History of a crime : (deposition of a witness)

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—History of a Crime.

HISTORY OF A CRIME

(DEPOSITION OF A WITNESS)

By VICTOR HUGO

Author of ‘ LES MISERABLES,” « THE TOILERS
OF THE SEA,” ‘ THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE
DAME,” “NINETY-THREE,” “BY ORDER OF THE
KING,” etc., etc. D we oN ve € ve

A. L. BURT COMPANY, # # % # &
# # # # PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK

PREFACE.

Tus work is more than opportune ; it is imperative. I
publish it.

V. H.
Paris, October 1, 1877.

CONTENTS

THE FIRST DAY—THE AMBUSH.

CHAPTER PAGE
Te, SES OCCUPY ea issièe ane nsesnsenseneianeennces À

II. Paris sleeps—the Bell rings ........-cececsescseeseses 18
II. What had happened during the Night................. 15
IV. Other Doings of the Night....... peste" O1
V. The Darkness of the Crime.....cccscecccsessecsccecsees 33
VI Placard"... nerve ceeeetute te econonsceges “BD
VIL. No. 70, Rue Blanche.........ccccsccccscececccecseess 39
VIII. ‘Violation of the Chamber’’......cccccssosscvssssses 46
IX. An End worse than Death.....-cescsccsecccscssceceee 56

X. The Black Door..... Sie disais ols/Sie Sans de - 58
XI The High Court of Justice........cscccescceseseceses 60
II. The Mairie of the Tenth Arrondissement... ............ 72
XIII. Louis Bonaparte’s Side-face.....ccccccccccccccesccsse 93
XIV. The D’Orsay Barracks ..................... eocccceee 95
XV, Mais... ss rraastaitte Sséeeiseste LOB:
XVI. The Episode of the Boulevard St. Mattiticcscsiea css .. 110

XVII. The Rebound of the 24th June, 1848, on the 2d Decem-
Der 18013: amener sssamenees 120
XVIII. The Representatives hunted down................. ... 126
XIX. One Foot in the Tomb......cccccccsccscccccccscceses 134
XX. The Burial of a Great Anniversary........sseoce.ses 148

THE SECOND DAY—THE STRUGGLE.

L They come to Arrest me......sccescccccvecseccscccces 145
IL From the Bastille to the Rue de Cotte................ 158

TIL The St. Antoine Barricade. ......,...........esecses 156
IV. The Workmen’s Societies ask us for the Order to fight. 171
V. Baudin’s Corpse........ sets Sanson tasses 100)

VI. The Decrees of the Raptasentatives who remained Free, 181

CONTENTS.

PAGE
Mount Valéricn,....ccccsssseccccssccscsscccccccseees 208
The Lightning begins to flash among the People,...... 207
What Fleury went to do at Mazas......ccsccsseresess. 918
The End of the Second Day....++. sssseseeereccercoee B19

THE THIRD DAY—THE MASSACRE,

Those who sleep and He who does not sleep........... 223
The Proceedings of the Committee....seceseceesceeces 220
Inside the Elysée.........ccccvcccccccccccceccccesses 2938
Bonaparte’s Familiar Spirits....00.-scccscccscccroces 287
A Wavering Ally... sssscccccccccccccessvcsccscess 242
Denis Dussoubs. ..., .ecccerccccersccccccccscsccecess 244
Items and InterviewS....sccocce-ceccccccsecsvcccceses 245
The Situation........cccccocccccccscvcccccccce-sevess 250
The Porte Saint Martin.....cccccscsecsccccecsccsscces 200
My Visit to the Barricades....ceccccssseee soccesseee 208
The Barricade of the Rue Meslay......ssccsscccescees 202
The Barricade of the Mairie of the Fifth Arrondisse-
MENT... suncossosssocscnsossese 266
Tike Basricaderdfthe Bus Thévendtscamascavenenneun.< 268
Ossian and Scipio.......ceccccecccesscccccesreccevers LIB
The Question presents itself......,................... 279
The Massacre. ............... nement 284
The Appointment made with the Workmen’s Societies. 292
The Verification of Moral Laws........s.ssssoooooooe 297

THE FOURTH DAY—THE VICTORY.

What happened during the Night—the Rue Tiquetonne. 801
‘What happened during the Night—the Market Quar-
TS 5 cin, cac cis o:srase Basish cnn cute ee 804
What happened during the Night—the Petit Carreau.. 817
What was done during the Night—the Passage du
Saumon................ Sssdadsonsns Se se emis s GED
Other Deeds of Darkness........cceccsescccccccecsses 388
The Consultative Committee... ,....messsoseossseses 843
The Other Libramont esse s 349

CONTENTS. 5

CHAPTER PAGE
VIII. David d'Angers .....................ssssssssse eevee 852
IX. Our Last Meeting............ ......... Reese 354
X. Duty can have two Aspects........,................ 358
XI. The Combat finished, the Ordeal begins............. 366
MIL. The Exilediss sen see messe sms ne 368
XIII. The Military Commissions and the mixed Commis-
SLOWS reprenne dis nee ner one ee tu 382
XIV. A Religious Incident ....... ...........,,........,. 386
XV. How they came out of Ham ........... sous sé 386
XVI. A Retrospect.............,............ss RL ... 396
XVII. Conduct of the Left................... msn Sabie sions 397
XVIII. A Page written at Brussels............. Rie oes SE 406
XIX. The Infallible Benediction......... wdeemncescectesay “S10
CONCLUSION—THE FALL.
CHAPS Tintin uen us CE srsie ET
OBA TT sacre D een MAR Bas OES 413
CHAR: TE: da su deamecanseonenntednetiesonmaicenoane 415
CO EN D PR D A D 417
CHAP SW ia oa neo mn de 2's 2 als munie ses nee 418
CHAP Vans iennenes spas dense mien vases oes 420
CHAP, Vilaine ire Sous sweteresennt eae ease 422
CHAPS VITE ee een om ARS eres 61 Nu 425
CHAP, UXras si catanaitidi sensu ees ons ta ponte Essia ow Er 427
CHAP, XK. seccccccccccccscccescessesesvenevevecsesereressess 428

THE

HISTORY OF A CRIME.

THE FIRST DAY.
THE AMBUSH.

CHAPTER I.
66 SECURITY.”

On December 1, 1851, Charras * shrugged his shoulders
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 want-
ing. To outrage Right, to suppress the Assembly, to
abolish the Constitution, to strangle the Republic, to
overthrow the Nation, to sully the Flag, to A fronor 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
cormiption. What! All these enormities were to be

*Colonel Charris was Under-Secretary of State in 1848, and
Acting Secretary of War under the Provisional Government-

Missing Page

Missing Page

10 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

committed! And by whom? By a Colossus? No, by
adwarf. 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 becom-
ing 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 army, 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 regi-
ment 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 out-
rages 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 thereis Mandrin. Ovsar 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. To-
wards 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 hé re-
marked, ‘‘I wish to have an explanation with you.
They slander me. Do I give you the impression of a

‘ THE HISTORY OF A CRIME, 11
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. Tobe Probity? Yes. The attain-
ment of Genius is not possibie; 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, Wash.
ington 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 sus-
picion blunts the intellect and wears itself out by fruitless
alarms. Louis Bonaparte had had dissimulating minis-
ters 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 Hor-
tense Cornu, wrote to Mieroslawsky, “Iam a good Repub-
lican, and I can answer for him.” His friend of Ham,
Peauger, a loyal man, declared, “ Louis Bonaparte is in-
capable 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,
“Tam a man of the Democracy,” and to D’Orsay, “I am
a man of Liberty.” The Marquis du Hallays opposed the
coup @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,

12 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

“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 be-
loved and victorious. Lamoricière, Changarnier, Cavai-
gnac, Leflé, 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 oue 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 satir-
ical 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 @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
eon shook our heads, but we were looked upon ag
OO! le

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 13

CHAPTER IL
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. Hespran
up in surprise. It was dawn. It was about seven o’cloc
in the morning.

Never dreaming what could be the motive for so early
a visit, and thinking that some one 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 ; helived 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 busi-
ness 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 his 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.

14 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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 Repub-
lican 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.”

es oe is it ?” ‘

“ Monsieur Versigny~

6 Show him in.” sy

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.

260 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

tier 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 am-
munition 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 be. 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. Ht 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 gasmun’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 ap-
proached, 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 barri-
cades, 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,

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 15

“ Go at once and inform the other Representatives,”
said I.
He left me

CHAPTER ITI,

WHAT HAD HAPPENED DURING THE NIGHT. 4

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 perpendicu-
larly to the front of the Invalides. This street was trav-
ersed 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 marked 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 Assem-
bly 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 situe

16 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

ated 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 imme-
diate control of the Questors.* At nightfall the gratings
and the doors were secured, sentinäis were posted, instruc-
tions 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 pro-
hibited the entrance of any armed force other than the
regiment on duty.

On the night of the 1st and 2d of December the Leg-
tslative Palace was guarded by a battalion of the 42d.

The sitting of the Ist of December which was exceed-
ingly 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
ob 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 Assem-
bly, 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
Yor that night. When the Questors pressed him further,
President Dupin, exclaiming “Bah!” left the room.

On that same day, the Ist December, about three o'clock
tn the afternoon, as General Leflé’s father-in-law crossed
thé 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 ex-
cited but little attention at the Questure, and several
even laughed atit. It had become customary with them.
Nevertheless General Lefld would not go to bed until the
hour mentioned had passed by, and remained in the

* 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,

THE HISTORY OF A CRIMz, 17

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 n.essengers 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 apart-
ments 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 £. new piece, and did not return
till after midnight. The fourth messenger from the Mon-
iteur was waiting for him with a proof of the last slip of
the sitting; M. Prévost corrected the proof, and the mes-
senger 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 incidentoccurred. The Captain-Ad-
regen ye of the Guard ot the Assembly came to the

ajor 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 mutter-
ing 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 becom-
ing strange; nevertheless, go.” :

The Adjutant-Major had amongst other duties that of
giving out the instructions to the sentries, and con-
sequently 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 com.

2

18 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

municate 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 Command-
ant. 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 re-
mained 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, superin-
tended this taking up of arms. The cavalry were not set
in motion until three-quarters of an hour after the in.
fantry, 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 in.
cidents, these occurrences are yet told with a species of
gloomy indifference—the story is current that at the mo-
ment 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

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 19

to hand te you, are a hundred thousand francs in bank.
notes 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 epau-
lets.” The lady showed him the door.

