for a good purpose."
+
+"Evil committed for a good purpose remains evil."
+
+"Even when it succeeds?"
+
+"Above all when it succeeds."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because it then becomes an example."
+
+"You do not then approve of the Eighteenth Fructidor?"
+
+"No."
+
+"But Eighteenth Fructidors prevent Eighteenth Brumaires."
+
+"No. They prepare the way for them."
+
+"But reasons of State exist?"
+
+"No. What exists is the Law."
+
+"The Eighteenth Fructidor has been accepted by exceedingly honest minds."
+
+"I know that."
+
+"Blanqui is in its favor, with Michelet."
+
+"I am against it, with Barbes."
+
+From the moral aspect I passed to the practical aspect.
+
+"This said," resumed I, "let us examine your plan."
+
+This plan bristled with difficulties. I pointed them out to him.
+
+"Count on the National Guard! Why, General Lawoestyne had not yet got
+command of it. Count on the Army? Why, General Neumayer was at Lyons,
+and not at Paris. Would he march to the assistance of the Assembly?
+What did we know about this? As for Lawoestyne, was he not double-faced?
+Were they sure of him? Call to arms the 8th Legion? Forestier was no
+longer Colonel. The 5th and 6th? But Gressier and Howyne were only
+lieutenant-colonels, would these legions follow them? Order the
+Commissary Yon? But would he obey the Left alone? He was the agent of
+the Assembly, and consequently of the majority, but not of the minority.
+These were so many questions. But these questions, supposing them
+answered, and answered in the sense of success, was success itself the
+question? The question is never Success, it is always Right. But here,
+even if we had obtained success, we should not have Right. In order to
+arrest the President an order of the Assembly was necessary; we should
+replace the order of the Assembly by an act of violence of the Left. A
+scaling and a burglary; an assault by scaling-ladders on the constituted
+authority, a burglary on the Law. Now let us suppose resistance; we
+should shed blood. The Law violated leads to the shedding of blood. What
+is all this? It is a crime."
+
+"No, indeed," he exclaimed, "it is the _salus populi_."
+
+And he added,--
+
+"_Suprema Lex_."
+
+"Not for me," I said.
+
+I continued,--
+
+"I would not kill a child to save a people."
+
+"Cato did so."
+
+"Jesus did not do so."
+
+And I added,--
+
+"You have on your side all ancient history, you are acting according to
+the uprightness of the Greeks, and according to the uprightness of the
+Romans; for me, I am acting according to the uprightness of Humanity.
+The new horizon is of wider range than the old."
+
+There was a pause. He broke it.
+
+"Then he will be the one to attack!"
+
+"Let it be so."
+
+"You are about to engage in a battle which is almost lost beforehand."
+
+"I fear so."
+
+"And this unequal combat can only end for you, Victor Hugo, in death or
+exile."
+
+"I believe it."
+
+"Death is the affair of a moment, but exile is long."
+
+"It is a habit to be learned."
+
+He continued,--
+
+"You will not only be proscribed. You will be calumniated."
+
+"It is a habit already learned."
+
+He continued,--
+
+"Do you know what they are saying already?"
+
+"What?"
+
+"They say that you are irritated against him because he has refused to
+make you a Minister."
+
+"Why you know yourself that--"
+
+"I know that it is just the reverse. It is he who has asked you, and it
+is you who have refused."
+
+"Well, then--"
+
+"They lie."
+
+"What does it matter?"
+
+He exclaimed,--
+
+"Thus, you will have caused the Bonapartes to re-enter France, and you
+will be banished from France by a Bonaparte!"[32]
+
+"Who knows," said I, "if I have not committed a fault? This injustice is
+perhaps a justice."
+
+We were both silent. He resumed,--
+
+"Could you bear exile?"
+
+"I will try."
+
+"Could you live without Paris?"
+
+"I should have the ocean."
+
+"You would then go to the seaside?"
+
+"I think so."
+
+"It is sad."
+
+"It is grand."
+
+There was another pause. He broke it.
+
+"You do not know what exile is. I do know it. It is terrible. Assuredly,
+I would not begin it again. Death is a bourne whence no one comes back,
+exile is a place whither no one returns."
+
+"If necessary," I said to him, "I will go, and I will return to it."
+
+"Better die. To quit life is nothing, but to quit one's country--"
+
+"Alas!" said I, "that is every thing."
+
+"Well, then, why accept exile when it is in your power to avoid it? What
+do you place above your country?"
+
+"Conscience."
+
+This answer made him thoughtful. However, he resumed.
+
+"But on reflection your conscience will approve of what you will have
+done."
+
+"No."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"I have told you. Because my conscience is so constituted that it puts
+nothing above itself. I feel it upon me as the headland can feel the
+lighthouse which is upon it. All life is an abyss, and conscience
+illuminates it around me."
+
+"And I also," he exclaimed--and I affirm that nothing could be more
+sincere or more loyal than his tone--"and I also feel and see my
+conscience. It approves of what I am doing. I appear to be betraying
+Louis; but I am really doing him a service. To save him from a crime is
+to save him. I have tried every means. There only remains this one, to
+arrest him. In coming to you, in acting as I do, I conspire at the same
+time against him and for him, against his power, and for his honor. What
+I am doing is right."
+
+"It is true," I said to him. "You have a generous and a lofty aim."
+
+And I resumed,--
+
+"But our two duties are different. I could not hinder Louis Bonaparte
+from committing a crime unless I committed one myself. I wish neither for
+an Eighteenth Brumaire for him, nor for an Eighteenth Fructidor for
+myself. I would rather be proscribed than be a proscriber. I have the
+choice between two crimes, my crime and the crime of Louis Bonaparte. I
+will not choose my crime."
+
+"But then you will have to endure his."
+
+"I would rather endure a crime than commit one."
+
+He remained thoughtful, and said to me,--
+
+"Let it be so."
+
+And he added,--
+
+"Perhaps we are both in the right."
+
+"I think so," I said.
+
+And I pressed his hand.
+
+He took his mother's manuscript and went away. It was three o'clock in
+the morning. The conversation had lasted more than two hours. I did not
+go to bed until I had written it out.
+
+
+[32] 14th of June, 1847. Chamber of Peers. See the work "Avant l'Exile."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+
+THE COMBAT FINISHED, THE ORDEAL BEGINS
+
+I did not know where to go.
+
+On the afternoon of the 7th I determined to go back once more to 19, Rue
+Richelieu. Under the gateway some one seized my arm. It was Madame D.
+She was waiting for me.
+
+"Do not go in," she said to me.
+
+"Am I discovered?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And taken."
+
+"No."
+
+She added,--
+
+"Come."
+
+We crossed the courtyard, and we went out by a backdoor into the Rue
+Fontaine Moliere; we reached the square of the Palais Royal. The
+_fiacres_ were standing there as usual. We got into the first we came
+to.
+
+"Where are we to go?" asked the driver.
+
+She looked at me.
+
+I answered,--
+
+"I do not know."
+
+"I know," she said.
+
+Women always know where Providence lies.
+
+An hour later I was in safety.
+
+From the 4th, every day which passed by consolidated the _coup d'etat_.
+Our defeat was complete, and we felt ourselves abandoned. Paris was like
+a forest in which Louis Bonaparte was making a _battue_ of the
+Representatives; the wild beast was hunting down the sportsmen. We heard
+the indistinct baying of Maupas behind us. We were compelled to
+disperse. The pursuit was energetic. We entered into the second phase of
+duty--the catastrophe accepted and submitted to. The vanquished became
+the proscribed. Each one of us had his own concluding adventures. Mine
+was what it should have been--exile; death having missed me. I am not
+going to relate it here, this book is not my biography, and I ought not
+to divert to myself any of the attention which it may excite. Besides,
+what concerns me personally is told in a narrative which is one of the
+testaments of exile.[33]
+
+Notwithstanding the relentless pursuit which was directed against us, I
+did not think it my duty to leave Paris as long as a glimmer of hope
+remained, and as long as an awakening of the people seemed possible.
+Malarmet sent me word in my refuge that a movement would take place at
+Belleville on Tuesday the 9th. I waited until the 12th. Nothing stirred.
+The people were indeed dead. Happily such deaths as these, like the
+deaths of the gods, are only for a time.
+
+I had a last interview with Jules Favre and Michel de Bourges at Madame
+Didier's in the Rue de la Ville-Leveque. It was at night. Bastide came
+there. This brave man said to me,--
+
+"You are about to leave Paris; for myself, I remain here. Take me as
+your lieutenant. Direct me from the depths of your exile. Make use of me
+as an arm which you have in France."
+
+"I will make use of you as of a heart," I said to him.
+
+On the 14th, amidst the adventures which my son Charles relates in his
+book, I succeeded in reaching Brussels.
+
+The vanquished are like cinders, Destiny blows upon them and disperses
+them. There was a gloomy vanishing of all the combatants for Right and
+for Law. A tragical disappearance.
+
+
+[33] "Les Hommes de l'Exile," by Charles Hugo.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+
+THE EXILED
+
+The Crime having succeeded, all hastened to join it. To persist was
+possible, to resist was not possible. The situation became more and more
+desperate. One would have said that an enormous wall was rising upon the
+horizon ready to close in. The outlet: Exile.
+
+The great souls, the glories of the people, emigrated. Thus there was
+seen this dismal sight--France driven out from France.
+
+But what the Present appears to lose, the Future gains, the hand which
+scatters is also the hand which sows.
+
+The Representatives of the Left, surrounded, tracked, pursued, hunted
+down, wandered for several days from refuge to refuge. Those who escaped
+found great difficulty in leaving Paris and France. Madier de Montjan
+had very black and thick eyebrows, he shaved off half of them, cut his
+hair, and let his beard grow. Yvan, Pelletier, Gindrier, and Doutre
+shaved off their moustaches and beards. Versigny reached Brussels on the
+14th with a passport in the name of Morin. Schoelcher dressed himself up
+as a priest. This costume became him admirably, and suited his austere
+countenance and grave voice. A worthy priest helped him to disguise
+himself, and lent him his cassock and his band, made him shave off his
+whiskers a few days previously, so that he should not be betrayed by the
+white trace of his freshly-cut beard, gave him his own passport, and
+only left him at the railway station.[34]
+
+De Flotte disguised himself as a servant, and in this manner succeeded
+in crossing the frontier at Mouscron. From there he reached Ghent, and
+thence Brussels.
+
+On the night of December 26th, I had returned to the little room,
+without a fire, which I occupied (No. 9) on the second story of the
+Hotel de la Porte-Verte; it was midnight; I had just gone to bed and was
+falling asleep, when a knock sounded at my door. I awoke. I always left
+the key outside. "Come in," I said. A chambermaid entered with a light,
+and brought two men whom I did not know. One was a lawyer, of Ghent,
+M. ----; the other was De Flotte. He took my two hands and pressed them
+tenderly. "What," I said to him, "is it you?"
+
+At the Assembly De Flotte, with his prominent and thoughtful brow, his
+deep-set eyes, his close-shorn head, and his long beard, slightly turned
+back, looked like a creation of Sebastian del Piombo wandering out of
+his picture of the "Raising of Lazarus;" and I had before my eyes a
+short young man, thin and pallid, with spectacles. But what he had not
+been able to change, and what I recognized immediately, was the great
+heart, the lofty mind, the energetic character, the dauntless courage;
+and if I did not recognize him by his features, I recognized him by the
+grasp of his hand.
+
+Edgar Quinet was brought away on the 10th by a noble-hearted Wallachian
+woman, Princess Cantacuzene, who undertook to conduct him to the
+frontier, and who kept her word. It was a troublesome task. Quinet had
+a foreign passport in the name of Grubesko, he was to personate a
+Wallachian, and it was arranged that he should not know how to speak
+French, he who writes it as a master. The journey was perilous. They ask
+for passports along all the line, beginning at the terminus. At Amiens
+they were particularly suspicious. But at Lille the danger was great.
+The gendarmes went from carriage to carriage; entered them lantern in
+hand, and compared the written descriptions of the travellers with their
+personal appearance. Several who appeared to be suspicious characters
+were arrested, and were immediately thrown into prison. Edgar Quinet,
+seated by the side of Madame Cantacuzene awaited the turn of his
+carriage. At length it came. Madame Cantacuzene leaned quickly forward
+towards the gendarmes, and hastened to present her passport, but the
+corporal waved back Madame Cantacuzene's passport saying, "It is
+useless, Madame. We have nothing to do with women's passports," and he
+asked Quinet abruptly, "Your papers?" Quinet held out his passport
+unfolded. The gendarmes said to him, "Come out of the carriage, so that
+we can compare your description." It happened, however, that the
+Wallachian passport contained no description. The corporal frowned, and
+said to his subordinates, "An irregular passport! Go and fetch the
+Commissary."
+
+All seemed lost, but Madame Cantacuzene began to speak to Quinet in the
+most Wallachian words in the world, with incredible assurance and
+volubility, so much so that the gendarme, convinced that he had to deal
+with all Wallachia in person, and seeing the train ready to start,
+returned the passport to Quinet, saying to him, "There! be off with
+you!"--a few hours afterwards Edgar Quinet was in Belgium.
+
+Arnauld de l'Ariege also had his adventures. He was a marked man, he had
+to hide himself. Arnauld being a Catholic, Madame Arnauld went to the
+priest; the Abbe Deguerry slipped out of the way, the Abbe Maret
+consented to conceal him; the Abbe Maret was honest and good. Arnauld
+d'Ariege remained hidden for a fortnight at the house of this worthy
+priest. He wrote from the Abbe Maret's a letter to the Archbishop of
+Paris, urging him to refuse the Pantheon, which a decree of Louis
+Bonaparte took away from France and gave to Rome. This letter angered
+the Archbishop. Arnauld, proscribed, reached Brussels, and there, at the
+age of eighteen months, died the "little Red," who on the 3d of December
+had carried the workman's letter to the Archbishop--an angel sent by God
+to the priest who had not understood the angel, and who no longer knew
+God.
+
+In this medley of incidents and adventures each one had his drama.
+Cournet's drama was strange and terrible.
+
+Cournet, it may be remembered, had been a naval officer. He was one of
+those men of a prompt, decisive character, who magnetized other men, and
+who on certain extraordinary occasions send an electric shock through a
+multitude. He possessed an imposing air, broad shoulders, brawny arms,
+powerful fists, a tall stature, all of which give confidence to the
+masses, and the intelligent expression which gives confidence to the
+thinkers. You saw him pass, and you recognized strength; you heard him
+speak, and you felt the will, which is more than strength. When quite a
+youth he had served in the navy. He combined in himself in a certain
+degree--and it is this which made this energetic man, when well directed
+and well employed, a means of enthusiasm and a support--he combined the
+popular fire and the military coolness. He was one of those natures
+created for the hurricane and for the crowd, who have begun their study
+of the people by their study of the ocean, and who are at their ease in
+revolutions as in tempests. As we have narrated, he took an important
+part in the combat. He had been dauntless and indefatigable, he was one
+of those who could yet rouse it to life. From Wednesday afternoon
+several police agents were charged to seek him everywhere, to arrest him
+wherever they might find him, and to take him to the Prefecture of the
+Police, where orders had been given to shoot him immediately.
+
+Cournet, however, with his habitual daring, came and went freely in
+order to carry on the lawful resistance, even in the quarters occupied
+by the troops, shaving off his moustaches as his sole precaution.
+
+On the Thursday afternoon he was on the boulevards at a few paces from a
+regiment of cavalry drawn up in order. He was quietly conversing with
+two of his comrades of the fight, Huy and Lorrain. Suddenly, he
+perceives himself and his companions surrounded by a company of
+_sergents de ville_; a man touches his arm and says to him, "You are
+Cournet; I arrest you."
+
+"Bah!" answers Cournet; "My name is Lepine."