Xavier Durrieu, who tells us this story, had the curios-
ity 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,» 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.”

É ao mystery was in progress at the Prefecture of
olice.

Those belated inhabitants ofthe 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
Bue at different points round about the Rue de Jeru-
salem.

From eleven o’clock in the evening, under pretext of
the arrival 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’cloek 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 out-
rage, 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

20 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

man. Sieur Courtille had Charras, Sieur Desgranges had
Nadaud, Sieur Hubaut the elder had M. Thiers, and Sieur
Hubaut the younger General Bedeau, General Changar-
nier was allotted to Lerat, and General Cavaignac to
Colin. Sieur Dourlens took Representative Valentin,
Sieur Benoist Representative Miot, Sieur Allard Repre-
sentative Cholat, Sieur Barlet took Roger (Du Nord),
General Lamoriciére fell to Commissary Blanchet, Com-
missary Gronfier had Representative Greppo, and Com-
missary Boudrot Representative Lagrange. The Questors
were similarly allotted, Monsieur Baze to the Sieur Pri-
morin, 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 wait-
ing were called up, and allstarted, each with his instruc-
tions.

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 aud 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

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 21

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 portfolioalighted. The manager
went up to the man, and said to him, “Is that you, Mon-
sieur 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 kind 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 ar-
rivals 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

22 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

spoken. Sentinels were placed in the workrooms, in the
corridors, at the doors, at the windows, in fact, every-
where, 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 oz 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. Not-
withstanding 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 oc-
curred, which greatly resembled a treason within a trea-
son. Toa traitora 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 @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

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 23

effect,” as the ex-Colonel Béville 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'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’Uni-
versité there is a door of the Palace which is the old en-
trance 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 bya 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 Regi-
ment 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 sick-
room.” It arrived with a stealthy step before the Presi-
dency 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,” ,

24 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

The National Assembly was invaded.

At the noise of the footsteps the Commandant Meunier
ran up. “Commandant,” Colonel Espinasse cried out to
him, “I come to relieve your battalion.” The Com-
mandant 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 tne other en-
trances 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 still slept in the Palace.

Shortly afterwards arrived two of those little chariots
which are called “forty sous,” and two jfiacres, 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 quar-
ter of an hour afterwards, accompained 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 in-
genuous remarks we have already cited, said to a group
of men near whom M. de Morny was passing, “ How these

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 25

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.” Awak-
ened 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 7s 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 posi-
tions, one of Royal bastard, the other of Imperial bastard.
Who was Morny? We will say, “A noted wit, an in-
triguer, 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 fér a brother Em-
peror, 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 him-
self 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 con-
science, 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 be-
gan 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 Leflé was lodged in the Pavilion inhabited in
the time of the Duc de Bourbon by Monsieur Feuchéres.
That night General Lefié had staying with him his sister

26 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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-law sprang out of bed, and cried out
to the Questor, whoslept 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 Ber-
toglio standing beside his bed.

He sprang up.

“ General,” said the Commissary, “I have come to ful-
fil a duty.”

“T 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 em-
braced him; his son, a child of seven years, in his night-
shirt, and in tears, said to the Commissary of Police,
“ Mercy, Monsieur Bonaparte.”

The General, while clasping his wife in his arms, whis-
pered in her ear, “ There is artillery in the courtyard, try
and fire a cannon.”

The Commissary and his men led him away. He re-
garded 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 ap-

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 27

proaching 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 awaked, put on a dressing-gown, and cried, “ Da
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 scart 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 meaway,” he said. ‘“ YouaCommissary 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?” Thesergeant
answered, “We only know one master.” “I note your
number,” continued M. Baze. “You are a dishonored

38 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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 con-
trived under the vault opposite the treasury of the As-
sembly, 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 inand 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, clasp-
ing 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 domi-
ciliary 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 Pres-
idency 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 HISTORY OF A CRIME. 29

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 à black and orange ribbon round his neck, and a
Major of Lancers, all three sword in hand, consulting to-
gether. The windows of the fiacre were closed; M. Baze
wished to lower them to appeal tothese 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 @téat 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 contami-
nated.”

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:
ed troopers surrounded the jiacre, and the whole galloped
0!

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 Commis-
sary Primorin, who had followed the jiacre 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: Lamoriciére, Charras,
Cavaignac, Changarnier, Leflé,Thiers, Bedeau, Roger (du

30 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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 pro-
test, and add it to your official report.” “Itis not an
official report,” objected the Commissary, “it is simply an
order for committal.” “Iintend 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?” “Iam 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 :—

“T, 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 representa-
tion committed upon my colleagues and upon myself.

“Given at Mazas on the 2d December, 1851, at eight
o’clock in the morning.

“Bazn.”

While this was taking place at Mazas, the soldiers
were eee and drinking in the courtyard of the
Assembly. ey 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

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 31

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. This 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.

CHAPTER IV.
OTHER DOINGS OF THE NIGHT.

Dvrrna 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 distin-
guished under the folds of their cloaks, arrived in silence
before a house, occupied the street, encircled the ap-
proaches, 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
Lamoriciére 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 carry-
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 pro-
fessed 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.

82 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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 Ist De-
cember, as we have said, Charras had unloaded his pistols.
These empty pistols were lying on the table when they
cametoarresthim. The Commissary of Police threw him-
self 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

istols had remained loaded, and if General Renaud had

ad the task of arrresting 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, sa
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.

he Sieur Hubaut (the younger) awoke General Bedeau.
“General, you are a prisoner.”—“ My person is invio-
lable.”—“ 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
Lamoriciére. 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 Rep-
resentatives into jail. “Look me in the face,” said
Charras to him. Thirion moved away.

Thus, without counting other arrests which took place

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 33

later on, there were imprisoned during the night of the
24 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;” Naupas 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

Versieny had just left me.

While I dressed hastily there came in a man in whomI.
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 ic
abrogated— Well done!’ Universal suffrage is re-estao-
lished— 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 wil! you do, Mon-
sieur 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,

84 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

Colonel Carini is an intrepid man, He had commanded
the cavalry under Mieroslawsky in the Sicilian insurrec-
tion, 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 father-
lands—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 formid-
able 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 har-
nessed. If fighting takes place it will be desperate work.”

Ianswered 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 :—

« Doit.”

My breakfast was ready. I ate a cutlet in two mouth.
fuls. 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 de-
serted 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. Itis treason! Louis Bonaparte is strangling
the Republic. The people are attacked. The people
must defend themselves.”

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME, 35

“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, aud
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
“or 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 ;
itattacks the power which I hold directly from the People,
it encourages all bad passions, it compromises the tran-
quillity 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 meunmoved. Now, however, that the fundamental
compact is no longer respected by those very men who

36 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

incessantly invoke it, and that the men who have ruined
two monarchies wish to tie my hands in order to over-
throw the Republic, my duty is to frustrate their treach-
erous 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 ren-
ders me responsible for actions which I cannot prevent,
and which binds me to the helm when I see the vessel
driving towards the abyss.

“Tf on the other hand you still place confidence in me,
give me the means of accomplishing the great missfon
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 s@rvive men, and
which shall in fact form the foundations on which some-
thing durable may be established.
’ “ Persuaded that the instability of power, that the pre-
ponderance 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. De dependent upon the Executive Power
alone.

“3. A Council of State composed of the most distin-
guished men, who shall prepare laws and shall
ÉRPRPT them in debate before the Legislative

ody.

“4, A Legislative Body which shall discuss and vote
the laws, and which shall be elected by univer.
sal suffrage, without scrutin de liste, which
falsifies the elections.

«5, A Second Assembly composed of the most illus-
trious men of the country, a power of equipoise,
the guardian of the fundamental compact, and
of the public liberties,

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 3?

“This system, created by the first Consul at the begin.
ning of the century, has already given repose and pros.
perity 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 gov-
ernment without strength, Monarchical or Republican,
borrowed I know not from what past, or from what chi-
merical 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.

“Tf 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 an-
archy, obstacles will be removed, rivalries will have dis-
appeared, for ail 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.

“Sozprers! 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 Iam 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 whicb
T hold from the whole Nation. It has ceased to exist.

38 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

«J 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 disinterested-
ness, they disdained to consult your sympathies anc 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
Peopie 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 reflec-
tion.

“ Be ready to repress every attack upon the free exer-
cise 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.
Weare 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 atthe 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
81 is abrogated.

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 89

& 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 ex-
ecution of this decree.

“Given at the Palace of the Elysée, 24 December, 1851.

“Louis NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.
“Dr Morny, Minister of the Interior.”

CHAPTER VIL
No. 70, RUE BLANCHE.

Tue Cité Gaillard is somewhat difficult to find. Itis a
deserted alley in that new quarter which separates the
Rue des Martyrs from the Rue Blanche. I found it, how-
ever. As I reached No. 4, Yvan came out of thegateway
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.

Michei 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,—

40 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

“ 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, Noel Parfait,
Arnauld (de l’Ariége), Demosthenes Ollivier, an ex-Con-
stituent, and Charamaule. There was deep and unutter-
able 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 ar-
rested, 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 sidenothing. 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 Wétat had a
speaking trumpet, the Republic wore a gag.

What was to be done ?

The raid against the Republic, against the Assembly,

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 41

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 en-
gender 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 thatall the possible chiefs of the
barricades were in prison. The organizers of the ambus-
cade 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 ca-
pable of resistance, but incapable of victory, hoping to
ROUE us if we did not fight, and to shoot us if we did
ht.

Noir noone 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,
it isa 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” Toarms!”

Many warmly supported this advice, among others
Edgar Quinet, Pelletier, and Doutre.