+
+The man resumes,--
+
+"You are Cournet. Do not you recognize me? Well, then, I recognize you;
+I have been, like you, a member of the Socialist Electoral Committee."
+
+Cournet looks him in the face, and finds this countenance in his memory.
+The man was right. He had, in fact, formed part of the gathering in the
+Rue Saint Spire. The police spy resumed, laughing,--
+
+"I nominated Eugene Sue with you."
+
+It was useless to deny it, and the moment was not favorable for
+resistance. There were on the spot, as we have said, twenty _sergents de
+ville_ and a regiment of Dragoons.
+
+"I will follow you," said Cournet.
+
+A _fiacre_ was called up.
+
+"While I am about it," said the police spy, "come in all three of you."
+
+He made Huy and Lorrain get in with Cournet, placed them on the front
+seat, and seated himself on the back seat by Cournet, and then shouted
+to the driver,--
+
+"To the Prefecture!"
+
+The _sergents de ville_ surrounded the _fiacre_. But whether by chance
+or through confidence, or in the haste to obtain the payment for his
+capture, the man who had arrested Cournet shouted to the coachman, "Look
+sharp, look sharp!" and the _fiacre_ went off at a gallop.
+
+In the meantime Cournet was well aware that on arriving he would be shot
+in the very courtyard of the Prefecture. He had resolved not to go
+there.
+
+At a turning in the Rue St Antoine he glanced behind, and noticed that
+the _sergents de ville_ only followed the _fiacre_ at a considerable
+distance.
+
+Not one of the four men which the _fiacre_ was bearing away had as yet
+opened their lips.
+
+Cournet threw a meaning look at his two companions seated in front of
+him, as much as to say, "We are three; let us take advantage of this to
+escape." Both answered by an imperceptible movement of the eyes, which
+pointed out the street full of passers-by, and which said, "No."
+
+A few moments afterwards the _fiacre_ emerged from the Rue St. Antoine,
+and entered the Rue de Fourcy. The Rue de Fourcy is usually deserted, no
+one was passing down it at that moment.
+
+Cournet turned suddenly to the police spy, and asked him,--
+
+"Have you a warrant for my arrest?"
+
+"No; but I have my card."
+
+And he drew his police agent's card out of his pocket, and showed it to
+Cournet. Then the following dialogue ensued between these two men,--
+
+"This is not regular."
+
+"What does that matter to me?"
+
+"You have no right to arrest me."
+
+"All the same, I arrest you."
+
+"Look here; is it money that you want? Do you wish for any? I have some
+with me; let me escape."
+
+"A gold nugget as big as your head would not tempt me. You are my finest
+capture, Citizen Cournet."
+
+"Where are you taking me to?"
+
+"To the Prefecture."
+
+"They will shoot me there?"
+
+"Possibly."
+
+"And my two comrades?"
+
+"I do not say 'No.'"
+
+"I will not go."
+
+"You will go, nevertheless."
+
+"I tell you I will not go," exclaimed Cournet.
+
+And with a movement, unexpected as a flash of lightning, he seized the
+police spy by the throat.
+
+The police agent could not utter a cry, he struggled: a hand of bronze
+clutched him.
+
+His tongue protruded from his mouth, his eyes became hideous, and
+started from their sockets. Suddenly his head sank down, and reddish
+froth rose from his throat to his lips. He was dead.
+
+Huy and Lorrain, motionless, and as though themselves thunderstruck,
+gazed at this gloomy deed.
+
+They did not utter a word. They did not move a limb. The _fiacre_ was
+still driving on.
+
+"Open the door!" Cournet cried to them.
+
+They did not stir, they seemed to have become stone.
+
+Cournet, whose thumb was closely pressed in the neck of the wretched
+police spy, tried to open the door with his left hand, but he did not
+succeed, he felt that he could only do it with his right hand, and he
+was obliged to loose his hold of the man. The man fell face forwards,
+and sank down on his knees.
+
+Cournet opened the door.
+
+"Off with you!" he said to them.
+
+Huy and Lorrain jumped into the street and fled at the top of their
+speed.
+
+The coachman had noticed nothing.
+
+Cournet let them get away, and then, pulling the check string, stopped
+the _fiacre_, got down leisurely, reclosed the door, quietly took forty
+sous from his purse, gave them to the coachman, who had not left his
+seat, and said to him, "Drive on."
+
+He plunged into Paris. In the Place des Victoires he met the
+ex-Constituent Isidore Buvignier, his friend, who about six weeks
+previously had come out of the Madelonnettes, where he had been confined
+for the matter of the _Solidarite Republicaine_. Buvignier was one of
+the noteworthy figures on the high benches of the Left; fair,
+close-shaven, with a stern glance, he made one think of the English
+Roundheads, and he had the bearing rather of a Cromwellian Puritan than
+of a Dantonist Man of the Mountain. Cournet told his adventure, the
+extremity had been terrible.
+
+Buvignier shook his head.
+
+"You have killed a man," he said.
+
+In "Marie Tudor," I have made Fabiani answer under similar
+circumstances,--
+
+"No, a Jew."
+
+Cournet, who probably had not read "Marie Tudor," answered,--
+
+"No, a police spy."
+
+Then he resumed,--
+
+"I have killed a police spy to save three men, one of whom was myself."
+
+Cournet was right. They were in the midst of the combat, they were
+taking him to be shot; the spy who had arrested him was, properly
+speaking, an assassin, and assuredly it was a case of legitimate
+defence. I add that this wretch, a democrat for the people, a spy for
+the police, was a twofold traitor. Moreover, the police spy was the
+jackal of the _coup d'etat_, while Cournet was the combatant for the
+Law.
+
+"You must conceal yourself," said Buvignier; "come to Juvisy."
+
+Buvignier had a little refuge at Juvisy, which is on the road to
+Corbeil. He was known and loved there; Cournet and he reached there that
+evening.
+
+But they had hardly arrived when some peasants said to Buvignier, "The
+police have already been here to arrest you, and are coming again
+to-night."
+
+It was necessary to go back.
+
+Cournet, more in danger than ever, hunted, wandering, pursued, hid
+himself in Paris with considerable difficulty. He remained there till
+the 16th. He had no means of procuring himself a passport. At length, on
+the 16th, some friends of his on the Northern Railway obtained for him a
+special passport, worded as follows:--
+
+"Allow M. ----, an Inspector on the service of the Company, to pass."
+
+He decided to leave the next day, and take the day train, thinking,
+perhaps rightly, that the night train would be more closely watched.
+
+On the 17th, at daybreak, favored by the dim dawn, he glided from street
+to street, to the Northern Railway Station. His tall stature was a
+special source of danger. He, however, reached the station in safety.
+The stokers placed him with them on the tender of the engine of the
+train, which was about to start. He only had the clothes which he had
+worn since the 2d; no clean linen, no trunk, a little money.
+
+In December, the day breaks late and the night closes in early, which is
+favorable to proscribed persons.
+
+He reached the frontier at night without hindrance. At Neuveglise he was
+in Belgium; he believed himself in safety. When asked for his papers he
+caused himself to be taken before the Burgomaster, and said to him, "I
+am a political refugee."
+
+The Burgomaster, a Belgian but a Bonapartist--this breed is to be
+found--had him at once reconducted to the frontier by the gendarmes, who
+were ordered to hand him over to the French authorities.
+
+Cournet gave himself up for lost.
+
+The Belgian gendarmes took him to Armentieres. If they had asked for the
+Mayor it would have been all at an end with Cournet, but they asked for
+the Inspector of Customs.
+
+A glimmer of hope dawned upon Cournet.
+
+He accosted the Inspector of Customs with his head erect, and shook
+hands with him.
+
+The Belgian gendarmes had not yet released him.
+
+"Now, sir," said Cournet to the Custom House officer, "you are an
+Inspector of Customs, I am an Inspector of Railways. Inspectors do not
+eat inspectors. The deuce take it! Some worthy Belgians have taken
+fright and sent me to you between four gendarmes. Why, I know not. I am
+sent by the Northern Company to relay the ballast of a bridge somewhere
+about here which is not firm. I come to ask you to allow me to continue
+my road. Here is my pass."
+
+He presented the pass to the Custom House officer, the Custom House
+officer read it, found it according to due form, and said to Cournet,--
+
+"Mr. Inspector, you are free."
+
+Cournet, delivered from the Belgian gendarmes by French authority,
+hastened to the railway station. He had friends there.
+
+"Quick," he said, "it is dark, but it does not matter, it is even all
+the better. Find me some one who has been a smuggler, and who will help
+me to pass the frontier."
+
+They brought him a small lad of eighteen; fair-haired, ruddy, hardy, a
+Walloon[35] and who spoke French.
+
+"What is your name?" said Cournet.
+
+"Henry."
+
+"You look like a girl."
+
+"Nevertheless I am a man."
+
+"Is it you who undertake to guide me?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You have been a smuggler?"
+
+"I am one still."
+
+"Do you know the roads?"
+
+"No. I have nothing to do with the roads."
+
+"What do you know then?"
+
+"I know the passes."
+
+"There are two Custom House lines."
+
+"I know that well."
+
+"Will you pass me across them?"
+
+"Without doubt."
+
+"Then you are not afraid of the Custom House officers?"
+
+"I'm afraid of the dogs."
+
+"In that case," said Cournet, "we will take sticks."
+
+They accordingly armed themselves with big sticks. Cournet gave fifty
+francs to Henry, and promised him fifty more when they should have
+crossed the second Custom House line.
+
+"That is to say, at four o'clock in the morning," said Henry.
+
+It was midnight.
+
+They set out on their way.
+
+What Henry called the "passes" another would have called the
+"hindrances." They were a succession of pitfalls and quagmires. It had
+been raining, and all the holes were pools of water.
+
+An indescribable footpath wound through an inextricable labyrinth,
+sometimes as thorny as a heath, sometimes as miry as a marsh.
+
+The night was very dark.
+
+From time to time, far away in the darkness, they could hear a dog bark.
+The smuggler then made bends or zigzags, turned sharply to the right or
+to the left, and sometimes retraced his steps.
+
+Cournet, jumping hedges, striding over ditches, stumbling at every
+moment, slipping into sloughs, laying hold of briers, with his clothes
+in rags, his hands bleeding, dying with hunger, battered about, wearied,
+worn out, almost exhausted, followed his guide gaily.
+
+At every minute he made a false step; he fell into every bog, and got up
+covered with mud. At length he fell into a pond. It was several feet
+deep. This washed him.
+
+"Bravo!" he said. "I am very clean, but I am very cold."
+
+At four o'clock in the morning, as Henry had promised him, they reached
+Messine, a Belgian village. The two Custom House lines had been cleared.
+Cournet had nothing more to fear, either from the Custom House nor from
+the _coup d'etat_, neither from men nor from dogs.
+
+He gave Henry the second fifty francs, and continued his journey on
+foot, trusting somewhat to chance.
+
+It was not until towards evening that he reached a railway station. He
+got into a train, and at nightfall he arrived at the Southern Railway
+Station at Brussels.
+
+He had left Paris on the preceding morning, had not slept an hour, had
+been walking all night, and had eaten nothing. On searching in his
+pocket he missed his pocket book, but found a crust of bread. He was
+more delighted at the discovery of the crust than grieved at the loss of
+his pocket-book. He carried his money in a waistband; the pocket-book,
+which had probably disappeared in the pond, contained his letters, and
+amongst others an exceedingly useful letter of introduction from his
+friend M. Ernest Koechlin, to the Representatives Guilgot and Carlos
+Forel, who at that moment were refugees at Brussels, and lodged at the
+Hotel de Brabant.
+
+On leaving the railway station he threw himself into a cab, and said to
+the coachman,--
+
+"Hotel de Brabant."
+
+He heard a voice repeat, "Hotel de Brabant." He put out his head and saw
+a man writing something in a notebook with a pencil by the light of a
+street-lamp.
+
+It was probably some police agent.
+
+Without a passport, without letters, without papers, he was afraid of
+being arrested in the night, and he was longing for a good sleep. A good
+bed to-night, he thought, and to-morrow the Deluge! At the Hotel de
+Brabant he paid the coachman, but did not go into the hotel. Moreover,
+he would have asked in vain for the Representatives Forel and Guilgot;
+both were there under false names.
+
+He took to wandering about the streets. It was eleven o'clock at night,
+and for a long time he had begun to feel utterly worn out.
+
+At length he saw a lighted lamp with the inscription "Hotel de la
+Monnaie."
+
+He walked in.
+
+The landlord came up, and looked at him somewhat askance.
+
+He then thought of looking at himself.
+
+His unshaven beard, his disordered hair, his cap soiled with mud, his
+blood-stained hands, his clothes in rags, he looked horrible.
+
+He took a double louis out of his waistband, and put it on the table of
+the parlor, which he had entered and said to the landlord,--
+
+"In truth, sir, I am not a thief, I am a proscript; money is now my only
+passport. I have just come from Paris, I wish to eat first and sleep
+afterwards."
+
+The landlord was touched, took the double louis, and gave him bed and
+supper.
+
+Next day, while he was still sleeping, the landlord came into his room,
+woke him gently, and said to him,--
+
+"Now, sir, if I were you, I should go and see Baron Hody."
+
+"Who and what is Baron Hody?" asked Cournet, half asleep.
+
+The landlord explained to him who Baron Hody was. When I had occasion to
+ask the same question as Cournet, I received from three inhabitants of
+Brussels the three answers as follows:--
+
+"He is a dog."
+
+"He is a polecat."
+
+"He is a hyena."
+
+There is probably some exaggeration in these three answers.
+
+A fourth Belgian whom I need not specify confined himself to saying to
+me,--
+
+"He is a beast."
+
+As to his public functions, Baron Hody was what they call at Brussels
+"The Administrator of Public Safety;" that is to say, a counterfeit of
+the Prefect of Police, half Carlier, half Maupas.
+
+Thanks to Baron Hody, who has since left the place, and who, moreover,
+like M. de Montalembert, was a "mere Jesuit," the Belgian police at that
+moment was a compound of the Russian and Austrian police. I have read
+strange confidential letters of this Baron Hody. In action and in style
+there is nothing more cynical and more repulsive than the Jesuit police,
+when they unveil their secret treasures. These are the contents of the
+unbuttoned cassock.
+
+At the time of which we are speaking (December, 1851), the Clerical
+party had joined itself to all the forms of Monarchy; and this Baron
+Hody confused Orleanism with Legitimate right. I simply tell the tale.
+Nothing more.
+
+"Baron Hody. Very well, I will go to him," said Cournet.
+
+He got up, dressed himself, brushed his clothes as well as he could, and
+asked the landlord, "Where is the Police office?"
+
+"At the Ministry of Justice."
+
+In fact this is the case in Brussels; the police administration forms
+part of the Ministry of Justice, an arrangement which does not greatly
+raise the police and somewhat lowers justice.
+
+Cournet went there, and was shown into the presence of this personage.
+
+Baron Hody did him the honor to ask him sharply,--
+
+"Who are you?"
+
+"A refugee," answered Cournet; "I am one of those whom the _coup d'etat_
+has driven from Paris.
+
+"Your profession?"
+
+"Ex-naval officer."
+
+"Ex-naval officer!" exclaimed Baron Hody in a much gentler tone, "did
+you know His Royal Highness the Prince de Joinville?"
+
+"I have served under him."
+
+It was the truth. Cournet had served under M. de Joinville, and prided
+himself on it.
+
+At this statement the administrator of Belgian safety completely unbent,
+and said to Cournet, with the most gracious smile that the police can
+find, "That's all right, sir; stay here as long as you please; we close
+Belgium to the Men of the Mountain, but we throw it widely open to men
+like you."
+
+When Cournet told me this answer of Hody's, I thought that my fourth
+Belgian was right.