42 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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 stix
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 insuitingly dissolved is always
sure to conquer, if the People support it. Thus the Peo-
ple rose in 1830. To-day they wait. They are dupes
until they shall be victims.” Michel de Bourges con-
cluded, “ The People must be given time to understand,
to grow angry, to rise. As for us, Representatives, 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 nat-
ural 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 an-
nounced. by the Right for noon, all those who went there
would be arrested. We must remain free, we must re-
main in readiness, we must remain calm, and must act
waiting the advent of the People. Four days of this agi-
tation 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 revolu-
tionary 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 HISTORY OF A CRIME. 43

The army of the coup d’étatinvaded her peaceably. Even
the placards were not torn down. Nearly all the Repre-
sentatives 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. Ifit 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 light-
ning 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 ard 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 begin-
ning to swarm in a threatening manner. The boulevards
were thronged with an uneasy crowd. People walked toand
fro, passers-by accosted each other without any previous
acquaintance, a noteworthy sign of public anxiety; and

44 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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 morn-
ing, 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 Benvalet’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
poulevard 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 witen the head of the column entered
the defile before the Theatre of the Porte St. Martin a

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 45

cremendous 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 ery of “ Vive la République!” mean? Wasitatoken
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 recog-
nized.”

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 détat, and cry “ Vive la Constitution!”

“ And suppose they fire on us?” said a young workman.

“You will hasten to arms.”

“Bravo!” shouted the crowd.

1 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 Répub-
lique;” 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
ail that crowd, and to begin the battle.

Charamaule restrained me. He whispered tg me,—

You will bring about a useless fusillade. Every one

46 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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 mas-
sacre. Was Iright? 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 meon the arm. It was
Léopold Duras, of the National.

“ Go no further,” he whispered, “the Restaurant Bon-
valet is surrounded. Michel de Bourges has attempted
to harangue the People, but the soldiers came up. He
barely succeeded in making his escape. Numerous Rep-
resentatives who came to the meeting have been arrested.
Retrace your steps. We are returning to the old rendez.
vous in the Rue Blanche. I have been looking for you te
tell you this.”

A cab was passing; Charamaule hailed the driver.
We jumped in, followed by the crowd, shouting, “ Vivi
la République! Vive Victor Hugo!”

It appears that just at that moment a squadron ot
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 Con-
corde was still free. The large grated gate of the Palace

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 47

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 col-
umns, which, during the time of the Constituent Assem-
bly, 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’Aon-
neur of the Presidency, liveried attendants silently opened
the doors as usual.

Before daylight, immediately after the arrest of the
Questors MM. Baze and Leflé, M. de Panat, the only Ques-
tor who remained free, having been spared or disdained
as a Legitimist, awoke M. Dupin and begged him to sum-
mon immediately the Representatives from their own
homes. M. Dupin returned this unprecedented answer,
“T do not see any urgency.”

Almost at the same time as M. Panat, the Representa-
tive Jerôme Bonaparte had hastened thither. He had sum-
moned M. Dupin to place himself at the head of the As-
sembly. 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 togetherin M. Dupin’sroom. They
also had vainly argued with M. Dupin. In the recess of
a window a clever member of the Majority, M. Desmous-
seaux de Givré, who was a little deaf and exceedingly ex-
asperated, almost quarrelled with a Representative of the
Right like himself whom he wrongly supposed to be favor-
able to the coup Pétat.

48 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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 dis-
played his scarf, not that of a Representative, but af 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 Legis-
lative Palace. All the approaches were guarded, all the
doors were shut. Some Representatives nevertheless suc-
ceeded in penetrating into the interior of the Palace, not,
as has been wrongly stated, by the passage of the Pres-
ident’s house on the side of the Esplanade of the Invalides,
but by the little door of the Rue de Bourgogne, called the

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME, 49

Black Door. This door, by what omission or what con-
nivance 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 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. Eugéne Sue, Richardet,
Fayolle, Joret, Marc Dufraisse, Benoit (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. AndI 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 Eugéne
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 imper-
ceptibly 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

4

50 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

wait until that hour. Time pressed. At the Palais Bour.
bon, 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 ata 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, crouch-
ing, cowering, concealed, he had vanished, he was buried.
Where? Noone 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 Represent-
atives to quit their own House. All, Royalists and Re-
publicans alike, rushed upon him. Such was the expres-
sion of an indignant eye-witness. General Leydet ad-
dressed him in language such as leaves an impression on
the cheek rather than on the ear.

“J do my duty, I fulfil my instructions,” stammered the
officer.

“You are an idiot, if you think youare doing your
duty,” cried Leydet to him, “and you are a scoundrel if
you know that you are committingacrime. 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.”

“T 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 indescrib-
able agitation which might be called the Strangling of
Right by Violence.

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 51

In a short time one of them who had gone out came
back hastily, and warned them that two companies of the
oe Mobile were coming with their guns in their

ands.

Marc Dufraisse cried out, “ Let the outrage be thorough.
Let the coup 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 speo
tacle of an 18th Brumaire.”

They all repaired to the Hall of Assembly. The pas-
sage 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 Hail medita-
tively.

There, M. de Rességuier, undoubtedly with a good pur-
pose, 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 onespoke. 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, head-
ed 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 sol-
diers 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

52 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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’Adel.
sward, 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
{s a traitor, and would make traitors of you. You violate
the sacred precinct of National 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. Scarce-
ly 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 for-
ward, and read the order for the expulsion of the Assem-
bly, 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 sig-
nal 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 Du-
fraisse, two upon Gambon. A long struggle took placeon
the first bench of the Right, the same place where MM.
Odilon Barrot and Abbatucci were in the habit of sitting.

THE HISTORY Of A CRIME. 58

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.

ane 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 ex-
ecuted 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 Bour-
gogne.

The Place Bourgogne was occupied by the 42d Regi-
ment of the Line, under the orders of Colonel Garderens.

Between the Palace and the statue of the Republic,
which occupied thecentre 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 Represent-
atives Teillard-Latérisse, Fayolle, and Paulin Durrieu.

In the middle of this group three men, who had been
arrested, were struggling vigorously, crying, “ Long live
the Constitution! Vive la République!”

Fayolle, Paulin Durrieu, and Teillard-Latérisse ap-
proached, and recognized in the three prisoners three mem-
bers of the majority, Representatives Toupet-des-Vignes
Radoubt, Larosse, 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
upon the Colonel to release their colleagues.

64 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

“ 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 soldiers 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 com-
manded the detachment, and said to him,—

“We summon you to set our colleagues at liberty.”

“T 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 command-
ing 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 Rep-
resentatives before them through all the outlets.

Some, and amongst the number those of whom we have
just spoken, went 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.*

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 apart-
ments 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 of
a Palace is situated, the soldiers set the Representatives

ree.

*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,

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 55

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 pris-
oner, this man felt himself set free.

The group of Representatives, led by MM. Canet and
Favreau, found him în his study.

There a dialogue ensued. The Representatives sum
moned 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 quota-
tions, an instinct of chattering jays, who pour forth all
their vocabulary when they are frightened. “What do
you want me to do? Who am 1? What can I do?
Iam nothing. Noone is any longer anything. Udi nihil,
nihit. Might is there. Where there is Might the people
lose their Rights. Novus nascitur ordo. Shape your
course accordingly. Iam obliged to submit. Dura lex,
sed lex. A law of necessity we admit, but not a law of
right. But what isto be done? Iask to be let alone.
I can do nothing. Ido what I can. Iam not wanting in
good will. IfI had a corporal and four men, I would
have them killed.”

& This man only recognizes force,” said the Represent-
atives. “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. |

56 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

They did not get far. Soldiers barred the great green
folding-doors. Colonel Espinasse hurried thither, the
eommander of the gendarmerie came up. The butt-ends
of a pair of pistols were seen peeping out of the command-
er’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 miser-
able 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, be-
wildered and speechless.

The Representative Gambon exclaimed to him,—

“ Now then, speak, M. Dupin, the Left does not inter
rupt 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 cow.
ardice, hastened to purify their ears. It appears, how-
ever, that he stuttered forth something like this :—

“You are Might, you have bayonets; I invoke Right,
aud J leave you. I have the honor to wish you good-

ay.

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.

CHAPTER IX.
AN END WORSE THAN DEATH.
Wes should have been glad to have put aside, never to

have spoken of him again, this man who had borne fot
three years this most honorable title, President of the

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 57

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 gendarmus when uttering with a grimace his
mockery ofa protest, even engendered suspicion. Gam-
aes exclaimed, “ He resists likean accomplice. He knew
all.

We believe these suspicions to be unjust. M. Dupin
knew nothing. Who indeed amongst the organizers of
the coup @état would have taken the trouble to make sure
of hisjoining 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 re-

ort.”

This man refused.

58 THE HISTORY OF À CRIME.

CHAPTER X.
THE BLACK DOOR.

M. Durr 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 bewilder-
ment caused by the coup @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 theirhead. 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 Represent-
ative 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

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. , 59

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. Someofthem 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 amusket. We may hereadd 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-Presi-
dent; 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 discus-
sions were somewhat noisy. M. Daru, however, ob-
served that the moments were precious, and silence was
restored.

The first measure to be taken was evidently the deposi-
tion 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 pre-
pared 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

| 60 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

the room, and announced to the Assembly that the Rus
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 Rep-
resentatives 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.

“| 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.

Waite 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 assist-
ants 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,

THK HISTORY OF A CRIME. 61

elerks, and attendants, and repeating to all in a low voice,
so as not to be heard by the passers-by, the same ques-
tion. To this question some answered “ Yes,” others re-
plied “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? Tosit in Judgment ?

Yes and no.

The Commissary of the Arsenal Police had that morn-
ing 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 Merciére. 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

62 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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 deliberate
ing 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 Refresh-
ment 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 Concéirgerie, 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 succes-
sively 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.

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 63

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 Presi-
dent of the Chamber of the Royal Court of Paris, an amia-
ble 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-Regis-
trar 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
as 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 Presi-
dent of the Chamber at Paris. Ihave 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 attri-
butes, 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 Jan-
senist, 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 mem-

64 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

bers of the bar of the Court of Cassation, was the ex-Con.
stituent 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 @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 re-
quested 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 Stras-
bourg) ; “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 be-
longs to To-day.

Martin ge 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 à 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 ex-
plain 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

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 65

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 alsa 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, mat-
ters would have gone too far, and the High Court would
be too deeply compromised.

They had appointed a Recorder, now they must or-
ganize 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 Presi-
dent, or whether they should draw up a simple order of
Jaquiry. The latter course was adopted.