+
+A certain comic gloom was mingled at times with these tragedies.
+Barthelemy Terrier was a Representative of the people, and a proscript.
+They gave him a special passport for a compulsory route as far as
+Belgium for himself and his wife. Furnished with this passport he left
+with a woman. This woman was a man. Preveraud, a landed proprietor at
+Donjon, one of the most prominent men in the Department of Allier, was
+Terrier's brother-in-law. When the _coup d'etat_ broke out at Donjon,
+Preveraud had taken up arms and fulfilled his duty, had combated the
+outrage and defended the law. For this he had been condemned to death.
+The justice of that time, as we know. Justice executed justice. For this
+crime of being an honest man they had guillotined Charlet, guillotined
+Cuisinier, guillotined Cirasse. The guillotine was an instrument of the
+reign. Assassination by the guillotine was one of the means of order of
+that time. It was necessary to save Preveraud. He was little and slim:
+they dressed him as a woman. He was not sufficiently pretty for them not
+to cover his face with a thick veil. They put the brave and sturdy hands
+of the combatant in a muff. Thus veiled and a little filled out with
+padding, Preveraud made a charming woman. He became Madame Terrier, and
+his brother-in-law took him away. They crossed Paris peaceably, and
+without any other adventure than an imprudence committed by Preveraud,
+who, seeing that the shaft-horse of a wagon had fallen down, threw aside
+his muff, lifted his veil and his petticoat, and if Terrier, in dire
+alarm, had not stopped him, he would have helped the carter to raise his
+horse. Had a _sergent de ville_ been there, Preveraud would have been
+captured. Terrier hastened to thrust Preveraud into a carriage, and at
+nightfall they left for Brussels. They were alone in the carriage, each
+in a corner and face to face. All went well as far as Amiens. At Amiens
+station the door was opened, and a gendarme entered and seated himself
+by the side of Preveraud. The gendarme asked for his passport, Terrier
+showed it him; the little woman in her corner, veiled and silent, did
+not stir, and the gendarme found all in due form. He contented himself
+with saying, "We shall travel together, I am on duty as far as the
+frontier."
+
+The train, after the ordinary delay of a few minutes, again started. The
+night was dark. Terrier had fallen asleep. Suddenly Preveraud felt a
+knee press against his, it was the knee of the policeman. A boot placed
+itself softly on his foot, it was a horse-soldier's boot. An idyll had
+just germinated in the gendarme's soul. He first tenderly pressed
+Preveraud's knee, and then emboldened by the darkness of the hour and by
+the slumbering husband, he ventured his hand as far as her dress, a
+circumstance foreseen by Moliere, but the fair veiled one was virtuous.
+Preveraud, full of surprise and rage, gently pushed back the gendarme's
+hand. The danger was extreme. Too much love on the part of the gendarme,
+one audacious step further, would bring about the unexpected, would
+abruptly change the eclogue into an official indictment, would reconvert
+the amorous satyr into a stony-hearted policeman, would transform Tircis
+into Vidocq; and then this strange thing would be seen, a passenger
+guillotined because a gendarme had committed an outrage. The danger
+increased every moment. Terrier was sleeping. Suddenly the train
+stopped. A voice cried, "Quievrain!" and the door was opened. They were
+in Belgium. The gendarme, obliged to stop here, and to re-enter France,
+rose to get out, and at the moment when he stepped on to the ground he
+heard behind him these expressive words coming from beneath the lace
+veil, "Be off, or I'll break your jaw!"
+
+
+[34] See "Les Hommes de l'Exile."
+
+[35] The name given to a population belonging to the Romanic family, and
+more particularly to those of French descent, who occupy the region
+along the frontiers of the German-speaking territory in the South
+Netherlands from Dunkirk to Malmedy in Rhenish Prussia.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+
+THE MILITARY COMMISSIONS AND THE MIXED COMMISSIONS
+
+Justice sometime meets with strange adventures.
+
+This old phrase assumed a new sense.
+
+The code ceased to be a safeguard. The law became something which had
+sworn fealty to a crime. Louis Bonaparte appointed judges by whom one
+felt oneself stopped as in the corner of a wood. In the same manner as
+the forest is an accomplice through its density, so the legislation was
+an accomplice by its obscurity. What it lacked at certain points in
+order to make it perfectly dark they added. How? By force. Purely and
+simply. By decree. _Sic jubeo_. The decree of the 17th of February was a
+masterpiece. This decree completed the proscription of the person, by
+the proscription of the name. Domitian could not have done better. Human
+conscience was bewildered; Right, Equity, Reason felt that the master
+had over them the authority that a thief has over a purse. No reply.
+Obey. Nothing resembles those infamous times.
+
+Every iniquity was possible. Legislative bodies supervened and instilled
+so much gloom into legislation that it was easy to achieve a baseness in
+this darkness.
+
+A successful _coup d'etat_ does not stand upon ceremony. This kind of
+success permits itself everything.
+
+Facts abound. But we must abridge, we will only present them briefly.
+
+There were two species of Justice; the Military Commissions and the
+Mixed Commissions.
+
+The Military Commissions sat in judgment with closed doors. A colonel
+presided.
+
+In Paris alone there were three Military Commissions: each received a
+thousand bills of indictment. The Judge of Instruction sent these
+accusations to the Procureur of the Republic, Lascoux, who transmitted
+them to the Colonel President. The Commission summoned the accused to
+appear. The accused himself was his own bill of indictment. They
+searched him, that is to say, they "thumbed" him. The accusing document
+was short. Two or three lines. Such as this, for example,--
+
+Name. Christian name. Profession. A sharp fellow. Goes to the Cafe.
+Reads the papers. Speaks. Dangerous.
+
+The accusation was laconic. The judgment was still less prolix. It was a
+simple sign.
+
+The bill of indictment having been examined, the judges having been
+consulted, the colonel took a pen, and put at the end of the accusing
+line one of three signs:--
+
+     -     +     o
+
+     -  signified consignment to Lambessa.
+
+     +  signified transportation to Cayenne. (The dry guillotine. Death.)
+
+     o  signified acquittal.
+
+While this justice was at work, the man on whose case they were working
+was sometimes still at liberty, he was going and coming at his ease;
+suddenly they arrested him, and without knowing what they wanted with
+him, he left for Lambessa or for Cayenne.
+
+His family was often ignorant of what had become of him.
+
+People asked of a wife, of a sister, of a daughter, of a mother,--
+
+"Where is your husband?"
+
+"Where is your brother?"
+
+"Where is your father?"
+
+"Where is your son?"
+
+The wife, the sister, the daughter, the mother answered,--"I do not
+know."
+
+In the Allier eleven members of one family alone, the Preveraud family
+of Donjon, were struck down, one by the penalty of death, the others by
+banishment and transportation.
+
+A wine-seller of the Batignolles, named Brisadoux, was transported to
+Cayenne for this line in his deed of accusation: _his shop is frequented
+by Socialists_.
+
+Here is a dialogue, word for word, and taken from life, between a
+colonel and his convicted prisoner:--
+
+"You are condemned."
+
+"Indeed! Why?"
+
+"In truth I do not exactly know myself. Examine your conscience. Think
+what you have done."
+
+"I?"
+
+"Yes, you."
+
+"How I?"
+
+"You must have done something."
+
+"No. I have done nothing. I have not even done my duty. I ought to have
+taken my gun, gone down into the street, harangued the people, raised
+barricades; I remained at home stupidly like a sluggard" (the accused
+laughs); "that is the offence of which I accuse myself."
+
+"You have not been condemned for that offence. Think carefully."
+
+"I can think of nothing."
+
+"What! You have not been to the _cafe_?"
+
+"Yes, I have breakfasted there."
+
+"Have you not chatted there?"
+
+"Yes, perhaps."
+
+"Have you not laughed?"
+
+"Perhaps I have laughed."
+
+"At whom? At what?"
+
+"At what is going on. It is true I was wrong to laugh."
+
+"At the same time you talked?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Of whom?"
+
+"Of the President."
+
+"What did you say?"
+
+"Indeed, what may be said with justice, that he had broken his oath."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"That he had not the right to arrest the Representatives."
+
+"You said that?"
+
+"Yes. And I added that he had not the right to kill people on the
+boulevard...."
+
+Here the condemned man interrupted himself and exclaimed,--
+
+"And thereupon they send me to Cayenne!"
+
+The judge looks fixedly at the prisoner, and answers,--"Well, then?"
+
+Another form of justice:--
+
+Three miscellaneous personages, three removable functionaries, a
+Prefect, a soldier, a public prosecutor, whose only conscience is the
+sound of Louis Bonaparte's bell, seated themselves at a table and
+judged. Whom? You, me, us, everybody. For what crimes? They invented
+crimes. In the name of what laws? They invented laws. What penalties did
+they inflict? They invented penalties. Did they know the accused? No.
+Did they listen to him? No. What advocates did they listen to? None.
+What witnesses did they question? None. What deliberation did they enter
+upon? None. What public did they call in? None. Thus, no public, no
+deliberation, no counsellors, no witnesses, judges who are not
+magistrates, a jury where none are sworn in, a tribunal which is not a
+tribunal, imaginary offences, invented penalties, the accused absent,
+the law absent; from all these things which resembled a dream there came
+forth a reality: the condemnation of the innocent.
+
+Exile, banishment, transportation, ruin, home-sickness, death, and
+despair for 40,000 families.
+
+That is what History calls the Mixed Commissions.
+
+Ordinarily the great crimes of State strike the great heads, and content
+themselves with this destruction; they roll like blocks of stone, all in
+one piece, and break the great resistances; illustrious victims suffice
+for them. But the Second of December had its refinements of cruelty; it
+required in addition petty victims. Its appetite for extermination
+extended to the poor and to the obscure, its anger and animosity
+penetrated as far as the lowest class; it created fissures in the social
+subsoil in order to diffuse the proscription there; the local
+triumvirates, nicknamed "mixed mixtures," served it for that. Not one
+head escaped, however humble and puny. They found means to impoverish
+the indigent, to ruin those dying of hunger, to spoil the disinherited;
+the _coup d'etat_ achieved this wonderful feat of adding misfortune to
+misery. Bonaparte, it seems, took the trouble to hate a mere peasant;
+the vine-dresser was torn from his vine, the laborer from his furrow,
+the mason from his scaffold, the weaver from his loom. Men accepted this
+mission of causing the immense public calamity to fall, morsel by
+morsel, upon the humblest walks of life. Detestable task! To crumble a
+catastrophe upon the little and on the weak.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+
+A RELIGIOUS INCIDENT
+
+A little religion can be mingled with this justice. Here is an example.
+
+Frederick Morin, like Arnauld de l'Ariege, was a Catholic Republican. He
+thought that the souls of the victims of the 4th of December, suddenly
+cast by the volleys of the _coup d'etat_ into the infinite and the
+unknown, might need some assistance, and he undertook the laborious task
+of having a mass said for the repose of these souls. But the priests
+wished to keep the masses for their friends. The group of Catholic
+Republicans which Frederick Morin headed applied successively to all the
+priests of Paris; but met with a refusal. They applied to the
+Archbishop: again a refusal. As many masses for the assassin as they
+liked, but far the assassinated not one. To pray for dead men of this
+sort would be a scandal. The refusal was determined. How should it be
+overcome? To do without a mass would have appeared easy to others, but
+not to these staunch believers. The worthy Catholic Democrats with great
+difficulty at length unearthed in a tiny suburban parish a poor old
+vicar, who consented to mumble in a whisper this mass in the ear of the
+Almighty, while begging Him to say nothing about it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+
+HOW THEY CAME OUT OF HAM
+
+On the night of the 7th and 8th of January, Charras was sleeping. The
+noise of his bolts being drawn awoke him.
+
+"So then!" said he, "they are going to put us in close confinement." And
+he went to sleep again.
+
+An hour afterwards the door was opened. The commandant of the fort
+entered in full uniform, accompanied by a police agent carrying a torch.
+
+It was about four o'clock in the morning.
+
+"Colonel," said the Commandant, "dress yourself at once."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"You are about to leave."
+
+"Some more rascality, I suppose!"
+
+The Commandant was silent. Charras dressed himself.
+
+As he finished dressing, a short young man, dressed in black, came in.
+This young man spoke to Charras.
+
+"Colonel, you are about to leave the fortress, you are about to quit
+France. I am instructed to have you conducted to the frontier."
+
+Charras exclaimed,--
+
+"If I am to quit France I will not leave the fortress. This is yet
+another outrage. They have no more the right to exile me than they had
+the right to imprison me. I have on my side the Law, Right, my old
+services, my commission. I protest. Who are you, sir?"
+
+"I am the Private Secretary of the Minister of the Interior."
+
+"Ah! it is you who are named Leopold Lehon."
+
+The young man cast down his eyes.
+
+Charras continued,--
+
+"You come on the part of some one whom they call 'Minister of the
+Interior,' M. de Morny, I believe. I know M. de Morny. A bald young man;
+he has played the game where people lose their hair; and now he is
+playing the game where people risk their heads."
+
+The conversation was painful. The young man was deeply interested in the
+toe of his boot.
+
+After a pause, however, he ventured to speak,--
+
+"M. Charras, I am instructed to say that if you want money--"
+
+Charras interrupted him impetuously.
+
+"Hold your tongue, sir! not another word. I have served my country
+five-and-twenty years as an officer, under fire, at the peril of my
+life, always for honor, never for gain. Keep your money for your own
+set!"
+
+"But, sir--"
+
+"Silence! Money which passes through your hands would soil mine."
+
+Another pause ensued, which the private secretary again broke,--
+
+"Colonel, you will be accompanied by two police agents who have special
+instructions, and I should inform you that you are ordered to travel
+with a false passport, and under the name of Vincent."
+
+"Good heavens!" said Charras; "this is really too much. Who is it
+imagines that they will make me travel by order with a false passport,
+and under a false name?" And looking steadily at M. Leopold Lehon,
+"Know, sir, that my name is Charras and not Vincent, and that I belong
+to a family whose members have always borne the name of their father."
+
+They set out.
+
+They journeyed by carriage as far as Creil, which is on the railway.
+
+At Creil station the first person whom Charras saw was General
+Changarnier.
+
+"Ah! it is you, General."
+
+The two proscripts embraced each other. Such is exile.
+
+"What the deuce are they doing with you?" asked the General.
+
+"What they are probably doing with you. These vagabonds are making me
+travel under the name of Vincent."
+
+"And me," said Changarnier, "under the name of Leblanc."
+
+"In that case they ought at least to have called me Lerouge," said
+Charras, with a burst of laughter.
+
+In the meantime a group, kept at a distance by the police agents, had
+formed round them. People had recognized them and saluted them. A little
+child, whose mother could not hold him back, ran quickly to Charras and
+took his hand.
+
+They got into the train apparently as free as other travellers. Only
+they isolated them in empty compartments, and each was accompanied by
+two men, who sat one at the side and the other facing him, and who never
+took their eyes off him. The keepers of General Changarnier were of
+ordinary strength and stature. Those of Charras were almost giants.
+Charras is exceedingly tall; they topped him by an entire head. These
+men who were galley sergeants, had been carabineers; these spies had
+been heroes.
+
+Charras questioned them. They had served when quite young, from 1813.
+Thus they had shared the bivouac of Napoleon; now they ate the same
+bread as Vidocq. The soldier brought to such a sorry pass as this is a
+sad sight.
+
+The pocket of one of them was bulged out with something which he was
+hiding there.
+
+When this man crossed the station in company with Charras, a lady
+traveller said,--
+
+"Has he got M. Thiers in his pocket?"
+
+What the police agent was hiding was a pair of pistols. Under their
+long, buttoned-up and doubled-breasted frock coats these men were armed.
+They were ordered to treat "those gentlemen" with the most profound
+respect, but in certain circumstances to blow out their brains.
+
+The prisoners had each been informed that in the eyes of the different
+authorities whom they would meet on the road they would pass for
+foreigners, Swiss or Belgians, expelled on account of their political
+opinions, and that the police agents would keep their title of police
+agents, and would represent themselves as charged with reconducting
+these foreigners to the frontier.
+
+Two-thirds of the journey were accomplished without any hindrance. At
+Valenciennes an incident occurred.
+
+The _coup d'etat_ having succeeded, zeal reigned paramount. No task was
+any longer considered despicable. To denounce was to please; zeal is one
+of the forms of servitude towards which people lean the most willingly.
+The general became a common soldier, the prefect became a commissary of
+police, the commissary of police became a police spy.
+
+The commissary of police at Valenciennes himself superintended the
+inspection of passports. For nothing in the world would he have deputed
+this important office to a subordinate inspector. When they presented
+him the passport of the so-called Leblanc, he looked the so-called
+Leblanc full in the face, started, and exclaimed,--
+
+"You are General Changarnier!"
+
+"That is no affair of mine," said the General.
+
+Upon this the two keepers of the General protested and exhibited their
+papers, perfectly drawn up in due form.
+
+"Mr. Commissary, we are Government agents. Here are our proper
+passports."
+
+"Improper ones," said the General.
+
+The Commissary shook his head. He had been employed in Paris, and had
+been frequently sent to the headquarters of the staff at the Tuileries,
+to General Changarnier. He knew him very well.
+
+"This is too much!" exclaimed the police agents. They blustered,
+declared that they were police functionaries on a special service, that
+they had instructions to conduct to the frontier this Leblanc, expelled
+for political reasons, swore by all the gods, and gave their word of
+honor that the so-called Leblanc was really named Leblanc.
+
+"I do not much believe in words of honor," said the Commissary.
+
+"Honest Commissary," muttered Changarnier, "you are right. Since the 2d
+of December words of honor and oaths are no more than worthless paper
+money."
+
+And then he began to smile.
+
+The Commissary became more and more perplexed. The police agents ended
+by invoking the testimony of the prisoner himself.
+
+"Now, sir, tell him your name yourself."
+
+"Get out of the difficulty yourselves," answered Changarnier.
+
+All this appeared most irregular to the mind of a provincial alguazil.
+
+It seemed evident to the Commissary of Valenciennes that General
+Changarnier was escaping from Ham under a false name with a false
+passport, and with false agents of police, in order to mislead the
+authorities, and that it was a plot to escape which was on the point of
+succeeding.
+
+"Come down, all three of you!" exclaimed the Commissary.
+
+The General gets down, and on putting foot to the ground notices Charras
+in the depths of his compartment between his two bullies.
+
+"Oho! Charras, you are there!" he cries.
+
+"Charras!" exclaimed the Commissary. "Charras there! Quick! the
+passports of these gentlemen!" And looking Charras in the face,--
+
+"Are you Colonel Charras?"
+
+"Egad!" said Charras.
+
+Yet another complication. It was now the turn of Charras's bullies to
+bluster. They declared that Charras was the man called Vincent,
+displayed passports and papers, swore and protested. The Commissary's
+suspicions were fully confirmed.
+
+"Very well," said he, "I arrest everybody."
+
+And he handed over Changarnier, Charras, and the four police agents to
+the gendarmes. The Commissary saw the Cross of Honor shining in the
+distance. He was radiant.
+
+The police arrested the police. It happens sometimes that the wolf
+thinks he has seized a victim and bites his own tail.
+
+The six prisoners--for now there were six prisoners--were taken into a
+parlor at the railway station. The Commissary informed the town
+authorities. The town authorities hastened hither, headed by the
+sub-prefect.
+
+The sub-prefect, who was named Censier, comes in, and does not know
+whether he ought to salute or to question, to grovel in the dust or to
+keep his hat on his head. These poor devils of magistrates and local
+officials were very much exercised in their minds. General Changarnier
+had been too near the Dictatorship not to make them thoughtful. Who can
+foresee the course of events? Everything is possible. Yesterday called
+itself Cavaignac, to-day calls itself Bonaparte, to-morrow may call
+itself Changarnier. Providence is really cruel not to let sub-prefects
+have a peep at the future.
+
+It is sad for a respectable functionary, who would ask for nothing
+better than to be servile or arrogant according to circumstances, to be
+in danger of lavishing his platitudes on a person who is perhaps going
+to rot forever in exile, and who is nothing more than a rascal, or to
+risk being insolent to a vagabond of a postscript who is capable of
+coming back a conqueror in six months' time, and of becoming the
+Government in his turn. What was to be done? And then they were spied
+upon. This takes place between officials. The slightest word would be
+maliciously interpreted, the slightest gesture would be laid to their
+discredit. How should he keep on good terms at the same time this
+Cabbage, which is called To-day, and that Goat, which is called
+To-morrow? To ask too many questions would offend the General, to render
+to many salutations would annoy the President. How could he be at the
+same time very much a sub-prefect, and in some degree a lacquey? How
+could he combine the appearance of obsequiousness, which would please
+Changarnier, with the appearance of authority, which would please
+Bonaparte?
+
+The sub-prefect thought to get out of the difficulty by saying,
+"General, you are my prisoner," and by adding, with a smile, "Do me the
+honor of breakfasting with me?" He addressed the same words to Charras.
+
+The General refused curtly.
+
+Charras looked at him fixedly, and did not answer him.
+
+Doubts regarding the identity of the prisoners came to the mind of the
+sub-prefect. He whispered to the Commissary "Are you quite sure?"
+"Certainly," said the Commissary.
+
+The sub-prefect decided to address himself to Charras, and dissatisfied
+with the manner in which his advances had been received, asked him
+somewhat sharply, "But, in short, who are you?"
+
+Charras answered, "We are packages."
+
+And turning to his keepers who were now in their turn in keeping:--
+
+"Apply to our exporters. Ask our Custom House officers. It is a mere
+matter of goods traffic."
+
+They set the electric telegraph to work. Valenciennes, alarmed,
+questioned Paris. The sub-prefect informed the Minister of the Interior
+that, thanks to a strict supervision, which he had trusted to no one but
+himself, he had just effected an important capture, that he had just
+discovered a plot, had saved the President, had saved society, had saved
+religion, etc., that in one word he had just arrested General
+Changarnier and Colonel Charras, who had escaped that morning from the
+fort of Ham with false passports, doubtless for the purpose of heading a
+rising, etc., and that, in short, he asked the Government what was to be
+done with the two prisoners.
+
+At the end of an hour the answer arrived:--"Let them go on their way."
+
+The police perceived that in a burst of zeal they had pushed profundity
+to the point of stupidity. That sometimes happens.
+
+The next train carried away the prisoners, restored, not to liberty, but
+to their keepers.
+
+They passed Quievrain.
+
+They got down from the carriage, and got in again.
+
+When the train again started Charras heaved the deep, joyous sigh of a
+freed man, and said, "At last!"
+
+He raised his eyes, and perceived his two jailers by his side.
+
+They had got up behind him into the carriage.
+
+"Ah, indeed!" he said to them; "you there!"
+
+Of these two men there was only one who spoke, that one answered,--
+
+"Yes, Colonel."
+
+"What are you doing here?"
+
+"We are keeping watch over you."
+
+"But we are in Belgium."
+
+"Possibly."
+
+"Belgium is not France."
+
+"Ah, that may be."
+
+"But suppose I put my head out of the carriage? Suppose I call out?
+Suppose I had you arrested? Suppose I reclaimed my liberty?"
+
+"You will not do all that, Colonel."
+
+"How will you prevent me?"
+
+The police agent showed the butt-end of his pistol and said "Thus."
+
+Charras burst out laughing, and asked them, "Where then are you going to
+leave me?"
+
+"At Brussels."
+
+"That is to say, that at Brussels you will salute me with your cap; but
+that at Mons you will salute me with your pistol."
+
+"As you say, Colonel."
+
+"In truth," said Charras, "it does not matter to me. It is King
+Leopold's business. The Bonaparte treats countries as he has treated the
+Representatives. He has violated the Assembly, he violates Belgium. But
+all the same, you are a medley of strange rascals. He who is at the top
+is a madman, those who are beneath are blockheads. Very well, my
+friends, let me go to sleep."
+
+And he went to sleep.
+
+Almost the same incident happened nearly at the same moment to Generals
+Changarnier and Lamoriciere and to M. Baze.
+
+The police agents did not leave General Changarnier until they had
+reached Mons. There they made him get down from the train, and said to
+him, "General, this is your place of residence. We leave you free."
+
+"Ah!" said he, "this is my place of residence, and I am free? Well,
+then, good-night."
+
+And he sprang lightly back into the carriage just as the train was
+starting, leaving behind him two galley sergeants dumfounded.
+
+The police released Charras at Brussels, but did not release General
+Lamoriciere. The two police agents wished to compel him to leave
+immediately for Cologne. The General, who was suffering from rheumatism
+which he had caught at Ham, declared that he would sleep at Brussels.
+
+"Be it so," said the police agents.
+
+They followed him to the Hotel de Bellevue. They spent the night there
+with him. He had considerable difficulty to prevent them from sleeping
+in his room. Next day they carried him off, and took him to
+Cologne-violating Prussian territory after having violated Belgian
+territory.
+
+The _coup d'etat_ was still more impudent with M. Baze.
+
+They made M. Baze journey with his wife and his children under the name
+of Lassalle. He passed for the servant of the police agent who
+accompanied him.
+
+They took him thus to Aix-la-Chapelle.
+
+There, in the middle of the night, in the middle of the street, the
+police agents deposited him and the whole of his family, without a
+passport, without papers, without money. M. Baze, indignant, was obliged
+to have recourse to threats to induce them to take him and identify him
+before a magistrate. It was, perhaps, part of the petty joys of
+Bonaparte to cause a Questor of the Assembly to be treated as a vagrant.
+
+On the night of the 7th of January, General Bedeau, although he was not
+to leave till the next day, was awakened like the others by the noise of
+bolts. He did not understand that they were shutting him in, but on the
+contrary, believed that they were releasing M. Baze, his neighbor in the
+adjoining cell. He cried through the door, "Bravo, Baze!"
+
+In fact, every day the Generals said to the Questor, "You have no
+business here, this is a military fortress. One of these fine mornings
+you will be thrust outside like Roger du Nord."
+
+Nevertheless General Bedeau heard an unusual noise in the fortress. He
+got up and "knocked" for General Leflo, his neighbor in the cell on the
+other side, with whom he exchanged frequent military dialogues, little
+flattering to the _coup d'etat_. General Leflo answered the knocking,
+but he did not know any more than General Bedeau.
+
+General Bedeau's window looked out on the inner courtyard of the prison.
+He went to this window and saw lanterns flashing hither and thither,
+species of covered carts, horsed, and a company of the 48th under arms.
+A moment afterwards he saw General Changarnier come into the courtyard,
+get into a carriage, and drive off. Some moments elapsed, then he saw
+Charras pass. Charras noticed him at the window, and cried out to him,
+"Mons!"
+
+In fact he believed he was going to Mons, and this made General Bedeau,
+on the next day, choose Mons as his residence, expecting to meet Charras
+there.
+
+Charras having left, M. Leopold Lehon came in accompanied by the
+Commandant of the fort. He saluted Bedeau, explained his business, and
+gave his name. General Bedeau confined himself to saying, "They banish
+us; it is an illegality, and one more indignity added to the others.
+However, with the people who send you one is no longer surprised at
+anything."
+
+They did not send him away till the next day. Louis Bonaparte had said,
+"We must 'space out' the Generals."
+
+The police agent charged with escorting General Bedeau to Belgium was
+one of those who, on the 2d of December, had arrested General Cavaignac.
+He told General Bedeau that they had had a moment of uneasiness when
+arresting General Cavaignae: the picket of fifty men, which had been
+told off to assist the police having failed them.
+
+In the compartment of the railway carriage which was taking General
+Bedeau into Belgium there was a lady, manifestly belonging to good
+society, of very distinguished appearance, and who was accompanied by
+three little children. A servant in livery, who appeared to be a German,
+had two of the children on his knees, and lavished a thousand little
+attentions on them. However, the General, hidden by the darkness, and
+muffled up, like the police agents, in the collar of his mantle, paid
+little attention to this group. When they reached Quievrain, the lady
+turned to him and said, "General, I congratulate you, you are now in
+safety."
+
+The General thanked her, and asked her name.
+
+"Baroness Coppens," she answered.
+
+It may be remembered that it was at M. Coppens's house, 70, Rue Blanche,
+that the first meeting of the Left had taken place on December 2d.
+
+"You have charming children there, madam," said the General, "and," he
+added, "an exceedingly good servant."
+
+"It is my husband," said Madame Coppens.
+
+M. Coppens, in fact, had remained five weeks buried in a hiding-place
+contrived in his own house. He had escaped from France that very night
+under the cover of his own livery. They had carefully taught their
+children their lesson. Chance had made them get into the same carriage
+as General Bedeau and the two bullies who were keeping guard over him,
+and throughout the night Madame Coppens had been in terror lest, in the
+presence of the policeman, one of the little ones awakening, should
+throw its arms around the neck of the servant and cry "Papa!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+
+A RETROSPECT
+
+Louis Bonaparte had tested the majority as engineers test a bridge; he
+had loaded it with iniquities, encroachments, enormities, slaughters on
+the Place du Havre, cries of "Long live the Emperor," distributions of
+money to the troops, sales of Bonapartist journals in the streets,
+prohibition of Republican and parliamentary journals, reviews at Satory,
+speeches at Dijon; the majority bore everything.
+
+"Good," said he, "It will carry the weight of the _coup d'etat_."
+
+Let us recall the facts. Before the 2d of December the _coup d'etat_ was
+being constructed in detail, here and there, a little everywhere, with
+exceeding impudence, and yet the majority smiled. The Representative
+Pascal Duprat had been violently treated by police agents. "That is very
+funny," said the Right. The Representative Dain was seized. "Charming."
+The Representative Sartin was arrested. "Bravo." One fine morning when
+all the hinges had been well tested and oiled, and when all the wires
+were well fixed, the _coup d'etat_ was carried out all at once,
+abruptly. The majority ceased to laugh, but the trick, was done. It had
+not perceived that for a long time past, while it was laughing at the
+strangling of others, the cord was round its own neck.
+
+Let us maintain this, not to punish the past, but to illuminate the
+future. Many months before being carried out, the _coup d'etat_ had been
+accomplished. The day having come, the hour having struck, the mechanism
+being completely wound up, it had only to be set going. It was bound not
+to fail, and nothing did fail. What would have been an abyss if the
+majority had done its duty, and had understood its joint responsibility
+with the Left, was not even a ditch. The inviolability had been
+demolished by those who were inviolable. The hand of gendarmes had
+become as accustomed to the collar of the Representatives as to the
+collar of thieves: the white tie of the statesman was not even rumpled
+in the grasp of the galley sergeants, and one can admire the Vicomte de
+Falloux--oh, candor!--for being dumfounded at being treated like Citizen
+Sartin.
+
+The majority, going backwards, and ever applauding Bonaparte, fell into
+the hole which Bonaparte had dug for it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+
+CONDUCT OF THE LEFT
+
+The conduct of the Republican Left in this grave crisis of the 2d of
+December was memorable.
+
+The flag of the Law was on the ground, in the mire of universal treason,
+under the feet of Louis Bonaparte; the Left raised this flag, washed
+away the mire with its blood, unfurled it, waved it before the eyes of
+the people, and from the 2d to the 5th of December held Bonaparte at
+bay.