They drew up ajudgment, not the honest and out-
spoken judgment which was placarded by the efforts of

4 ;

66 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

the Representatives of the Left and published, in which
are found these words of bad taste, Crimeand High Trea-
son ; this judgment, a weapon of war, has never existed
otherwise than as a projectile. Wisdom ina judge some-
times 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 judg-
ment; 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 rue Recistry or tHE High Court oF JUSTICE.

“The High Court of Justice.

* According to Article 68 of the Constitution, consider-
ing 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 walis 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 or.
ganized, that it appoints* . . . 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

* This line was left blank. It was filled in later on with the name
of M. Renouard, Councillor of the Court of Cassation,

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 67

aforesaid Article 68 of the Constitution, the Court
will adjourn until to-morrow, the 8d 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 dur-
ing the debate, brought back this rumor to his colleagues.
This coincided with an outburst of energy. The Presi-
dent observed that it would be to the purpose to appoint
a Procureur-General.

Here was a difficulty. Whom should they appoint?
In all preceding trials they had always chosen for a Pro-
cureur-General at the High Court the Procureur-General
at the Court of Appeal of Paris. Why should they in-
troduce an innovation? They determined upon this Pro-
cureur-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 Merciére 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

68 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

saths. 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 with-
drew.

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 youasking for?”

“The High Court.”

“Who are you?”

“JT want the High Court.”

“Tt 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
Merciére 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 Presi-
dent 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 tri-
colored sash upon his coat.

The magistrates stare, stupefied.

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 69

“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 ?”

“Tam aware. You are the High Court, and I am the
the Commissary of the Police.”

“ Well, then?”

‘ Be off.”

“There were there thirty-five municipal guards, com-
manded 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 im-
plied 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 hig
head over M. Hardouin’s shoulder. The President read
out,—

“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 Presidené
added,—

“Signed, Maupas.”

Then, addressing himself to the Commissary, he re.
sumed,—

“There is some mistake, these are notour 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 renew-
able; the coup d’état overthrew the Constitution, but did

70 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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 bayo-
nets 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 fill-
ing in the line left blank in their decree, on the proposi-
tion of M. Quesnault, appointed as Procureur-General
M. Renouard, their colleague at the Court of Cassation.
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 de

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 71

tails 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 Cas-
sation, 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 tran-
scribed 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.

IT. 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 @ état.

Does this page of the Register of the Court of Cassa.
tion 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 con-
ceive 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 reso-
lutely 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 stiy-
matizing 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

72 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

proceedings concluded, the High Court, by going out
through a nailed-up door leading into the Salle des Pas Per-
dus, 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’ Bencn,
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 them-
selves to be formally dragged to prison, so that the peo-
ple 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 dia-
logue between Mathieu Molé and Vidocq.

CHAPTER XII.
THE MAIRIE OF THE TENTH ARRONDISSEMENT.

Tux 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 send-
ing 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 Rich-
elieu 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,

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 73

close by the Assembly. The section of the Rue de Lille
lying between his house and the Palais Bourbon was oc-
cupied 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-Péres, and left the sol-
diers 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 alter-
native; they passed through a gap in the instructions.

An hour afterwards this threw St. Arnaud into a fit of
fury.

Gn 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 consult-
ing together. There were the Representatives Esquiros,
Marc Dufraisse, Victor Hennequin, Colfavru, and Chamiot.

Those who were marching at the head of the column
ieft 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 Marc 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 frac

74 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

tions 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 @’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 Repre-
sentatives 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

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 75

who might come afterwards to enter. M. Howyn Tran-
chére stationed himself at this door, and undertook to
identify them.

On their arrival at the Mairie, the Representatives
numbered somewhat under threehundred. 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.

a Representatives remaining in the courtyard hesi-
tated.

Marc Dufraisse went up to MM. Jules de Lasteyrie and
Léon de Maleville, who had stayed behind with the Rep-
resentatives 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 isa bad reason! Eighty years! They consti-
tute a force.” 2

“Yes; where they are well borne,” said Colfavru.
“Kératry bears them badly.”

“ Nothing is greater,” resumed Esquiros, “than great
octogenarians.”

“Tt is glorious,” added Chamiot, “to be presided over
by Nestor.”

“ No, by Gerontes,” * said Victor Hennequin.

These words put an end to the debate. Kératry was
thrown out. MM. Léon de Maleville and Jules de

* The Gerontes, or Gerontia, were the Elders of Sparta, who con-
stituted the Senate.

76 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

Lasteyrie, two men respected by all parties, undertook to
make the members of the Right listen to reason. It was
decided that the “ bureau ”’* should preside. Five mem-
bers of the “bureau” were present; two Vice-Presidents,
MM. Benoist d’Azy and Vitet, and three Secretaries,
MM. Grimault, Chapot, and Moulin. Of the two other
Vice-Presidents, one, General Bedeau, was at Mazas;
the other, M. Daru, was under guard in his own house.
Of the three other Secretaries, two, MM. Peupin 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 wha
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. Vitet, went upstairs to the Hall, and the
sitting was opened.

This sitting was the last which the Assembly held un-
der 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 re-
quired—as was the duty of Revolutionists; the Left,
without a “bureau,” without an usher, and without
secretaries, held sittings in which the accurate and pas-
sionless record of shorthand was wanting, but which live
in our memories and which History will gather up.

Two shorthand writers of the Assembly, MM. Gros-
selet 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

* 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,

THE 1ISTORY OF A CRIME. 77

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 24 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 com-
mas are those which the censorship of M. Bonaparte has
suppressed. This suppression is a proof of their sig-
nificance and importance.

Shorthand reproduces everything except life. Stenog-
raphy is an ear. It hears and sees not. It is therefore
necessary to fill in here the inevitable blanks of the short-
hand 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, as-
sembled 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,
and 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 secre-
taries, MM. Chapot, Moulin, and Grimault wrote stand-
ing, 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 table-
cloth, 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.

78 THE HISTORY Ob A CRIME.

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 with-
out 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 practi-
cable for the Right, outlawry was only possible for the
Left. In fact it was the Left who outlawed Louis Bona-
parte. 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 con-
sequences of coups d'état. The deposition having been
voted, a man who later on turned traitor, Quentin Bau-
chart, 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 an-
nounced that the Mayor was refusing to allow Represent-
atives 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, how-
ever, 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 Rep-

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME, 79

resentatives 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 im-
posed silence. Then the angry outcries broke forth again.
“The coup @état will not dare to come here.” “We are
masters here.” “We are at home.” “It would be im-
possible to attack us here.” “These wretches will not
dare to do so.” Ifthe 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 tu-
multuous, had assumed an ordinary aspect. The uproar
had relapsed into a murmur. The voice of the usher,
crying “Silence, gentlemen,” had succeeded in overcom-
ing 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 inthe 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 sepul-
chre.” 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 frighteried.
The Marquis of ——, who acted the fly on the coach-wheet
to the Right, went hither and thither, harangued, shouted,

80 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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? Whocommandsthem? 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 ; Bour-
bousson maintained the silence of a vanquished piaceman.
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 an elegant and charming
poet, Albert Glatigny. Albert Glatigny cried out to this
frightened Viscount, “ Hulloa there! Do you think that
coups @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 be-
coming attitude. This arose from the fact that they ran
greater danger.

Pascal Duprat replaced at the top of the decrees the
words, “ République Frangaise,” which had been for-
gotten..

From time to time men who were not speaking on the
subject; of the moment mentioned this strange word,
“Dupin,” upon 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 con-
tinual 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 isit!” “It is right!” “Itis 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 depo-
sition to get it printed. Esquiros, Marc Dufraisse, Pascal
Duprat, Rigal, Lherbette, Chamiot, Latrade, Colfavru,
Antony Thouret, threw in here and there energetic words

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 81

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
@état, and that they clearly perceived this fixed idea in
the brain of Louis Bonaparte. M.de Tocqueville added,
“T 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 heitber 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 Rep-
resentatives 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 spec-
tators. 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
ot 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.

82 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

Each spoke from his place; this member upon a bench,
that member on a chair, a few on the tables. All con-
tradictory 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 sur-
rounded 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. What-
ever may have taken place, however, and notwithstanding
all these details of which it was our duty to speak, apart
from the exceptions which we have 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 narra-
tive 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 impercept-
ible 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

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 83

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 in-
famous assurance there, as well as everywhereelse. 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 threaten-
ing, 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 As-
sembly, 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 in-
sulted 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” un-
conditionally, and according to the expression of eye-
witnesses, 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

84 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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 inexpress-
able 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 resist-
ance, 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 re-
mained two possible Generals, Oudinot and Lauriston.
General Marquis de Lauriston, ex-peer of France, and at
the same time Colonel of the Tent Legio» end Represent.

ATE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 85

ative 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 Ex-
ecutive Power, but as Colonel I ought to obey it.” It ap-
pears that he obstinately shut himself up in this singular
us and that it was impossible to draw him out
OI 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 Lauris-
ton. General Lauriston went down into the courtyard,
and came up a moment afterwards, saying, “ They do not
recognize my authority. I have just resigned,” More-
over, the name of Lauriston was not familiar to the sol-
al Oudinot was better known in the army. But

ow?

At the moment when the name of Oudinot was pro-
nounced, a shudder ran through this meeting, almost ex-
clusively 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 un-
dertaken 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 As-
sembly of France had dissolved by vielence 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.” Whata story is this story
of treason! The French Legislature had written the first
chapter with the blood of the Roman Constituent Assem-

86 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

bly: Providence wrote the second chapter with the blood
of the French Legislature, Louis Bonaparte holding the
en.

In 1849, Louis Bonaparte had assassinated the sover-
eignty of the People in the person of its Roman Representa-
tives ; in 1851 he assassinated it in the person of its French
Representatives. It was logical, and although it was in-
famous, 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 Mon-
talembert was at the Elysée.

When Tamisier rose and pronounced this terrifying
word, “ The Roman Question?” distracted M. de Dam-
pierre 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 “ Si-
lence!” to History.

And then without even reckoning the fatal remembrance
which at such a moment would have crushed a man en-
dowed in the highest degree with great military qualities,
Seneral Oudinot, in other respects an excellent officer, and
à 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 Pretorians 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

A

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 87

eold and searching glance of Desaix, that French Phocion ;
it would have needed the huge shoulders, the command-
ing stature, the thundering voice, the abusive, insolent,
cynical, gay, and sublime eloquence of Kléber, that mili-
tary 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, with-
out 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 as-
sembled together.” He spoke of obeying, he who ought
tocommand. 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 speech-
ifying ata 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

88 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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 bécomingly 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 dis-
posal of the Assembly. He was standing on a table. He
spoke with a resonant and hearty voice. The most down-
cast 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 repu-
diated.