+
+A few men, a mere handful, 120 Representatives of the people escaped by
+chance from arrest, plunged in darkness and in silence, without even
+possessing that cry of the free press which sounds the tocsin to human
+intellects, and which encourages the combatants, without generals under
+their orders, without soldiers, without ammunition, went down into the
+streets, resolutely barred the way against the _coup d'etat_, and gave
+battle to this monstrous crime, which had taken all its precautions,
+which was mail-clad in every part, armed to the teeth, crowding round it
+forests of bayonets, and making a pack of mortars and cannons give
+tongue in its favor.
+
+They had that presence of mind, which is the most practical kind of
+courage; they had, while lacking everything else, the formidable
+improvisation of duty, which never loses heart. They had no
+printing-offices, they obtained them; they had no guns, they found them;
+they had no balls, they cast them; they had no powder, they manufactured
+it; they had nothing but paving-stones, and from thence they evolved
+combatants.
+
+It is true that these paving-stones were the paving-stones of Paris,
+stones which change themselves into men.
+
+Such is the power of Right, that, during four days these hundred and
+twenty men, who had nothing in their favor but the goodness of their
+cause, counterbalanced an army of 100,000 soldiers. At one moment the
+scale turned on their side. Thanks to them, thanks to their resistance,
+seconded by the indignation of honest hearts, there came an hour when
+the victory of the law seemed possible, and even certain. On Thursday,
+the 4th, the _coup d'etat_ tottered, and was obliged to support itself
+by assassination. We seen that without the butchery of the boulevards,
+if he had not saved his perjury by a massacre, if he had not sheltered
+his crime by another crime, Louis Bonaparte was lost.
+
+During the long hours of this struggle, a struggle without a truce, a
+struggle against the army during the day and against the police during
+the night,--an unequal struggle, where all the strength and all the rage
+was on one side, and, as we have just said, nothing but Right on the
+other, not one of these hundred and twenty Representatives, not a single
+one failed at the call of duty, not one shunned the danger, not one drew
+back, not one wearied,--all these heads placed themselves resolutely
+under the axe, and for four days waited for it to fall.
+
+To-day captivity, transportation, expatriation, exile, the axe has
+fallen on nearly all these heads.
+
+I am one of those who have had no other merit in this struggle than to
+rally into one unique thought the courage of all; but let me here
+heartily render justice to those men amongst whom I pride myself with
+having for three years served the holy cause of human progress, to this
+Left, insulted, calumniated, unappreciated, and dauntless, which was
+always in the breach, and which did not repose for a single day, which
+recoiled none the more before the military conspiracy than before the
+parliamentary conspiracy, and which, entrusted by the people with the
+task of defending them, defended them even when abandoned by themselves;
+defended them in the tribune with speech, and in the street with the
+sword.
+
+When the Committee of Resistance in the sitting at which the decree of
+deposition and of outlawry was drawn up and voted, making use of the
+discretionary power which the Left had confided to it, decided that all
+the signatures of the Republican Representatives remaining at liberty
+should be placed at the foot of the decree, it was a bold stroke; the
+Committee did not conceal from itself that it was a list of proscription
+offered to the victorious _coup d'etat_ ready drawn up, and perhaps in
+its inner conscience it feared that some would disavow it, and protest
+against it. As a matter of fact, the next day we received two letters,
+two complaints. They were from two Representatives who had been omitted
+from the list, and who claimed the honor of being reinstated there. I
+reinstate these two Representatives here, in their right of being
+proscripts. Here are their names--Anglade and Pradie.
+
+From Tuesday, the 2d, to Friday, the 5th of December, the
+Representatives of the Left and the Committee, dogged, worried, hunted
+down, always on the point of being discovered and taken, that is to
+say--massacred; repaired for the purpose of deliberating, to
+twenty-seven different houses, shifted twenty-seven times their place of
+meeting, from their first gathering in the Rue Blanche to their last
+conference at Raymond's. They refused the shelters which were offered
+them on the left bank of the river, wishing always to remain in the
+centre of the combat. During these changes they more than once traversed
+the right bank of Paris from one end to the other, most of the time on
+foot, and making long circuits in order not to be followed. Everything
+threatened them with danger; their number, their well-known faces, even
+their precautions. In the populous streets there was danger, the police
+were permanently posted there; in the lonely streets there was danger,
+because the goings and comings were more noticed there.
+
+They did not sleep, they did not eat, they took what they could find, a
+glass of water from time to time, a morsel of bread here and there.
+Madame Landrin gave us a basin of soup, Madame Grevy the remainder of a
+cold pie. We dined one evening on a little chocolate which a chemist had
+distributed in a barricade. At Jeunesse's, in the Rue de Grammont,
+during the night of the 3rd, Michel de Bourges took a chair, and said,
+"This is my bed." Were they tired? They did not feel it. The old men,
+like Ronjat, the sick, like Boysset, all went forward. The public peril,
+like a fever, sustained them.
+
+Our venerable colleague, Lamennais, did not come, but he remained three
+days without going to bed, buttoned up in his old frock coat, his thick
+boots on his feet, ready to march. He wrote to the author these three
+lines, which it is impossible not to quote:--"You are heroes without me.
+This pains me greatly. I await your orders. Try, then, to find me
+something to do, be it but to die."
+
+In these meetings each man preserved his usual demeanor. At times one
+might have thought it an ordinary sitting in one of the bureaux of the
+Assembly. There was the calm of every day, mingled with the firmness of
+decisive crises. Edgar Quinet retained all his lofty judgment, Noel
+Parfait all his mental vivacity, Yvan all his vigorous and intelligent
+penetration, Labrousse all his animation. In a corner Pierre Lefranc,
+pamphleteer and ballad-writer, but a pamphleteer like Courier, and a
+ballad-writer like Beranger smiled at the grave and stern words of
+Dupont de Bussac. All that brilliant group of young orators of the Left,
+Baneel with his powerful ardor, Versigny and Victor Chauffour with their
+youthful daring. Sain with his coolheadedness which reveals strength,
+Farconnet with his gentle voice and his energetic inspiration, lavishing
+his efforts in resisting the _coup d'etat_, sometimes taking part in the
+deliberations, at others amongst the people, proving that to be an
+orator one must possess all the qualifications of a combatant. De
+Flotte, indefatigable, was ever ready to traverse all Paris. Xavier
+Durrieu was courageous, Dulac dauntless, Charamaule fool-hardy. Citizens
+and Paladins. Courage! who would have dared to exhibit none amongst all
+these men, of whom not one trembled? Untrimmed beards, torn coats,
+disordered hair, pale faces, pride glistening in every eye. In the
+houses where they were received they installed themselves as best they
+could. If there were no sofas or chairs, some, exhausted in strength,
+but not in heart, seated themselves on the floor. All became copyists of
+the decrees and proclamations; one dictated, ten wrote. They wrote on
+tables, on the corners of furniture, on their knees. Frequently paper
+was lacking, pens were wanting. These wretched trifles created obstacles
+at the most critical times. At certain moments in the history of peoples
+an inkstand where the ink is dried up may prove a public calamity.
+Moreover, cordiality prevailed among all, all shades of difference were
+effaced. In the secret sittings of the Committee Madier de Montjau, that
+firm and generous heart, De Flotte, brave and thoughtful, a fighting
+philosopher of the Devolution, Carnot, accurate, cold, tranquil,
+immovable, Jules Favre, eloquent, courageous, admirable through his
+simplicity and his strength, inexhaustible in resources as in sarcasms,
+doubled, by combining them, the diverse powers of their minds.
+
+Michel de Bourges, seated in a corner of the fireplace, or leaning on a
+table enveloped in his great coat, his black silk cap on his head, had
+an answer for every suggestion, gave back to occurrences blow for blow,
+was on his guard for danger, difficulty, opportunity, necessity, for his
+is one of those wealthy natures which have always something ready either
+in their intellect or in their imagination. Words of advice crossed
+without jostling each other. These men entertained no illusion. They
+knew that they had entered into a life-and-death struggle. They had no
+quarter to expect. They had to do with the Man who had said, "Crush
+everything." They knew the bloody words of the self-styled Minister,
+Merny. These words the placards of Saint-Arnaud interpreted by decrees,
+the Praetorians let loose in the street interpreted them by murder. The
+members of the Insurrectionary Committee and the Representatives
+assisting at the meetings were not ignorant that wherever they might be
+taken they would be killed on the spot by bayonet-thrusts. It was the
+fortune of this war. Yet the prevailing expression on every face was
+serenity; that profound serenity which comes from a happy conscience. At
+times this serenity rose to gaiety. They laughed willingly and at
+everything. At the torn trousers of one, at the hat which another had
+brought back from the barricade instead of his own, at the comforter of
+a third. "Hide your big body," they said to him. They were children, and
+everything amused them. On the morning of the 4th Mathien de la Drome
+came in. He had organized for his part a committee which communicated
+with the Central Committee, he came to tell us of it. He had shaved off
+his fringe of beard so as not to be recognized in the streets. "You look
+like an Archbishop," said Michel de Bourges to him, and there was a
+general laugh. And all this, with this thought which every moment
+brought back; the noise which is heard at the door, the key which turns
+in the lock is perhaps Death coming in.
+
+The Representatives and the Committee were at the mercy of chance. More
+than once they could have been captured, and they were not; either owing
+to the scruples of certain police agents (where the deuce will scruples
+next take up their abode?) or that these agents doubted the final
+result, and feared to lay their hand heedlessly upon possible victors.
+If Vassal, the Commissary of Police, who met us on the morning of the
+4th, on the pavement of the Rue des Moulins, had wished, we might have
+been taken that day. He did not betray us. But these were exceptions.
+The pursuit of the police was none the less ardent and implacable. At
+Marie's, it may be remembered that the _sergents de ville_ and the
+gendarmes arrived ten minutes after we had left the house, and that they
+even ransacked under the beds with their bayonets.
+
+Amongst the Representatives there were several Constituents, and at
+their head Bastide. Bastide, in 1848, had been Minister for Foreign
+Affairs. During the second night, meeting in the Rue Popincourt, they
+reproached him with several of his actions. "Let me first get myself
+killed," he answered, "and then you can reproach me with what you like."
+And he added, "How can you distrust me, who am a Republican up to the
+hilt?" Bastide would not consent to call our resistance the
+"insurrection," he called it the "counter-insurrection." he said,
+"Victor Hugo is right. The insurgent is at the Elysee." It was my
+opinion, as we have seen, that we ought to bring the battle at once to
+an issue, to defer nothing, to reserve nothing; I said, "We must strike
+the _coup d'etat_ while it is hot." Bastide supported me. In the combat
+he was impassive, cold, gay beneath his coldness. At the Saint Antoine
+barricade, at the moment when the guns of the _coup d'etat_ were leveled
+at the Representatives of the people, he said smilingly to Madier de
+Montjau, "Ask Schoelcher what he thinks of the abolition of the penalty
+of death." (Schoelcher, like myself, at this supreme moment, would have
+answered, "that it ought to be abolished") In another barricade Bastide,
+compelled to absent himself for a moment, placed his pipe on a
+paving-stone. They found Bastide's pipe, and they thought him dead. He
+came back, and it was hailing musket-balls; he said, "My pipe?" he
+relighted it and resumed the fight. Two balls pierced his coat.
+
+When the barricades were constructed, the Republican Representatives
+spread themselves abroad; and distributed themselves amongst them.
+Nearly all the Representatives of the Left repaired to the barricades,
+assisting either to build them or to defend them. Besides the great
+exploit at Saint Antoine barricade, where Schoelcher was so admirable,
+Esquiros went to the barricade of the Rue de Charonne, De Flotte to
+those of the Pantheon and of the Chapelle Saint Denis, Madier de
+Montjau to those of Belleville and the Rue Aumaire, Doutre and Pelletier
+to that of the Mairie of the Fifth Arrondissement, Brives to that of Rue
+Beaubourg, Arnauld de l'Ariege to that of Rue de Petit-Repisoir, Viguier
+to that of the Rue Pagevin, Versigny to that of the Rue Joigneaux;
+Dupont de Bussac to that of the Carre Saint Martin; Carlos Forel and
+Boysset to that of the Rue Rambuteau. Doutre received a sword-cut on his
+head, which cleft his hat; Bourzat had four balls in his overcoat;
+Baudin was killed; Gaston Dussoubs was ill and could not come; his
+brother, Denis Dussoubs, replaced him. Where? In the tomb.
+
+Baudin fell on the first barricade, Denis Dussoubs on the last.
+
+I was less favored than Bourzat; I only had three balls in my overcoat,
+and it is impossible for me to say whence they came. Probably from the
+boulevard.
+
+After the battle was lost there was no general helter-skelter, no rout,
+no flight. All remained hidden in Paris ready to reappear, Michel in the
+Rue d'Alger, myself in the Rue de Navarin. The Committee held yet
+another sitting on Saturday, the 6th, at eleven o'clock at night. Jules
+Favre, Michel de Bourges, and myself, we came during the night to the
+house of a generous and brave woman, Madame Didier. Bastide came there
+and said to me, "If you are not killed here, you are going to enter upon
+exile. For myself, I am going to remain in Paris. Take me for your
+lieutenant." I have related this incident.
+
+They hoped for the 9th (Tuesday) a resumption of arms, which did not
+take place. Malarmet had announced it to Dupont de Bussac, but the blow
+of the 4th had prostrated Paris. The populace no longer stirred. The
+Representatives did not resolve to think of their safety, and to quit
+France through a thousand additional dangers until several days
+afterwards, when the last spark of resistance was extinguished in the
+heart of the people, and the last glimmer of hope in heaven.
+
+Several Republican Representatives were workmen; they have again become
+workmen in exile. Nadaud has resumed his trowel, and is a mason in
+London. Faure (du Rhone), a cutler, and Bansept, a shoemaker, felt that
+their trade had become their duty, and practise it in England. Faure
+makes knives, Bansept makes boots. Greppo is a weaver, it was he who
+when a proscript made the coronation robe of Queen Victoria. Gloomy
+smile of Destiny. Noel Parfait is a proof-reader at Brussels; Agricol
+Perdiguier, called Avignonnais-la-Vertu, has girded on his leathern
+apron, and is a cabinet-maker at Antwerp. Yesterday these men sat in the
+Sovereign Assembly. Such things as these are seen in Plutarch.
+
+The eloquent and courageous proscript, Emile Deschanel, has created at
+Brussels, with a rare talent of speech, a new form of public
+instruction, the Conferences. To him is due the honor of this
+foundation, so fruitful and so useful.
+
+Let us say in conclusion that the National Legislative Assembly lived
+badly but died well.
+
+At this moment of the fall, irreparable for the cowards, the Right was
+worthy, the Left was great.
+
+Never before has History seen a Parliament fall in this manner.
+
+February had blown upon the Deputies of the legal country, and the
+Deputies had vanished. M. Sauzet had sunk down behind the tribune, and
+had gone away without even taking his hat.
+
+Bonaparte, the other, the first, the true Bonaparte, had made the "Five
+Hundred" step out of the windows of the Orangery of Saint Cloud,
+somewhat embarrassed with their large mantles.
+
+Cromwell, the oldest of the Bonapartes, when he achieved his Eighteenth
+Brumaire, encountered scarcely any other resistance than a few
+imprecations from Milton and from Ludlaw, and was able to say in his
+boorishly gigantic language, "I have put the King in my knapsack and the
+Parliament in my pocket."
+
+We must go back to the Roman Senate in order to find true Curule chairs.
+
+The Legislative Assembly, let us repeat, to its honor, did not lose
+countenance when facing the abyss. History will keep an account of it.
+After having betrayed so many things, it might have been feared that
+this Assembly would end by betraying itself. It did nothing of the kind.