The official historians of the coup @ 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
ownname. They offered themselves as intermediaries to
procure a peaceable termination of the catastrophe which
had begun. With an honesty which bordered on sim-
plicity 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 peo-
ple to the defence of the Constitution and of the Republic.
Morny answered them with a smile, accompanied by these
plain words, “If you appeal to arms, and if I find any

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME, 89

Representatives on the barricades, I will have them all
ghot 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 witn
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 suid to him, “ Our official measures of resistance have

90 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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 mem-
bers 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, and 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 ’!” *

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 seige 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 dis-
grace 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 procession met M. Chegaray. The Rep-
resentatives 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

*An allusion to the twenty-five francs a day officially payable tothe
members of the Assembly. ; =

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 91

pass on. He was ashamed, however, and went with them.
te is found in the list of the roll-call at the bar-
racks.

A little further on M. de Lespérut passed them. They
cried out to him. “ Lespérut! Lespérut!” “Iam 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 win-
dow was opened. Suddenly a woman appeared with
achild; 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 loud voice, “These are the Whites, we
have orders to spare them. Now itis 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 Constitu-
tion !” and “ Vivela 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 Démocratie 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

92 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

between a double file of soldiers, the one stationary,
which threatened the people, the other on the march,
which threatened the Representatives.

Serious reflections arise in the presence of all the de-
tails 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. Who-
ever 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 pos-
sible to forget, that—whatever were their errors, what-
ever 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 assur-
edly 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 re-
pression, 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 absolutism, the entire Party of
Order arrested in a body and taken to prison by the ser-
gents de ville!

One day, or rather, one night, the moment having come
to save society, the coup d'état abruptly seizes the Dema-
gogues, and finds that it holds by the collar, Whom? the
Royalists.

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 93

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 at-
tributed to the President of the Republic.

The Representatives entered and the doors were closed
upon them. The shouts ceased ; the crowd, which occa-
sionally 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.”

CHAPTER XIII.
LOUIS BONAPARTE’S SIDE-FACE.

Tur minds of all these men, we repeat, were very dif.
ferently affected.

The extreme Legitimist party, which represents the
White of the flag, was not, it must be said, highly exas-
perated 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 re-
signed.” The ingenuous spirits cast down their eyes—
that is becoming to purity; more daring spirits raised
their heads. They felt an impartial indignation which

94 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

permitted a little admiration. How cleverly these
generals have beenensnared! 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, “Itis 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 wasa 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 Vati-
mesnil, 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 noth-
ing. In truth, should the Royalists fear Louis Bona-
parte? 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 Bona-
parte 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 ?

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 93

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 Aus-
terlitz. 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 noth-
ing 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 suc-
ceeded in submerging the name of Napoleon by super-
adding December upon Brumaire.

Se

CHAPTER XIV.

THE D’ORSAY BARRACKS.

Ir was half-past three.

The arrested Representatives entered into the court-
yard of the barracks, a huge parallelogram closed in and
commanded by high walls. These walls are pierced by
three tiers of windows, and possess that dismal appear-
ance 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

96 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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 insti-
tuted 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 an-
swered “ 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 ex-
claimed, “ 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
an twenty Representatives, whose names were as fol-
ows :—

Le Duc de Luynes, d’Andigné de la Chasse, Antony
Thouret, Aréne, Audren de Kerdrel (Ille-et-Vilaine), Au-
dren de Kerdrel (Morbihan), de Balzac, Barchou de Pen-
hoen, Barillon, O. Barrot, Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire,
Quentin Bauchard, G. de Beaumont, Béchard, Behaghel, de
Belèvze, Benoist-d’Azy, de Bernardy, 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 Gui.
bourgére, 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-Des-
vaux, A. Dubois, Dufaure, Dufougerais, Dufour, Dufour.

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 97

nel, Marc Dufraisse, P. Duprat, Duvergier de Hauranne,
Etienne, Vicomte de Falloux, de Faultrier, Faure (Rhéne),
Favreau, Ferre, des Ferrés, Vicomte de Flavigny, de
Foblant, Frichon, Gain, Gasselin, Germoniére, de Gicquiau,
de Goulard, de Gouyon, de Grandville, de Grasset, Grelier-
Dufougerais, Grévy, Grillon, Grimault, Gros, Guislier de la
Tousche, Harscouét de Saint-Georges, Marquis d’Havrin-
court, Hennequin, d’Hespel, Houel, Hovyn-Tranchére,
Huot, Joret, Jouannet, de Kéranflech, de Kératry, de Kéri-
dec, de Kermazec, de Kersauron Penendreff, Léo de La-
borde, Laboulie, Lacave, Oscar Lafayette, Lafosse, Lagarde,
Lagrenée Laimé, Lainé, Comte Lanjuinais, Larabit, de
Larcy, J. de Lasteyrie, Latrade, Laureau, Laurenceau, Gen-
eral Marquis de Lauriston, de Laussat, Lefebvre de Grosriez,
Legrand, Legros-Desvaux, Lemaire, Emile Leroux, Les-
pérut, de l’Espinoy, Lherbette, de Linsaval, de Luppé,
Maréchal, Martin de Villers, Maze-Saunay, Méze, Arnauld
de Melun, Anatole de Melun, Merentié, Michaud, Mispoulet,
Monet, Duc de Montebello, de Montigny, Moulin, Murat-Sis-
trière, Alfred Nettement, d’Olivier, General Oudinot, Duc
de Reggio, Paillat, Duparc, Passy, Emile Péan, Pécoui,
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 Roque-
feuille des Rotours de Chaulieu, Rouget-Lafosse, Rouillé,
Roux-Carbonel, Saint-Beuve, de Saint-Germain, General
Comte de Saint-Priest, Salmon (Meuse), Marquis Sauvaire-
Barthéiemy, de Serré, Comte de Sesmaisons, Simonot, de
Staplande, de Surville, Marquis de Talhouet, Talon,
Tamisier, Thuriot de la Rosiére, de Tinguy, Comte de
Tocqueville, de la Tourette, Comte de Tréveneuc, Mor-
timer-Ternaux, de Vatimesnil, Baron de Vandcuvre,
Vernhette (Hérault), Vernhette (Aveyron), Vézin, Vitet,
Comte de Vogiié.

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

08 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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 ex-
ecute his orders.’ (Yes, yes, that is right.)”

The Representatives remained “ penned” and “ stroll-
ing” 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/”* And they laughed. Then Marc
Dufmaisse 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 Bona-
parte. They asked Admiral Cécile, “ Now, really, what
does this mean?” The Admiral answered by this defi-
nition: “It is a small matter.” M. Vézin added, “ He
wishes History to call him ‘Sire.”” “Poor Sire, then,”
said M. de Camus 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 can-
teen 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
fora 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 anold worm-eaten chair ; the
chair tottered; the old man shivered.

Towards four o’clock a regiment of Chasseurs de Vin-
cennes arrived in the courtyard with their platters, and
began to eat, singing, with loud bursts of merriment. M.

* Michel de Bourges had thus characterized Louis Bonaparte as the
guardian of the Republic against the Monarchical parties,

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 99

de Broglie looked at them and said to M. Piscatory, “It
is a strange spectacle to see the porringers of the Janis-
saries 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 build-
ing. 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 them-
selves about im 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
apon the ground for several hours.

These rooms were warmed very badly by cast-iron
atoves, 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,

100 | THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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 Tranchére, 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 Rightsaid laughingly, Thuriot de la Rosiére,
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, ad-
dressing 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. “Equal-
ity, fraternity,” exclaimed the Marquis Sauvaire-Bar-
thélemy, 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 andtwenty 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.

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 101

Towards eight o’clock in the evening, when dinner was
over, the restrictions were a little relaxed, and the inter-
mediate space between the door and the barred gate of the
barracks began to be littered with carpet bags and articles
2 toilet sent by the families of the imprisoned Represent-
atives.

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.
a was able to press his son’s hand through the

ars.
= 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 ona
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 smil-
ingly a venerable veteran of the Right. A young Repub-
lican 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 80,0002. 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 bar-
racks, 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 inei-
dent raised the prisoners’ hopes.

Representative Michel Renaud of the Basses-Pyrénees,

102 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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 ve-
hicle 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, itisa
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?” “Ido not know.”

At half-past ten the roll-call of those who were to leave
began. Police agents stationed themselves at a table be-
tween 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

THE HISTUEY OF A CRIME. 103

accepted the hospitality cf Colonel Feray considered such
petty resistance unwortiy of them, and answered to the
calling out of their nanies. 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 Representa-
tives in the various prisons, it was apparent that this pro-
miscuous 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 Rhéne). “ Ah! here is
M. Marc Dufraisse,” said the attendant who held the pen-
cil. 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 de-
tachments, each escorted by Lancers. The first detach-
ment 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

104 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

not yet been called benefited by the mattresses and tried
to sleep. Thus, from time to time, silence reigned in the
upper rooms. Inthe midst of one of these pauses M.
Bixio sat upright, and raising his voice, cried out, ‘“ Gen-
tlemen, what do you think of ‘ passive obedience’?” An
unanimous burst of laughter was the reply. Again, dur.
ing 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, Mare 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 busi-
ness.”

For the coup @état such a remark might be convenient 3
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 Mare 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 Mazas 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
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, omni-
buses were brought into requisition. Into these Repre-
sentatives were thrust, one upon the other, rudely, with-
out deference for either age or name. Colonel Feray, on
horseback, superintended and directed operations. As he

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 105

mbunted 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 huge-
ness, 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.”

CHAPTER XV.
MAZAS.

Tax 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 incement. 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

106 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

bird’s-eye point of view the shape 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 attend.
ant 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 multi-
tude 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 @ état acted in a very different manner towards
the various Representatives. Those whom it desired to
conciliate, the men of the Right, were placed in Vin-
cennes ; 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 en-
tered 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

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 107

to a narrow door which 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, ata height
of ten or twelve feet, there was a loophole with a fluted
glass window. This window dimmed the eye, and pre-
vented 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 uncer-
tainty. 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 walis 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
Jiacre, 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 Bicétre.