+The Legislature, one is obliged to remember, had committed faults upon
+faults; the Royalist majority had, in the most odious manner, persecuted
+the Republican minority, which was bravely doing its duty in denouncing
+it to the people; this Assembly had had a very long cohabitation and a
+most fatal complicity with the Man of Crime, who had ended by strangling
+it as a robber strangles his concubine in his bed; but whatever may be
+said of this fateful Assembly, it did not exhibit that wretched
+vanishing away which Louis Bonaparte hoped for; it was not a coward.
+
+This is due to its having originated from universal suffrage. Let us
+mention this, for it is an instructive lesson. The virtue of this
+universal suffrage, which had begotten the Assembly and which the
+Assembly had wished to slay, it felt in itself to its last hour.
+
+The sap of a whole people does not spread in vain throughout an
+Assembly, even throughout the most decrepit. On the decisive day this
+sap asserts itself.
+
+The Legislative Assembly, laden as it may be with formidable
+responsibilities, will, perhaps, be less overwhelmed than it deserves by
+the reprobation of posterity.
+
+Thanks to universal suffrage, which it had deceived, and which
+constituted its faith and its strength at the last moment, thanks to the
+Left, which it had oppressed, scoffed at, calumniated, and decimated,
+and which cast on it the glorious reflection of its heroism, this
+pitiful Assembly died a grand death.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+
+PAGE WRITTEN AT BRUSSELS
+
+Well then, yes, I will kick open the door of this Palace, and I will
+enter with you, History! I will seize by the collar all the
+perpetrators, continually caught red-handed in the commission of all
+these outrages! I will suddenly illuminate this cavern of night with the
+broad daylight of truth!
+
+Yes, I will bring in the daylight! I will tear down the curtain, I will
+open the window, I will show to every eye such as it really is,
+infamous, horrible, wealthy, triumphant, joyous, gilded,
+besmirched--this Elysee! this Court! this group! this heap! call it what
+you will! this galley-crew! where writhe and crawl, and pair and breed
+every baseness, every indignity, every abomination: filibusters,
+buccaneers, swearers of oaths, Signers of the Cross, spies, swindlers,
+butchers, executioners, from the brigand who vends his sword, to the
+Jesuit who sells his God second-hand! This sink where Baroche elbows
+Teste! where each brings his own nastiness! Magnan his epaulets;
+Montalembert his religion, Dupin his person!
+
+And above all the innermost circle, the Holy of Holies, the private
+Council, the smug den where they drink--where they eat--where they
+laugh--where they sleep--where they play--where they cheat--where they
+call Highnesses "Thou,"--where they wallow! Oh! what ignominies! It is
+them! It is there! Dishonor, baseness, shame, and opprobrium are there!
+Oh History! A hot iron for all these faces.
+
+It is there that they amuse themselves, and that they jest, and that
+they banter, and that they make sport of France! It is there that they
+pocket hap-hazard, amid great shouts of laughter, the millions of louis
+and the millions of votes! See them, look at them! They have treated the
+Law like a girl, they are content! Right is slaughtered, Liberty is
+gagged, the flag is dishonored, the people are under their feet. They
+are happy! And who are they? What are these men? Europe knows not. One
+fine morning it saw them come out of a crime. Nothing more. A parcel of
+rascals who vainly tried to become celebrated, and who have remained
+anonymous. Look! they are all there! See them, I tell you! Look at them,
+I tell you! Recognize them if you can. Of what sex are they? To what
+species do they belong? Who is this one? Is he a writer? No; he is a
+dog. He gobbles human flesh. And that one? Is he a dog? No, he is a
+courtier--he has blood on his paw.
+
+New men, that is what they term them. New, in truth! Unlooked-for,
+strange, unprecedented, monstrous! Perjury, iniquity, robbery,
+assassination, erected into ministerial departments, swindling applied
+to universal suffrage, government under false pretences, duty called
+crime, crime called duty, cynicism laughing in the midst of
+atrocity,--it is of all this that their newness is compounded.
+
+Now, all is well, they have succeeded, they have a fair wind, they enjoy
+themselves to the full. They have cheated France, they are dividing the
+spoil. France is a bag, and they put their hand in it. Rummage, for
+Heaven's sake! Take, while you are there; help yourselves, draw out,
+plunder, steal! One wants money, another wants situations, another wants
+a decorative collar round his neck, another a plume in his hat, another
+embroidery on his sleeve, another women, another power; another news for
+the Bourse, another a railway, another wine. I should think, indeed,
+that they are well satisfied. Picture to yourself a poor devil who,
+three years ago, borrowed ten sous of his porter, and who to-day,
+leaning voluptuously on the _Moniteur_, has only to sign a decree to
+take a million. To make themselves perfectly happy, to be able to devour
+the finances of the State, to live at the expense of the Treasury like a
+son of the family, this is what is called their policy. Their ambition
+has a true name, it is gluttony.
+
+They ambitious? Nonsense! They are gluttons. To govern is to gamble.
+This does not prevent betrayal. On the contrary, they spy upon each
+other, they betray each other. The little traitors betray the great
+traitors. Pietri looks askance at Maupas, and Maupas at Carlier. They
+all lie in the same reeking sewer! They have achieved the _coup d'etat_
+in common. That is all. Moreover they feel sure of nothing, neither of
+glances, nor of smiles, nor of hidden thoughts, nor of men, nor of
+women, nor of the lacquey, nor of the prince, nor of words of honor, nor
+of birth certificates. Each feels himself fraudulent, and knows himself
+suspected. Each has his secret aims. Each alone knows why he has done
+this. Not one utters a word about his crime, and no one bears the name
+of his father. Ah! may God grant me life, and may Jesus pardon me, I
+will raise a gibbet a hundred yards high, I will take hammer and nails,
+and I will crucify this Beauharnais called Bonaparte, between this Leroy
+called Saint-Arnoud, and this Fialin called Persigny!
+
+And I would drag you there also, all of you accomplices! This Morny,
+this Romieu, this Fould, the Jew senator, this Delangle, who bears on
+his back this placard: JUSTICE! and this Troplong, this judicial
+glorifier of the violation of the laws, this lawyer apologist of the
+_coup d'etat_, this magistrate flatterer of perjury, this judge
+panegyrist of murder, who will go down to posterity with a sponge filled
+with mud and with blood in his hand.
+
+I begin the battle therefore. With whom? With the present ruler of
+Europe. It is right that this spectacle should be given to the world.
+Louis Bonaparte is the success, is the intoxicated triumph, is the gay
+and ferocious despotism, opening out under the victory, he is the mad
+fulness of power, seeking limits and finding none, neither in things nor
+in men; Louis Bonaparte holds France, _Urbem Roman habit_; and whoever
+holds France holds the world; he is master of the votes, master of the
+consciences, master of the people; he nominates his successor, reigns
+forever over future electoral scrutinies, disposes of eternity, and
+places futurity in an envelope; his Senate, his Legislative Body, his
+Council of State, with heads lowered and mingled confusedly behind him,
+lick his feet; he drags along in a leash the bishops and cardinals; he
+tramples on the justice which curses him, and on the judges who adore
+him, thirty correspondents inform the Continent that he has frowned, and
+every electric telegraph vibrates if he raises his little finger; around
+him is heard the rustling of sabres, and the drums beat the salute; he
+sits under the shadow of the eagle in the midst of bayonets and of
+citadels, the free nations tremble and hide their liberties for fear
+that he should steal them, the great American Republic herself falters
+in his presence, and dares not withdraw her Ambassador from him; the
+kings, surrounded by their armies, look at him smilingly, with their
+hearts full of fear. Where will he begin? With Belgium? With
+Switzerland? With Piedmont? Europe expects to be overrun. He is capable
+of all, and he dreams of all.
+
+Well, then! Before this master, this triumpher, this conqueror, this
+dictator, this Emperor, this all-powerful, there rises a solitary man, a
+wanderer, despoiled, ruined, prostrate, proscribed, and attacks him.
+Louis Napoleon has ten thousand cannons, and five hundred thousand
+soldiers; the writer has his pen and his ink-stand. The writer is
+nothing, he is a grain of dust, he is a shadow, he is an exile without a
+refuge, he is a vagrant without a passport, but he has by his side and
+fighting with him two powers, Right, which is invincible, and Truth,
+which is immortal.
+
+Assuredly, for this struggle to the death, for this formidable duel,
+Providence could have chosen a more illustrious champion, a grander
+athlete. But what matter men, there, where it is the idea with combats!
+Such as it is, it is good, let us repeat, that this spectacle should be
+given to the world. What is this in truth? It is intellect, an atom
+which resists strength--a colossus.
+
+I have only one stone in my sling, but that stone is a good one; that
+stone is justice.
+
+I attack Louis Bonaparte at this hour, when he is erect; at this hour,
+when he is master. He is in his zenith. So much the better; it is that
+which suits me.
+
+Yes, I attack Louis Bonaparte. I attack him before the world; I attack
+him in the presence of God and men; I attack him resolutely,
+desperately; for the love of the people and of France. He is about to be
+Emperor, let it be so. Let there be at least one brow which resists. Let
+Louis Bonaparte know that an Empire may be taken, but that a Conscience
+cannot be taken.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+
+THE INFALLIBLE BENEDICTION
+
+The Pope approved.
+
+When the mails brought to Rome intelligence of the event of the 2d of
+December, the Pope went to a review held by General Gemeau, and begged
+him to congratulate Prince Louis Napoleon for him.
+
+There was a precedent for this.
+
+On the 12th December, 1572, Saint-Goard, Ambassador of Charles the
+Ninth, King of France, to Philip the Second, King of Spain, wrote from
+Madrid to his master, Charles the Ninth, "The news of the events of the
+day of Saint Bartholomew have reached the Catholic King. Contrary to his
+wont and custom, he has shown so much joy, that he has manifested it
+more openly than he has ever done for all the happy events and good
+fortune which have previously befallen him. So that I went to him on
+Sunday morning at Saint Hieronimus, and having approached him, he burst
+out laughing, and with every demonstration of extreme pleasure and
+contentment, began to praise your Majesty."[36]
+
+The hand of Pius IX. remained extended over France, when it had become
+the Empire.
+
+Then, under the shadow of this benediction, began an era of prosperity.
+
+
+[36] "Archives of the house of Orange," page 125, Supplement.
+
+
+
+
+CONCLUSION--THE FALL.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+I was coming back from my fourth exile--an exile in Belgium, a small
+matter. It was one of the last days of September, 1871. I was
+re-entering France by the Luxembourg frontier. I had fallen asleep in
+the carriage. Suddenly the jolt of the train coming to a standstill
+awoke me. I opened my eyes.
+
+The train had stopped in the middle of a charming landscape.
+
+I was in the half-consciousness of an interrupted sleep; and ideas, as
+yet half-dreams, hazy and diffuse, hovered between myself and reality. I
+experienced the undefinable and confused sensation of awakening.
+
+A river flowed by the side of the railway, clear, around a bright and
+verdant island. This vegetation was so thick that the moor-hens, on
+reaching it, plunged beneath it and disappeared. The river wound through
+a valley, which appeared like a huge garden. Apple-trees were there,
+which reminded one of Eve, and willows, which made one think of Galatea.
+It was, as I have said, in one of those equinoctial months when may be
+felt the peculiar charm of a season drawing to a close. If it be winter
+which is passing away, you hear the song of approaching spring; if it be
+summer which is vanishing, you see glimmering on the horizon the
+undefinable smile of autumn. The wind lulled and harmonized all those
+pleasant sounds which compose the murmur of the fields; the tinkling of
+the sheep-bells seemed to soothe the humming of the bees; the last
+butterflies met together with the first grapes; this hour of the year
+mingles the joy of being still alive with the unconscious melancholy of
+fast approaching death; the sweetness of the sun was indescribable.
+Fertile fields streaked with furrows, honest peasants' cottages; under
+the trees a turf covered with shade, the lowing of cattle as in Virgil,
+and the smoke of hamlets penetrated by rays of sunshine; such was the
+complete picture. The clanging of anvils rang in the distance, the
+rhythm of work amidst the harmony of nature. I listened, I mused
+vaguely. The valley was beautiful and quiet, the blue heavens seemed as
+though resting upon a lovely circle of hills; in the distance were the
+voices of birds, and close to me the voices of children, like two songs
+of angels mingled together; the universal purity enshrouded me: all this
+grace and all this grandeur shed a golden dawn into my soul....
+
+Suddenly a fellow-traveller asked,--
+
+"What place is this?"
+
+Another answered,--
+
+"Sedan."
+
+I shuddered.
+
+This paradise was a tomb.
+
+I looked around. The valley was circular and hollow, like the bottom of
+a crater; the winding river resembled a serpent; the high hills, ranged
+one behind the other, surrounded this mysterious spot like a triple line
+of inexorable walls; once there, there is no means of exit. It reminded
+me of the amphitheatres. An indescribable disquieting vegetation which
+seemed to be an extension of the Black Forest, overran all the heights,
+and lost itself in the horizon like a huge impenetrable snare; the sun
+shone, the birds sang, carters passed by whistling; sheep, lambs, and
+pigeons were scattered about, leaves quivered and rustled; the grass, a
+densely thick grass, was full of flowers. It was appalling.
+
+I seemed to see waving over this valley the flashing of the avenging
+angel's sword.
+
+This word "Sedan" had been like a veil abruptly torn aside. The
+landscape had become suddenly filled with tragedy. Those shapeless eyes
+which the bark of trees delineates on the trunks were gazing--at what?
+At something terrible and lost to view.
+
+In truth, that was the place! And at the moment when I was passing by
+thirteen months all but a few days had elapsed. That was the place where
+the monstrous enterprise of the 2d of December had burst asunder. A
+fearful shipwreck.
+
+The gloomy pathways of Fate cannot be studied without profound anguish
+of the heart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+On the 31st of August, 1870, an army was reassembled, and was, as it
+were, massed together under the walls of Sedan, in a place called the
+Givonne Valley. This army was a French army--twenty-nine brigades,
+fifteen divisions, four army corps--90,000 men. This army was in this
+place without any one being able to divine the reason; without order,
+without an object, scattered about--a species of heap of men thrown down
+there as though with the view of being seized by some huge hand.
+
+This army either did not entertain, or appeared not to entertain, for
+the moment any immediate uneasiness. They knew, or at least they thought
+they knew, that the enemy was a long way off. On calculating the stages
+at four leagues daily, it was three days' march distant. Nevertheless,
+towards evening the leaders took some wise strategic precautions; they
+protected the army, which rested in the rear on Sedan and the Meuse, by
+two battle fronts, one composed of the 7th Corps, and extending from
+Floing to Givonne, the other composed of the 12th Corps, extending from
+Givonne to Bazeilles; a triangle of which the Meuse formed the
+hypothenuse. The 12th Corps, formed of the three divisions of
+Lacretelle, Lartigue, and Wolf, ranged on the right, with the artillery,
+between the brigades formed a veritable barrier, having Bazeilles and
+Givonne at each end, and Daigny in its centre; the two divisions of
+Petit and Lheritier massed in the rear upon two lines supported this
+barrier. General Lebrun commanded the 12th Corps. The 7th Corps,
+commanded by General Douay, only possessed two divisions--Dumont's
+division and Gilbert's division--and formed the other battle front,
+covering the army of Givonne to Floing on the side of Illy; this battle
+front was comparatively weak, too open on the side of Givonne, and only
+protected on the side of the Meuse by the two cavalry divisions of
+Margueritte and Bonnemains, and by Guyomar's brigade, resting in squares
+upon Floing. Within this triangle were encamped the 5th Corps, commanded
+by General Wimpfen, and the 1st Corps, commanded by General Ducrot.
+Michel's cavalry division covered the 1st Corps on the side of Daigny;
+the 5th supported itself upon Sedan. Four divisions, each disposed upon
+two lines--the divisions of Lheritier, Grandchamp, Goze, and
+Conseil-Dumenil--formed a sort of horseshoe, turned towards Sedan, and
+uniting the first battle front with the second. The cavalry division of
+Ameil and the brigade of Fontanges served as a reserve for these four
+divisions. The whole of the artillery was upon the two battle fronts.
+Two portions of the army were in confusion, one to the right of Sedan
+beyond Balan, the other to the left of Sedan, on this side of Iges.
+Beyond Balan were the divisions of Vassoigne and the brigade of Reboul,
+on this side of Iges were the two cavalry divisions of Margueritte and
+Bonnemains.
+
+These arrangements indicated a profound feeling of security. In the
+first place the Emperor Napoleon III. would not have come there if he
+had not been perfectly tranquil. This Givonne Valley is what Napoleon I.
+called a "washhand basin." There could not be a more complete enclosure.
+An army is so much at home there that it is too much so; it runs the
+risk of no longer being able to get out. This disquieted some brave and
+prudent leaders such as Wimpfen, but they were not listened to. If
+absolutely necessary, said the people of the Imperial circle, they could
+always be sure of being able to reach Mezieres, and at the worst the
+Belgian frontier. Was it, however, needful to provide for such extreme
+eventualities? In certain cases foresight is almost an offence. They
+were all of one mind, therefore, to be at their ease.
+
+If they had been uneasy they would have cut the bridges of the Meuse;
+but they did not even think of it. To what purpose? The enemy was a long
+way off. The Emperor, who evidently was well informed, affirmed it.
+
+The army bivouacked somewhat in confusion, as we have said, and slept
+peaceably throughout this night of August 31, having, whatever might
+happen, or believing that they had, the retreat upon Mezieres open
+behind it. They disdained to take the most ordinary precautions, they
+made no cavalry reconnaissances, they did not even place outposts. A
+German military writer has stated this.[37] Fourteen leagues at least
+separated them from the German army, three days' march; they did not
+exactly know where it was; they believed it scattered, possessing little
+unity, badly informed, led somewhat at random upon several points at
+once, incapable of a movement converging upon one single point, like
+Sedan; they believed that the Crown Prince of Saxony was marching on
+Chalons, and that the Crown Prince of Prussia was marching on Metz; they
+were ignorant of everything appertaining to this army, its leaders, its
+plan, its armament, its effective force. Was it still following the
+strategy of Gustavus Adolphus? Was it still following the tactics of
+Frederick II.? No one knew. They felt sure of being at Berlin in a few
+weeks. What nonsense! The Prussian army! They talked of this war as of a
+dream, and of this army as of a phantom.
+
+During this very night, while the French army was sleeping, this is what
+was taking place.
+
+
+[37] M. Harwik.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+At a quarter to two in the morning, at his headquarters at Mouzon,
+Albert, Crown Prince of Saxony, set the Army of the Meuse in motion; the
+Royal Guard were beat to arms, and two divisions marched, one upon
+Villers-Cernay, by Escambre and Fouru-aux-Bois, the other upon
+Francheval by Suchy and Fouru-Saint-Remy. The Artillery of the Guard
+followed.
+
+At the same moment the 12th Saxon Corps was beaten to arms, and by the
+high road to the south of Douzy reached Lamecourt, and marched upon La
+Moncelle; the 1st Bavarian Corps marched upon Bazeilles, supported at
+Reuilly-sur-Meuse by an Artillery Division of the 4th Corps. The other
+division of the 4th Corps crossed the Meuse at Mouzon, and massed itself
+in reserve at Mairy, upon the right bank. These three columns maintained
+close communication with each other. The order was given to the advanced
+guards to begin no offensive movement before five o'clock, and silently
+to occupy Fouru-aux-Bois, Fouru-Saint-Remy, and Douay. They had left
+their knapsacks behind them. The baggage-wagons did not stir. The Crown
+Prince of Saxony was on horseback on the heights of Amblimont.
+
+At the same time, at his headquarters at Chemery, Blumenthal was having
+a bridge built over the Meuse by the Wurtemburg division. The 11th
+Corps, astir before daylight, crossed the Meuse at Dom-le-Mesnil and at
+Donchery, and reached Vrigne-sur-Bois. The artillery followed, and held
+the road from Vrigne to Sedan. The Wurtemburg division kept the bridge
+which it had built, and held the road from Sedan to Mezieres. At five
+o'clock, the 2d Bavarian Corps, with the artillery at its head, detached
+one of its divisions, and sent it by Bulson upon Frenois; the other
+division passed by Noyers, and drew up before Sedan, between Frenois and
+Wadelincourt. The artillery of the Reserve was drawn up on the heights
+of the left bank, opposite Donchery.
+
+At the same time the 6th Cavalry Division was sent from Mazeray, and
+passing by Boutancourt and Bolzicourt, reached the Meuse at Flize; the
+2d Cavalry Division quitted its encampment, and took up its position to
+the south of Boutancourt; the 4th Cavalry Division took up its position
+to the south of Frenois; the 1st Bavarian Corps installed itself at
+Remilly; the 5th Cavalry Division and the 6th Corps were posted to
+observe, and all in line, and order, massed upon the heights waited for
+the dawn to appear. The Crown Prince of Prussia was on horseback on the
+hill of Frenois.
+
+At the same moment, upon every point of the horizon, other and similar
+movements were taking place from every side. The high hills were
+suddenly overrun by an immense black army. Not one shout of command. Two
+hundred and fifty thousand men came silently to encircle the Givonne
+Valley.
+
+This is what the circle consisted of,--
+
+The Bavarians, the right wing, at Bazeilles on the Meuse; next to the
+Bavarians the Saxons, at La Moncelle and Daigny; opposite Givonne, the
+Royal Guard; the 5th Corps at Saint Menges; the 2d at Flaigneux; the
+Wurtemburgers at the bend of the Meuse, between Saint Menges and
+Donchery; Count Stolberg and his cavalry at Donchery; in front, towards
+Sedan, the 2d Bavarian Army.
+
+All this was carried out in a ghostly manner, in order, without a
+whisper, without a sound, through forests, ravines, and valleys. A
+tortuous and ill-omened march. A stealthy gliding onwards of reptiles.
+
+Scarcely could a murmur be heard beneath the thick foliage. The silent
+battle swarmed in the darkness awaiting the day.
+
+The French army was sleeping.
+
+Suddenly it awoke.
+
+It was a prisoner.
+
+The sun rose, brilliant on the side of God--terrible on the side of man.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+Let us review the situation.
+
+The Germans have numbers on their side; they are three against one,
+perhaps four; they own to 250,000 men, and it is certain that their
+attacking front extended for 30 kilometres; they have on their side the
+positions, they crown the heights, they fill the forests, they are
+covered by all these escarpments, they are masked by all this shade;
+they possess an incomparable artillery. The French army is in a valley,
+almost without artillery and without supplies, utterly naked beneath
+their hail of lead. The Germans have on their side the ambuscade, and
+the French have only on their side heroism. Death is glorious, but
+surprise is profitable.
+
+A surprise, that is the true description of this brilliant exploit.
+
+Is it fair warfare? Yes. But if this is fair, what is unfair warfare? It
+is the same thing.
+
+This said, the story of the Battle of Sedan has been told.
+
+I should have wished to stop there. But I cannot. Whatever horror the
+historian may feel, History is a duty, and this duty must be fulfilled.
+There is no incline more inexorable than this: to tell the truth; he who
+ventures on it rolls to the very bottom. It must be so. The guardian of
+Justice is doomed to justice.
+
+The Battle of Sedan is more than a battle which has been fought; it is a
+syllogism which is completed; a formidable premeditation of destiny.
+Destiny never hurries, but it always comes. At its hour, there it is. It
+allows years to pass by, and at the moment when men are least thinking
+of it, it appears. Of this character is the fatal, the unexpected
+catastrophe named Sedan. From time to time in History, Divine logic
+makes an onslaught. Sedan is one of those onslaughts.
+
+Thus on the 1st of September, at five o'clock in the morning the world
+awoke under the sun, and the French army under the thunderbolt.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+Bazeilles takes fire, Givonne takes fire, Floing takes fire; the battle
+begins with a furnace. The whole horizon is aflame. The French camp is
+in this crater, stupefied, affrighted, starting up from sleeping,--a
+funereal swarming. A circle of thunder surrounds the army. They are
+encircled by annihilation. This mighty slaughter is carried on on all
+sides simultaneously. The French resist, and they are terrible, having
+nothing left but despair. Our cannon, almost all old-fashioned and of
+short range, are at once dismounted by the fearful and exact aim of the
+Prussians. The density of the rain of shells upon the valley is so
+great, that "the earth is completely furrowed," says an eye-witness, "as
+though by a rake." How many cannon? Eleven hundred at least. Twelve
+German batteries upon La Moncelle alone; the 3d and 4th _Abtheilung_, an
+awe-striking artillery, upon the crests of Givonne, with the 2d horse
+battery in reserve; opposite Doigny ten Saxon and two Wurtemburg
+batteries; the curtain of trees of the wood to the north of
+Villers-Cernay masks the mounted _Abtheilung_, which is there with the
+3d Heavy Artillery in reserve, and from this gloomy copse issues a
+formidable fire; the twenty-four pieces of the 1st Heavy Artillery are
+ranged in the glade skirting the road from La Moncelle to La Chapelle;
+the battery of the Royal Guard sets fire to the Garenne Wood; the shells
+and the balls riddle Suchy, Francheval, Fouru-Saint-Remy, and the valley
+between Heibes and Givonne; and the third and fourth rank of cannon
+extend without break of continuity as far as the Calvary of Illy, the
+extreme point of the horizon. The German soldiers, seated or lying
+before the batteries, watch the artillery at work. The French soldiers
+fall and die. Amongst the bodies which cover the plain there is one, the
+body of an officers on which they will find, after the battle, a sealed
+note, containing this order, signed NAPOLEON: "To-day, September 1st,
+rest for the whole army."
+
+The gallant 35th of the Line almost completely disappears under the
+overwhelming shower of shells; the brave Marine Infantry holds at bay
+for a moment the Saxons, joined by the Bavarians, but outflanked on
+every side, draws back; all the admirable cavalry of the Targueritte
+Division hurled against the German infantry, halts and sinks down
+midway, "annihilated," says the Prussian Report, "by well-aimed and cool
+firing."[38] This field of carnage has three outlets; all three barred:
+the Bouillon road by the Prussian Guard, the Carignan road by the
+Bavarians, the Mezieres road by the Wurtemburgers. The French have not
+thought of barricading the railway viaduct; three German battalions have
+occupied it during the night. Two isolated houses on the Balan road
+could be made the pivot of a long resistance; but the Germans are there.
+The wood from Monvilliers to Bazeilles, bushy and dense, might prevent
+the junction of the Saxons, masters of La Moncelle, and the Bavarians,
+masters of Bazeilles; but the French have been forestalled: they find
+the Bavarians cutting the underwood with their bill-hooks. The German
+army moves in one piece, in one absolute unity; the Crown Prince of
+Saxony is on the height of Mairy, whence he surveys the whole action;
+the command oscillates in the French army; at the beginning of the
+battle, at a quarter to six, MacMahon is wounded by the bursting of a
+shell; at seven o'clock Ducrot replaces him; at ten o'clock Wimpfen
+replaces Ducrot. Every instant the wall of fire is drawing closer in,
+the roll of the thunder is continuous, a dismal pulverization of 90,000
+men! Never before has anything equal to this been seen; never before has
+an army been overwhelmed beneath such a downpour of lead and iron! At
+one o'clock all is lost. The regiments fly helter-skelter into Sedan.
+But Sedan begins to burn; Dijonval burns, the ambulances burn, there is
+nothing now possible but to cut their way out. Wimpfen, brave and
+resolute, proposes this to the Emperor. The 3d Zouaves, desperate, have
+set the example. Cut off from the rest of the army, they have forced a
+passage, and have reached Belgium. A flight of lions!
+
+Suddenly, above the disaster, above the huge pile of dead and dying,
+above all this unfortunate heroism, appears disgrace. The white flag is
+hoisted.
+
+Turenne and Vauban were both present, one in his statue, the other in
+his citadel.
+
+The statue and the citadel witnessed the awe-striking capitulation.
+These two virgins, one of bronze, the other of granite, felt themselves
+prostituted. O noble face of our country! Oh, eternal blushes!
+
+
+[38] The Franco-German War of 1870-71. Report of the Prussian Staff,
+page 1087.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+This disaster of Sedan was easy of avoidance by any other man, but
+impossible of avoidance for Louis Bonaparte. He avoided it so little
+that he sought it. _Lex fati_.
+
+Our army seemed expressly arranged for the catastrophe. The soldier was
+uneasy, ignorant of his whereabouts, famished. On the 31st of August, in
+the streets of Sedan, soldiers were seeking their regiments, and going
+from door to door asking for bread. We have seen the Emperor's order
+announcing the next day, September 1st, as a day of rest. In truth the
+army was worn out with fatigue. And yet it had only marched by short
+stages. The soldier was almost losing the habit of marching. One corps,
+the 1st, for example, only accomplished two leagues per day (on the 29th
+of August from Stonne to Raucourt).
+
+During that time the German army, inexorably commanded and driven at the
+stick's end like the army of the Xerxes, achieved marches of fourteen
+leagues in fifteen hours, which enabled it to arrive unexpectedly, and
+to surround the French army while asleep. It was customary to allow
+oneself to be surprised. General Failly allowed himself to be surprised
+at Beaumont; during the day the soldiers took their guns to pieces to
+clean them, at night they slept, without even cutting the bridges which
+delivered them to the enemy; thus they neglected to blow up the bridges
+of Mouzon and Bazeilles. On September 1st, daylight had not yet
+appeared, when an advance guard of seven battalions, commanded by
+General Schultz, captured La Rulle, and insured the junction of the army
+of the Meuse with the Royal Guard. Almost at the same minute, with
+German precision, the Wurtemburgers seized the bridge of La Platinerie,
+and hidden by the Chevalier Wood, the Saxon battalions, spread out into
+company columns, occupied the whole of the road from La Moncelle to
+Villers-Cernay.
+
+Thus, as we have seen, the awakening of the French Army was horrible. At
+Bazeilles a fog was added to the smoke. Our soldiers, attacked in this
+gloom, knew not what death required of them; they fought from room to
+room and from house to house.[39]
+
+It was in vain that the Reboul brigade came to support the Martin des
+Pallieres brigade; they were obliged to yield. At the same time Ducrot
+was compelled to concentrate his forces in the Garenne Wood, before the
+Calvary of Illy; Douay, shattered, fell back; Lebrun alone stood firm on
+the plateau of Stenay. Our troops occupied a line of five kilometres;
+the front of the French army faced the east, the left faced the north,
+the extreme left (the Guyomar brigade) faced the west; but they did not
+know whether they faced the enemy, they did not see him; annihilation
+struck without showing itself; they had to deal with a masked Medusa.
+Our cavalry was excellent, but useless. The field of battle, obstructed
+by a large wood, cut up by clumps of trees, by houses and by farms and
+by enclosure walls, was excellent for artillery and infantry, but bad
+for cavalry. The rivulet of Givonne, which flows at the bottom of the
+valley and crosses it, for three days ran with more blood than water.
+Among other places of carnage, Saint-Menges was appalling. For a moment
+it appeared possible to cut a way out by Carignan towards Montmedy, and
+then this outlet reclosed. This refuge only remained, Sedan; Sedan
+encumbered with carts, with wagons, with carriages, with hospital huts;
+a heap of combustible matter. This dying agony of heroes lasted ten
+hours. They refused to surrender, they grew indignant, they wished to
+complete their death, so bravely begun. They were delivered up to it.