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, hav-
ing 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.

108 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

The prisoner greedily seized the bread and the
porringer. The bread was black and sticky; the porrin-
ger 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 dur-
ing 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. Ver-
signy—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 ib 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 fel-
lows!” 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 @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?”

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 109

“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. Conse-
quently there is no isolation, notwithstanding the cel-
lular 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 ona plank near the ceiling. This “some-
thing ” 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

110 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

mattress some two inches thick. The prisoner, wrapt
in this covering, tried to sleep, and only succeeded in
shivering. |

But on the morrow he could at least remain lying down
all day in his hammock?

Not at all.

At seven o’clock in the morning the jailer came in,
wished the Representative “Good-morning,” made him
get up, and rolled up the hammock on its shelf near the
ceiling.

But in this case could not the prisoner take down the
authorized hammock, unroll it, hook it up, and lie down
again ?

Yes, he could. But then there was the dungeon.

This was the routine. The hammock for the night, the
chair for the day.

Let us be just, however. Some obtained beds, amongst
others MM. Thiers and Roger (du Nord). M. Grévy did
not have one.

Mazas is a model prison of progress ; it is certain that
Mazas is preferable to the piombi of Venice, and to the
under-water dungeon of the Chatelet. Theoretical phi-
lanthropy has built Mazas. Nevertheless, as has been
seen, Mazas leaves plenty to bedesired. Let us acknowl-
edge 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 @état. Providence, in placing the Legislators
at Mazas, has performed an act of good education. Eat
of your owncooking; it is not a bad thing that those who
own prisons should try them.

CHAPTER XVI.
THE EPISODE OF THE BOULEVARD ST. MARTIN.

Wuaen 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

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 111

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 Mationale was
represented by Alexander Rey and Léopold Duras, the
Rwolution 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, Schcelcher, 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 Chaut-
four, 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

112 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

Forestier. Idoubt 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 or 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 neces-
sary, and that immediately. Something brief, rapid, and
energetic. No set phrases. Ten lines—an appeal to
arms! Weare the Law, and there are occasions when
the Law should utter awar-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 proc.
lamation!”

“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.

“Heis 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 €3———”

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 ina 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 posses-
sion of universal suffrage, and who need no

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME, 113

Prince for its restitution, will know how to chastise
the rebel.

‘ Let the People do its duty. The Republican Rep-

resentatives 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 Schælcher, ‘and let the proclamation be posted up
immediately.”

‘“ Before nightfall—the days are short,” added Joi-
gneaux.

‘€ Immediately, immediately, several copies!” called
out the Representatives.

Baudin, silent and rapid, had already made a second
copy of the proclamation.

À 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.”

Milliére. 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.

Milliére went up to him.

«You do not know me,” said he; “ my nameis 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 Milliére.

A dozen Representatives took their pens and sat down,

114 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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. Schelcher, 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 mustseek 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. Wehave not numbers,
let us have daring.”

They approved of this. “Jt is right,” said they, “but
where shall we go?”

Labrousse said,—

“Our former colleague of the Constituent Assembly,
Beslay, offers us his house.”

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 115

« 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
Dukeof Tuscany. I liked Montanelli, a gentle and daunt-
less 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 that 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. Schcelcher explained thie
difficulties: all the printing offices closed and guarded ;
an order placarded that whoever should print an appeal
to arms would be immediately shot; the workmen terri-
fied; no money. A hat was sent round, and each threw

116 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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, 30 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,—

“J 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 fight-
ing 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 em-
brace 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 Ital-
ian exiles, Carini and 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 sefish as in 1848, and that she may deliver
Italy.” I answered him, “She will deliver Europe.”

Those were our illusicns at that moment, but this, how-
ever, does not prevent them from being our hopes to-day.
ae 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. Iseemed to catch, in this great working-
class district, a glimpse of a gleam of light which, alas,

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 117

died out speedily. The cabstand before St. Paul was
deserted. The drivers had foreseen the possibility of bar-
ricades, and had fled.

Three miles separated Arnauld and myself from our
houses. It was impossible to walk there through the mid-
dle 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.

JT entertained at heart, I repeat, wrongly or rightly, a
bitter reproach for the opportunity lost during the morn-
ing. I said to myself that on critical days such moments
come, but do not return. There are two theories of Rev-
olution: 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 Arfége) sat next to me, Carini opposite, Montanelli
next to Arnauld. We did not speak; Arnauld and my-
self 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 omni-
bus entered into the cutting of the Porte St. Martina
regiment of heavy cavalry arrived in the opposite direc-
tion. 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. Ido not know what
obstruction momentarily impeded its advance in this nar-
row 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 twe

1is THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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 Bona-
parte. 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 hand-
some 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 Mon-
tanelli.

“ 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 omni-
bus 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

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 119

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 toa
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 mor-
row.

In another moment the regiment broke into a gallop,
and the omnibus resumed itsjourney. 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 mein a low tone, and
quickly, “ Donotreturnhome. 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 remem-
brance came into my mind.

120 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE REBOUND OF THE 24TH JUNE, 1848, ON THE 2D DECEM.
BER, 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 over-
come nearly everywhere, and was restricted to the Fau-
bourg 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 wentinto 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 under-
stand, 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 J 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.

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 121

Since that time I had only seen him once, on the 26th
August, 1849, on the day when I held the corner of
Balzac’s pall. The funeral possession was going to Pére
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 tosee
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 me. 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 “ Marseil-
laise.” 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
Théâtre 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
@état. He who favored it wore a blouse, he who attacked

122 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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
visibly 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 them-
selves. Nevertheless, I made an effort.

“Louis Bonaparte betrays the Republic,” said I, with-
out 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 ‘ Bona-

arte’ aloud; you barely mumble a few words in a whisper

ere, 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,’”

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 123

Auguste demonstrated to me what I already saw too
clearly, and what Girard had shadowed fcrth in the morn-
ing—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 Bona-
parte 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 Re-
public, 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 Pére 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 asa stone,’ but ‘cold as a
mason’”—and he resumed, “As for me, if J 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 Ito 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 whoare good and intelligent.

124 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

So, then, the Faubourgs of Paris—which are heroes even
when they err—the Faubourgs of Paris, for a misunder-
standing, fora question of salary wrongly construed, fora
bad definition of socialism, rose in June, 1848, against the
Assembly elected by themselves, against universal suf-
frage, 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, ‘Wemust takeup 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 ina blouse came in, a workman of some
fifty years. This man, without looking at any one, with-
out 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 noth-
ing. 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,—

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 125

“ 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,
“T 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 move-
ment 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 movememt
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.”

126 THE HISTORY OF A CKIME.

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?”

“TI do not know.”

“Tt is true,” saidhe. “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 tothelion. 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’ ars
crushed—so much the better!”

A few steps further [heard my name pronounced. I
turned round. It was Jules Favre, Bourzat, Lafon,
Madier de Montjau, and Michel de Bourges, who were

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 127

passing by. I took leave of the brave and devoted woman
who had insisted upon accompanying me. A facre was
passing. I put her in it, and then rejoined the five Rep.
resentatives. 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 afraidofus. They say, ‘coups d’état are noth-
ing to us, we shall leave them alone!’ ”

“That does not surprise me,” answered I, “a society is
a shopkeeper.”

“ Where are we going ?” asked Jules Favre.

Lafon lived two steps from there, at No. 2, Quai Jem-
mapes. He offered us the use of his rooms. We ac-
cepted, 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 largenumber 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 toseek 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 Fau-
bourgs, 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

128 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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

lace during the day. It was announced that M. Havin,
Fieutenant- 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 Révolution; one of these
writers was Milliére.

Milliére had a large bleeding wound above his eye-
brow ; that same morning on leaving us, as he was carry-
ing 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 precau-
tions as these. I gave this man all the signatures that he
wanted.

Madier de Montjau began to speak. It was of conse-
quence 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

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 129

support. He proposed the immediate formation of a
committee representing the entire Left in all its shades,
a charged with organizing and directing the insurrec-
ion.

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 Resist-
ance ; for it was Louis Bonaparte who was the insur-
gent. For ourselves, we were the Republic. It was
desired that one workman-Representative should be ad-
mitted into the committee. Faure (du Rhône) was nom-
inated. But Faure, we learned later on, had been arrested
that morning. The committee then was, in fact, com-
posed 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 time 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
pos they illegally imprisoned the inviolable Represent-

Oy

130 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

atives, 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 Con-
ciérgerie, 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.”

“T 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 Conciérgerie.

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
acrowd; 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 youa friendly warning. You
are entertaining illusions. The People are ensnared in
this affair. They will not stir. Bonaparte will carry
them withhim. 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.” |

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 131

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 cf the Left to which you belong
will not succeed in overthvowing the coup d’état. You
are honest, and he has this advantage over you—that he
is a rogue. You havescruples, and he has this advantage
over you—that he has none. Believe me. Resist no lon-
ger. 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 un-
easy, went up and downstairs. Some of them went out
on the Quai Jemmapes, to wait there and gain informa-
tion about them. In the room there was a sound of con-
fused 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.

132 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME,

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 deter-
mined 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 where-
abouts, 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 re-
mained 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 meta few solitary work-
men, 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 Fau-
bourg 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

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 133

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 win-
dows; 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 under-
stood 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 1ew 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.

134 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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 con-
struction, 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

yyou.” 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 tous. 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. Inall 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 HISTORY OF A CRIME. 135

The first speaker was a workman. He began by apologiz-
ing for mingling with the Representatives, he a stranger
to the Assembly. The Representatives interrupted him,
“No, no,” they said, “the People and Representatives are
allone! Speak——!” He declared that if hespoke 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 Re-
publican 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 a la Dréme) came in as the workman con-
cluded. “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 Chas-
seurs de Vincennes had uttered these words, “ Now it is

136 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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 re-
gard to the so-called Minister of the Interior, Morny, and
the answer of the said Morny: “If I find any of the Rep-
resentatives 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 trath, appeared the
next morning.

Baudin rose up “The coup d’étac redoubles its rage,”
exclaimed he. “ Citizens, let us redouble our energy !”

Suddenly a man ina 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, « J
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. Weare 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
ealinly.”