+
+As we have said, three men, three dauntless soldiers, had succeeded each
+other in the command, MacMahon, Ducrot, Wimpfen; MacMahon had only time
+to be wounded, Ducrot had only time to commit a blunder, Wimpfen had
+only time to conceive an heroic idea, and he conceived it; but MacMahon
+is not responsible for his wound, Ducrot is not responsible for his
+blunder, and Wimpfen is not responsible for the impossibility of his
+suggestion to cut their way out. The shell which struck MacMahon
+withdrew him from the catastrophe; Ducrot's blunder, the inopportune
+order to retreat given to General Lebrun, is explained by the confused
+horror of the situation, and is rather an error than a fault. Wimpfen,
+desperate, needed 20,000 soldiers to cut his way out, and could only get
+together 2000. History exculpates these three men; in this disaster of
+Sedan there was but one sole and fatal general, the Emperor. That which
+was knitted together on the 2d December, 1851, came apart on the 2d
+September, 1870; the carnage on the Boulevard Montmartre, and the
+capitulation of Sedan are, we maintain, the two parts of a syllogism;
+logic and justice have the same balance; it was Louis Bonaparte's dismal
+destiny to begin with the black flag of massacres and to end with the
+white flag of disgrace.
+
+
+[39] "The French were literally awakened from sleep by our attack."
+--Helvic.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+There was no alternative between death and opprobrium; either soul or
+sword must be surrendered. Louis Bonaparte surrendered his sword.
+
+He wrote to William:
+
+  "SIRE, MY BROTHER,
+
+  "Not having been able to die in the midst of my troops, it only
+  remains for me to place my sword in your Majesty's hands.
+
+  "I am, your Majesty,
+
+  "Your good Brother,
+
+  "NAPOLEON.
+
+  "Sedan, 1st September, 1870."
+
+William answered, "Sire, my Brother, I accept your sword."
+
+And on the 2d of September, at six o'clock in the morning, this plain,
+streaming with blood, and covered with dead, saw pass by a gilded open
+carriage and four, the horses harnessed after Daumont fashion, and in
+this carriage a man, cigarette in mouth. It was the Emperor of the
+French going to surrender his sword to the King of Prussia.
+
+The King kept the Emperor waiting. It was too early. He sent M. de
+Bismarck to Louis Bonaparte to say that he "would not" receive him yet
+awhile. Louis Bonaparte entered into a hovel by the side of the road. A
+table and two chairs were there. Bismarck and he leant their arms on the
+table and conversed. A mournful conversation. At the hour which suited
+the King, towards noon, the Emperor got back into his carriage, and went
+to the castle of Bellevue, half way to the castle of Vandresse. There he
+waited until the King came. At one o'clock William arrived from
+Vandresse, and consented to receive Bonaparte. He received him badly.
+Attila has not a light hand. The King, a blunt, straightforward man,
+showed the Emperor a pity involuntarily cruel. There are pities which
+overwhelm. The conqueror upbraided the conquered with the victory.
+Bluntness handles an open wound badly. "Whatever was your reason for
+declaring this war?" The conquered excused himself, accusing France. The
+distant hurrahs of the victorious German army cut short this dialogue.
+
+The King caused the Emperor to be reconducted by a detachment of the
+Royal Guard. This excess of ignominy is called "an escort of honor."
+
+After the sword the Army.
+
+On the 3d of September, Louis Bonaparte handed over to Germany 88,000
+French soldiers.
+
+"In addition" (says the Prussian report):--
+
+"One eagle and two flags.
+
+"419 field-guns and mitrailleuses.
+
+"139 heavy pieces.
+
+"1079 vehicles of all kinds.
+
+"60,000 muskets.
+
+"6000 horses, still good for service."
+
+These German figures are not wholly to be depended upon. According to
+what seems useful at the moment, the Aulic chancellors swell or reduce
+the disaster. There were about 13,000 wounded amongst the prisoners. The
+numbers vary in the official documents. A Prussian report, reckoning up
+the French soldiers killed and wounded in the battle of Sedan, publishes
+this total: _Sixteen thousand four hundred_ men. This number causes a
+shudder. For it is that very number, _Sixteen thousand four hundred_
+men, which Saint Arnaud had set to work on the Boulevard Montmartre upon
+the 4th of December, 1851.
+
+Half a league to the north-west of Sedan, near Iges, the bend of the
+Meuse almost forms an island. A canal crosses the isthmus, so that the
+peninsula becomes an island. It was there that there were penned, under
+the stick of the Prussian corporals, 83,000 French soldiers. A few
+sentinels watched over this army.
+
+They placed but few, insolently. These conquered men remained there ten
+days, the wounded almost without care, the able-bodied almost without
+nourishment. The German army sneered around them. The heavens took part
+against them. The weather was fearful. Neither huts nor tents. Not a
+fire, not a truss of straw. For ten days and ten nights these 83,000
+prisoners bivouacked with their heads beneath the rain, their feet in
+the mud. Many died of fever, regretting the hail of bullets.
+
+At length ox-wagons came and took them away.
+
+The King placed the Emperor in some place or other. Wilhelmshoehe.
+
+What a thing of rags and tatters, an Emperor "drawn" like a fowl!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+I was there, thoughtful. I looked on these fields, these ravines, these
+hills, shuddering. I would willingly have insulted this terrible place.
+
+But sacred horror held me back.
+
+The station-master of Sedan came to my carriage, and explained to me
+what I had before my eyes. I seemed to see, through his words, the pale
+lightnings of the battle. All these distant cottages, scattered about
+and charming in the sun, had been burnt; they were rebuilt; Nature, so
+quickly diverted, had repaired everything, had cleaned everything, had
+swept everything, had replaced everything. The ferocious convulsion of
+men had vanished, eternal order had resumed its sway. But, as I have
+said, the sun was there in vain, all this valley was smoke and darkness.
+In the distance, upon an eminence to my left, I saw a huge castle; it
+was Vandresse. There lodged the King of Prussia. Halfway up this height,
+along the road, I distinguished above the trees three pointed gables; it
+was another castle, Bellevue; there Louis Bonaparte surrendered to
+William; there he had given and delivered up our army; it was there
+that, not being immediately admitted, and requested to exercise a little
+patience, he had remained for nearly an hour silent and wan before the
+door, bringing his disgrace, and waiting until it should please William
+to open the door to him; it was there that before receiving it the King
+of Prussia had made the sword of France dangle about in an ante-chamber.
+Lower down, nearer, in the valley, at the beginning of a road leading to
+Vandresse, they pointed out to me a species of hovel. There they told
+me, while waiting for the King of Prussia, the Emperor Napoleon III. had
+got down, livid; he had gone into a little courtyard, which they pointed
+out to me, and where a dog growled on the chain; he had seated himself
+on a stone close by a dunghill, and he had said, "I am thirsty." A
+Prussian soldier had brought him a glass of water.
+
+Terrible end of the _coup d'etat_! Blood when it is drunk does not
+quench the thirst. An hour was to come when the unhappy one should utter
+the cry of fever and of agony. Disgrace reserved for him this thirst,
+and Prussia this glass of water.
+
+Fearful dregs of Destiny.
+
+Beyond the road, at a few steps from me, five trembling and pale poplars
+sheltered the front of the house, the single story of which was
+surmounted by a sign. On this sign was written in great letters this
+name: DROUET. I became haggard. _Drouet_ I read _Varennes_. Tragical
+Chance, which mingled Varennes with Sedan, seemed to wish to bring the
+two catastrophes face to face, and to couple in a manner with the same
+chain the Emperor a prisoner of the foreigner, to the King a prisoner of
+his people.
+
+The mist of reverie veiled this plain from me. The Meuse appeared to me
+to wear a ruddy reflection, the neighboring isle, whose verdure I had
+admired, had for its subsoil a tomb: Fifteen hundred horses, and as many
+men, were buried there: thence the thick grass. Here and there, as far
+as could be seen, mounds, covered with ill-favored vegetation, dotted
+the valley; each of these patches of vegetation marked the place of a
+buried regiment. There Guyomar's Brigade had been annihilated; there,
+the Lheritier Division had been exterminated; here the 7th Corps had
+perished; there, without having even reached the enemy's infantry, had
+fallen "beneath the cool and well-aimed firing," as the Prussian report
+states, the whole of General Margueritte's cavalry. From these two
+heights, the most elevated of this circle of hills, Daigny, opposite
+Givonne, which is 266 metres high, Fleigneux, opposite Illy, 296 metres
+high, the batteries of the Prussian Royal Guard had crushed the French
+Army. It was done from above, with the terrible authority of Destiny. It
+seemed as though they had come there purposely, these to kill, the
+others to die. A valley for a mortar, the German Army for a pestle, such
+is the battle of Sedan. I gazed, powerless to avert my eyes, at this
+field of disaster, at this undulating country which had proved no
+protection to our regiments, at this ravine where all our cavalry were
+demolished, at all this amphitheatre where the catastrophe was spread
+out, at the gloomy escarpments of La Marphee, at these thickets, at
+these declivities, at these precipices, at these forests filled with
+ambushes, and in this terrible shadow, O Thou the Invisible! I saw Thee.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+Never was there a more dismal fall.
+
+No expiation can be compared with this. The unprecedented drama was in
+five acts, so fierce that Aeschylus himself would not have dared to
+dream of them. "The Ambush!" "The Struggle!" "The Massacre!" "The
+Victory!" "The Fall!" What a tangle and what an unwinding! A poet who
+would have predicted it would have seemed a traitor. God alone could
+permit Himself Sedan.
+
+Everything in proportion, such is His law. Far worse than Brumaire, it
+needed a more crushing retribution than Waterloo.
+
+The first Napoleon, as we have said elsewhere,[40] had faced his
+destiny; he had not been dishonored by his punishment, he fell while
+steadfastly regarding God. He came back to Paris, appraising the deserts
+of those men who overthrew him, proudly distinguishing amongst them,
+esteeming Lafayette and despising Dupin. He had at the last moment
+wished to see clearly into his destiny, he had not allowed his eyes to
+be bandaged; he had accepted the catastrophe while making his conditions
+with it. Here there is nothing of the kind. One might almost say that
+the traitor is struck treacherously. In this case there is a bad man who
+feels himself in the grasp of Destiny, and who does not know what it is
+doing to him. He was at the summit of his power, the blind master of an
+idiot world. He had wished for a _plebiscitum_, he had had one. He had
+at his feet this very William. It was at this moment that his crime
+suddenly seized him. He did not struggle against it; he was the
+condemned man who obeys his sentence. He submitted to everything which
+terrible Fate exacted from him. Never was there a more docile patient.
+He had no army, he made war; he had only Rouher, he provoked Bismarck;
+he had only Leboeuf, he attacked Moltke. He confided Strasburg to
+Uhrich; he gave Metz to Bazaine to guard. He had 120,000 men at Chalons;
+he had it in his power to cover Paris. He felt that his crime rose up
+there, threatening and erect; he fled, not daring to face Paris. He
+himself led--purposely, and yet despite himself; willing and yet
+unwilling, knowingly and yet unknowingly, a miserable mind, a prey to
+the abyss--he led his army into a place of annihilation; he made that
+terrible choice, a battle-field without an outlet; he was no longer
+conscious of anything, no more of his blunder of to-day than of his
+crime of former days; he must finish, but he could only finish as a
+fugitive; this condemned one was not worthy to look his end in the face;
+he lowered his head, he turned his back. God executed him in degrading
+him. Napoleon III. as an Emperor had a right to thunder, but for this
+man the thunder was ignominious--he was thunderstruck in the back.
+
+
+[40] "L'Annee Terrible."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+
+Let us forget this man, and let us look at Humanity.
+
+The invasion of France by Germany, in 1870, was a night effect. The
+world was astonished that so much gloom could come forth from a people.
+Five black months--such was the siege of Paris. To create night may
+prove Power, but Glory consists in the creation of daylight. France
+creates daylight. Thence her immense human popularity. To her
+Civilization owes the dawn. The human mind in order to see clearly turns
+in the direction of France. Five months of darkness, that is what, in
+1870, Germany succeeded in giving to the Nations; France has given to
+them four centuries of light.
+
+To-day the civilized world more than ever feels the need which it has of
+France. France has proved this by her danger. The ungrateful apathy of
+Governments only increased the anxiety of nations. At the sight of Paris
+threatened, there arose among the peoples dread that their own heads
+were in danger. Would they allow Germany to go on? But France saved
+herself quite alone. She had only to rise. _Patuit dea_.
+
+To-day she is greater than ever. What would have killed another nation
+has hardly wounded her. The darkening of her horizon has rendered her
+light more visible. What she has lost in territory she has gained in
+radiancy. Moreover, she is fraternal without an effort. Above her
+misfortune there is her smile. It is not on her that the Gothic Empire
+weighs. She is a nation of citizens and not a flock of subjects.
+Frontiers? Will there be any frontiers in twenty years? Victories?
+France counts in her past victories of war, and in her future victories
+of peace. The future belongs to Voltaire, and not to Krupp; the future
+belongs to the book, and not to the sword. The future belongs to life,
+and not to death. There is in the policy opposed to France a certain
+amount of the tomb; to seek life in the old institutions is a vain task,
+and to feed upon the past is to bite the dust. France has the faculty of
+giving light; no catastrophe, political or military, will deprive her of
+this mysterious supremacy. The cloud passes away, the star is seen once
+more.
+
+The star possesses no anger; the dawn bears no malice. Light is
+satisfied in being light. Light is everything; the human race has no
+other love. France knows herself beloved because she is good, and the
+greatest of all powers is to be loved. The French revolution is for all
+the world. It is a battle perpetually waged for Right, and perpetually
+gained for Truth. Right is the innermost part of man; Truth is the
+innermost part of God. What can be done against a revolution which has
+so much right on its side? Nothing. To love it. That is what the nations
+do. France offers herself, the world accepts her. The whole phenomenon
+lies in these few words. An invasion of armies can be resisted; an
+invasion of ideas cannot be resisted. The glory of barbarians is to be
+conquered by humanity; the glory of savages is to be conquered by
+civilization; the glory of darkness is to be conquered by the torch.
+This is why France is desired and assented to by all. This is why,
+having no hatred, she has no fear; this is why she is fraternal and
+maternal; this is why it is impossible to lessen her, impossible to
+humiliate her, impossible to irritate her; this is why, after so many
+ordeals, after so many catastrophes, after so many disasters, after so
+many calamities, after so many falls, incorruptible and invulnerable she
+holds out her hand to all the peoples from above.
+
+When our glance rests on this old continent, stirred to-day by a new
+breath, certain phenomena appear, and we seem to gain a glimpse of that
+august and mysterious problem, the formation of the future. It may be
+said, that in the same manner as light is compounded of seven colors,
+civilization is compounded of seven peoples. Of these peoples, three,
+Greece, Italy, and Spain, represent the South; three, England, Germany,
+and Russia, represent the north; the seventh, or the first, France, is
+at the same time North and South, Celtic and Latin, Gothic and Greek.
+This country owes to its heaven this sublime good fortune, the crossing
+of two rays of light; the crossing of two rays of light is as though we
+were to say the joining of two hands, that is to say Peace. Such is the
+privilege of this France, she is at the same time solar and starry. In
+her heaven she possesses as much dawn as the East, and as many stars as
+the North. Sometimes her glimmer rises in the twilight, but it is in the
+black night of revolutions and of wars that her resplendence blazes
+forth, and her aurorean dawn becomes the Aurora Borealis.
+
+One day, before long, the seven nations, which combine in themselves the
+whole of humanity, will join together and amalgamate like the seven
+colors of the prism, in a radiant celestial arch; the marvel of Peace
+will appear eternal and visible above civilization, and the world,
+dazzled, will contemplate the immense rainbow of the United Peoples of
+Europe.
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The History of a Crime, by Victor Hugo
+
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