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 nat hav.

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 137

ing yet been placarded, the different incidents of the Bou-
levard du Temple and of the Café Bonvalet having brought
about no results, none of our decrees, owing to the re-
pressive measures of Bonaparte, having yet succeeded in
appearing, while the events at the Mairie of the Tenth Ar-
rondissement began to be spread abroad through Paris,
it seemed as though the Right had commenced active re-
sistance before the Left. A generous rivalry for the pub-
lic 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, uncer-
tainty. Some illusions were still entertained. A work-
man, 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 per-
petrate 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 mo-
ment 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 Boule-
vard 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. An-
toine 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. Nev-
ertheless, all the more reason, in my opinion, to astonish
and awaken Paris by an extraordinary spectacle, by a dar-
ing 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

138 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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 dis-
persed ;. 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 an-
nulled; two things only remained standing, the coup
@ état and ourselves.

“ Ourselves ! and who are we?”

« We are,” said I, “we are Truth and Justice! Weare
the supreme and sovereign power, the People incarnate
—Right!”

I continued,—

“Louis Bonaparte at every minute which elapses ad-
vances 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,—

“T 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 indi-
viduals, we are the Nation. Each of us walks forth
clothed with the Sovereignty of the people. He can-
not 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 under:
stood!”

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 189

“We are quite ready!” they cried out. “ What meas-
ures 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 J, “the Faubourg St. Antoine! I can.
not 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 re.
main free number a hundred and twenty Republican Rep-
resentatives. Let us install ourselves in this hall. Let
us install ourselves in the fulness and majesty of the Leg-
islative 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 shel-
ter 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 Revolu-
tion, 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 neces-
sary that the shops should be open, that people should
be coming and going, that the population should be mov-
ing about, that there should be plenty of people in the
streets, that they should see us, that they should recog-
nize us, that the grandeur of our example should strike
every eye and stir every heart. Let us all be there be-
tween nine and ten o’clock in the morning. If we cannot
obtain the Salle Roysin we will take the first church at

140 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

hand, a stable, a shed, some enclosure where we can de-
liberate; 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 for-
get that in such a crisis there must be no vacuum before
the nation. That alarms it. There must be a govern-
ment somewhere, and it must be known. The rebellion
at the Elysée, the Government at the Faubourg St. An-
toine; the Left the Government, the Faubourg St. An-
toine the citadel; such are the ideas which from to-mor-
row we must impress upon the mind of Paris. To the
Salle Roysin, then! Thence in the midst of the daunt-
less 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 Re-
public, 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 meet-
ing. Theycheered me. Isaw that I was becoming some-
what 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, mag-

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 141

azines, arsenals, ammuuition 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 print-
ing 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 toarms; 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 coma from the mouths, it came from
the souls. Baudin, still s#eated 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 separite groups, and that they should
let those who were abseut know of this rendezvous. This
done, there remained nothing more but to separate. It
was about midnight.

One of Cournet’s scouts entered. “Citizen Representa-
tives,” he said, “the regiment is no longer there. The
street is free.”

The regiment, which had probably come from the Pop-
incourt 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 Popin-
court 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. Ac-
cording 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

142 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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 had 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 pos-
sessing 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.

“Tn truth,” I answered, “I have not the least idea.”

«“ Will you come to my house?”

“T shall be very happy.”

He told mehis name. Itwas M. dela R——. He knew
my brother Abel’s wife and family, the Montferriers, re-
lations 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. de 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 Popin-
court, Jules Favre, Madier de Montjau, de Flotte, and
Carnot, to whom we had sent word tothe Rue des Moulins,
arrived at Cournet’s, accompanied by Scheelcher, by
Charamaule, by Aubry (du Nord), and by Bastide. Some
Representatives were still remaining at Cournet’s. Sev-
eral, 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

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 143

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 Assem-
bly 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.

Sucu 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 magnifi-
cence. 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 a 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 arag; 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 Govern-
ment, 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

144 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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 scaven-
ger. He has sworn, he still swears: but the tone has
changed. The oath has become an imprecation. Yester-
day he called himself a maiden, to-day he becomes a
brazen woman, and laughs at his dupes. Picture to
yourself Joan of Arc eonfessing herself to be Messalina.
Such is the Second of December.

Women are mixed up in this treason. It isan 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 brigand-
age 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 Napo-
leon, he did what he ought to do, on the very day of the
Crime he died. Alas! and Austerlitz also.

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME, 145

THE SECOND DAY.

THE STRUGGLE.

CHAPTER I.
THEY COME TO ARREST ME,

ly 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 bed-
room by a tapestry curtain two-thirds drawn. M. de la
R—— went into the bedroom, and a few minutes after-
wards 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

10

146 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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, some-
what 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, De-
cember 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 ina 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 dis-
turbed by me subsided into its graceful silence.

One can sleep on the eve of a battle between two armies,
but on theeve of a battle between citizens there can be no
sleep. I counted each hour as it sounded from a neigh-
boring church; throughout the night there passed down
the street, which was beneath the windows of the room
where J was lying, carriages which were fleeing from
Paris. They succeeded each other rapidly and hurriedly,
one might have imagined it was the exit froma 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

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 147

«hat 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 mo-
ment 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 in-
habited by Mdlle. Mars, I saw a new bill posted on the
wall. I went up to it, I recognized the type of the Na-
tional Printing Office, and I read,

« Composirion oF THE NEw Mnrnistry.

“ Jnterior— 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.

148 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

As I passed by the Place Bréda some fiacres had already
arrived there. I took one. I was near home, the tempta-
tion 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’sroom. 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 re-
sembles sleeplessness, she heard men’s voices. It seemed
to her that Isidore was speaking to some one in the ante-
chamber. 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,

“Ig any one there 2?”

« 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 ncl 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.”

“Te is out.”

“T shall have the honor of waiting for him, madame.”

“He will not come back.”

“Nevertheless I must speak to him.”

“ Monsieur, if it is anything which will be useful for him
to know, you can confide it to me in perfect security, I will
faithfully tell him.”

“Madame, it is to himself that I must speak.”

THE HISTORY Of A CRIME. 149

“But what is it about? Is it regarding politics? ”

The man did not answer.”
oa oe to politics,” continued my wife, “ what is happen-
ing

“T believe, madams, 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.”

“Tt 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 Repre-
sentative in his own home like acriminal! There is in
truth a criminal here who ought to be arrested—your-
self!”

The Sieur Hivert looked sheepish and left the room, and
through the half-open door my wife could see, behind the

150 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

well-fed, well-clothed, and bald Commissary, seven er
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
eorner, ventured to defy them. He opened a drawer and
said, “ Look and see if he is not in here!” The Commis-
sary 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 imprison-
ment 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 mein 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 morn-
ing, 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,

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 151

Jules Favre had passed the night there. Madame Landrin
was breakfasting. She offered me a place by her side,
ae time pressed. I carried off a morsel of bread, and
eft.

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, Constitutent Leblond.

“JT 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, re-
nounce our attempt to rouse the extremities of the city,
and agitate the centre. We were the Committee of Re-
sistance, the soul of the insurrection ; if we were to go to
the Faubourg St. Antoine, which was occupied by a con-
siderable force, we should give ourselves up to Louis Bona-
parte. 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 de-
crees, create some method of publicity; they were waiting
for important communications from Workmen’s Associa-
tions 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

152 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

of the room, making some excuse. My hat was in the ante.
chamber, my fiacre was waiting for me, and I drove off to
the Faubourg St. Antoine.

The centre of Paris seemed to have retained its every-
day 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.

Tur 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 to-
gether in a low voice,—sinister men.

One of these groups, the principal, attracted my atten-
tion. 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 bat-
teries.

“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 HISTORY OF A CRIME. 153

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 car-
riage.

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 be-
yond 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 shak-
ing the sash, I shouted,—

“Soldiers! Look at this sash. It is the symbol of Law,
it is the National Assembly visible. Where this sash is
there is Right. Well, then, this is what Right commands
you. You are being deceived. Go backto 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 whoare
Honor, listen to me, for I am Duty. Soldiers, Louis
Bonaparte assassinates the Republic. Defend it. Louis
Bonaparte is & bandit; all his accomplices will follow him
to the galleys. They are there already. He who is wor-
thy 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 ig

154 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

you to whom I speak, sir. You know who Iam, lama
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 over-
whelming 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 @état in relating this
incident, and characterizing it as “an insensate and culpa-
ble provocation,” states that “the moderation shown by
the military leaders on this occasion did honor to Gen-
eral ——.” 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
yasds farther up. The inhabitants, amongst whom I
noticed numerous workmen in blouses, were talking to-
gether at their doors, and watching the proceedings. I
noticed at each step the placards of the coup d’état un-
touched.

Beyond the fountain which stands at the corner of the

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 155

Rue de Charonne the shops were closed. Two lines ot
soldiers extended on either side of the street of the Fau-
bourg on the kerb of the pavement; the soldiers were
stationed at every five paces, with the butts of their mus-
kets 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 asmall street. I said to the driver,—

«Take that turning.”

He turned to the right and then to theleft. We turned
into a labyrinth of streets.

Suddenly I heard a shot.

The driver asked me,—

“ Which way are we to go, sir?”

“Tn the direction in which you hear the shots.”

We were in a narrow street; on my left I saw the in-
scription 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,

156 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

which has a side-door above which I read, “Petit La.
voir.”

Suddenly a voice called out to the driver, “ Stop!”

The driver pulled up, and the window of the jiacre be.
ing down, a hand was stretched towards mine. I recog-
nized Alexander Rey.

This daring man was pale.

“@o 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. Itis 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 barri-
cade which the soldiers were pulling down. A corpse
was being borne away.

It was Baudin.

CHAPTER III.
THE ST. ANTOINE BARRICADE.

Turis 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 un-
earth 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

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 157

Market, and another post at a short distance which occu-
pied 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 deter-
mined 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 immedi-
ately joined by Malardier.

It wasdawn. The Faubourg was solitary. They walked
along wrapt in thought and speaking in alow voice. Sud-
denly 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 noise-
lessly along the macadamized road.

They were debating what this could mean, when a
second and similar group appeared, then a third, and thena
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 a 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

158 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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 Repre-
sentatives 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 thus have aided in the punishment.
But at the moment when the people threw themselves on
the vehicle they saw several of the Representative-pris-
oners which it contained sign to them with both hands
a refrain. “Eh!” said a workman, “they do not wish
it d

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 trot, and the group which sur-

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 159

rounded Aubry (du Nord), Malardier, and Cournet dis-
persed.

The Café Roysin had just opened. It may be remem-
bered 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 smal! 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. Who-
ever 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 wood-
en shoes on his feet. Why not? He is Mind and People.
The ex-Constituent Bastide came in with Madier de Mont-
jau. Baudin shook the hands of all with warmth, but
he didnot 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? Wheu 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

160 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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 un-
folded 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 Rep
resentatives present signed it, and they added my name
to their signatures. Aubry (du Nord) headed it with
these words, “ National Assembly.” The workman car-
ried 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 in-
cident 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 neigh-
boring house with strips of red, white, and blue calico,
and were brought tothem. 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.*

* ‘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 ;

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 161

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 im-
patience 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
Schælcher.

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!
Toarms!”

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!”

let us join it in raising barricades.’ We shall perhaps save the coun-
try, at all events we shall save the honor of our party. ‘Come,
let us to the barricades !’ This advice was immediately and unan-
imously 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 lastto gird on his sash.”—SCH@LCHER, Histoire des
Fe “4 24 Decembre, pp. 130—131. :

\

162 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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 Montreuil. At their approach the sentry gave the
alarm, and the soldiers came out of the guard-house in
disorder.

Scheelcher, 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 Representa-
tives 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!” 7

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. Schcelcher 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 In-
surrection 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 Schelcher, “where is there a
post?”

« At the Lenoir Market.”

“Let us disarm it.”

With Scheelcher at their head and escorted by fifteen
armed men the Representatives proceeded to the Lenoir

‘THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 163

Market. The post of the Lenoir Market allowed them-
selves 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 com-
batants.

They went up the Rue de Montreuil.

After some fifty steps Schcelcher said, “Where are we
going? Weare turning our backs on the Bastille. We
are turning our backs upon the conflict.”

They returned towards the Faubourg.

They shouted, “To arms!” They were answered by
“ Long live our Representatives!” But only a few young
men joined them. It was evident that the breeze of in-
surrection 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 Fau-
bourg, 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

164 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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, toe
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.

Scheelcher 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 higher with-
out 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.

“ Citzens,” cried Scheelcher, “ 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 arrangeil

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 165

themselves near him on the omnibus. Malardier and
Dulac were on his right. Dulac said to him, “You
scarcely know me, Citizen Scheelcher, 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 com-
bat, 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. Thetwo 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.

Scheelcher, 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 gest-
ures. ‘I'he Law said, “Halt!” The Sabre answered,
“No!”

The two companies continued to advance, but slowly,
and keeping at the same distance from each other.

Scheelcher 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 omni-
bus, leaned half over the barricade.

166 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

On seeing the Representatives approach, the soldiers
and their officers were for the moment bewildered. Mean-
while the captain signed to the Representatives to stop.

They stopped, and Schcelcher 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 Re-
public, 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 Schcelcher.

“T only know my instructions.”

“There is an instruction above all other instructions,”
continued Scheelcher, “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 Scheelcher.

At this moment an officer arrived on horseback. It
was the major of the regiment. He whispered for a mo-
ment to the captain.

“Gentlemen! Representatives!” continued the cap-
tain, waving his sword, “ withdraw, or I shall fire.”

“ Fire!” shouted De Flotte.

The Representatives—strange and heroic copy of Fon-
tenoy—took off their hats, and faced the muskets.

Scheelcher alone kept his hat on his head, and waited
with his arms crossed.

“Fix bayonets,” said the captain. And turning to-
wards the squads, “ Charge! ”

“Vive la République!” cried out the Representatives.

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 167

The bayonets were lowered, the companies moved for-
ward, the soldiers came on at the double upon the motion.
less 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 Representa-
tives 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 some-
times becomes reconciled, the soldier—never.

When the bayonets were so close to the Representa-
tives that they touched their breasts, they turned aside
of their own accord, and the soldiers by an unanimous
movement passed between the Representatives without
doing them any harm. Schœlcher alone had his coat
pierced in two places, and in his opinion this was awk-
wardness 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
Schœlcher had in his pocket, and only pierced his cloth-
ing.

4 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 Bruck.
ner’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 pre-
vails; 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

168 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

succor them, they fired a musket shot. This unfortunate
shot killed a soldier between De Flotte and Scheelcher.

The officer who commanded the second attacking squad
passed close to Scheelcher as the poor soldier fell. Schcel-
cher 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 be-
ing 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 omni-
bus. 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 intoxica-
tion 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

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 169

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
Scheelcher who raised him. A few women, weeping, but
brave, came out of a house. Some soldiers came up.
They carried him, Schælcher 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 chin-
strap of his shako, had no longer any expression, the
blood oozed out of his mouth. He seemed barely eighteen
ee old. Already a soldier and still a boy. He was
dead.

This poor soldier was the first victim of the coup @ état.
Baudin was the second. .

Before beiug a Republican Baudin had been a tutor.
He came from that intelligent and brave race of school-
masters 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

170 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME,

decision. He was a man of middle height. His face
ruddy and full, his broad chest, his wide shoulders an-
nounced 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 intelli-
gence, 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 pro-
ceeded to the Boulevards. Schelcher, 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 Schelcher. 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
aman 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 Cabi-
net Makers, hoping to find there the committee of the

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 171

association in session. There was no one there. But
nothing discouraged them.

As they reached the Place de la Bastille, Dulac said to
Scheelcher, “I will ask permission to leave you for an
hour or two, for this reason: Iam 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
un à As Tam not killed, I will go and see if she is not

ead.

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 my-
self at your disposal.”

CHAPTER IV.

THE WORKMEN’S SOCIETIES ASK US FOR THE ORDER TO
FIGHT.

In presence of the fact of the barricade of the Fau-
bourg St. Antoine so heroically constructed by the Rep-
resentatives, 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

172 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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 Charamaule, Madier
de Montjau, Bastide, and Dulac came to report tous 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 Bau-
din’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 guard-
ians 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 depart-
ments 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 pre-
ceding 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 or-
ganize resistance at every point. They were the arms
and the Committee was the soul. A certain number of
ex-Constituents, intrepid men, Garnier-Pagés, Marie, Mar-
tin (de Strasbourg), Senart, formerly President of the

THE HISTORY OF A UulME. 173

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 Repne-
sentatives 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” (Presi-
dent), “ Delapalme,” “ Moreau ” (of the meine) “ Cauchy,”
“ Bataille” (Judges). This last name was thus mis-spelt
hy mistake, it should read “ Pataille.”

At that moment people generally believed, and we our-
selves 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.* The Constitution is confided to the
keeping and to the patriotism of French citizens. Louis
Napoteon is outlawed.

* A typographical error—it should read ‘‘ Article LX VIII.” On the
subject of this placard the author of this book received the following
letter. It does honor to those who wrote it :—

“Crrizen Victor Hueo,—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 willnotdisown us. When
France is in danger your name belongs to all ; your name is a Public
Power.

‘FELIX Bony.
“Dapat,”’

174 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

« The State of Siege is abolished.
«Universal suffrage is re-established.
& Lone LIVE THE ReEpvus.ic.
“To Arms!
& For the United Mountain.
“The Delegate, Vicron Hueco.”

The second ran thus :—
“INHABITANTS OF PARIS.

“The National Guards and the People of the Depart.
ments are marching on Paris to aid you in seizing the
Trairor, Louis Napoléon Bonaparte.

“For the Representatives of the People,

«Vroror Hueo, President.
“ ScH@LCHER, Secretary.”

This last placard, printed on little squares of paper, was
distributed abroad, says an historian of the coup @ état, by
thousands of copies.

For their part the criminals installed in the Govern-
ment 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 Poricx,
“Decree as follows :—

“ ARTICLE I. All meetings are rigorously prohibited.
They will be immediately dispersed by force.

“ARTICLE Il. All seditious shouts, all reading in
public, all posting of political documents not emanating
from a regularly constituted authority, are equally pro-
hibited.

“ ARTICLE III. The agents of the Public Police will en.
force the execution of the present decree.

“ Given at the Prefecture of Police, December 8, 1851.

“De Maupas, Prefect of Police.
“Seen and approved,
“Dr Morny, Minister of the Interior.”

On another could be read,—

“Tur Minister or War,
“By virtue of the Law on the State of Siege,

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 175

« Decrees :—
“Every person taken constructing or defending a bar.
ricade, or carrying arms, WILL BE SHOT.
“ General of Division,
“ Minister of war,
“Dz Sarnt-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 Ar-
rondissements, 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 Pan-
théon. 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-Con-
stituent Leblond, at whose house the Committee had
deliberated that morning. We were sitting in perma-
nence, 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 dis-
posal 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.”

176 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

Two hours afterwards it was reported to us that the
conflict had begun. They were fighting in the Rue
Aumaire.

CHAPTER V.
BAUDINS’S CORPSE

Wire 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 never-
theless 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 see:
a passenger.” “Where are you going?” “Over there,
close by, to Bartholomé’s, the overseer of the sugar man-
factory.—” They search him. He himself opened his
pocket-book; the police agents turned out the pockets of
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 per-
sons in a fiacre, relations of Baudin, and a man whom he
did not know. One of the relations of Baudin, Madame

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 177

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 Commis-
sary of Police of the Rue Ste. Marguerite St. Antoine.
He had been charged by the Commissary of Police to go
to Bavdin’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 constitu-
tion. “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——.
onentering. “Why?” said the Commissary, “he is dead.”
“What do you mean? Dead!” “Yes; killed on the
spot.”

P This was a painful moment. The despair of these two
women who had been sv 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-

12

178 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

twenty, a medical student, came up. This young man
has since been arrested and imprisoned. His crime is his
brother. Letus continue. They proceeded to the hos-
pital. 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 Schcelcher, 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 pre-
serve. Gindrier and young Baudin, bare-headed, ap-
proached 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 de-
spairing 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.”

“Ts this your carriage?”

“ Yes.”

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 179

* 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 Pelice?”

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 tock
Baudin on his wooden bed and carried him to the fiacre.
They placed him at the bottom of the jiacre 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 jiacre followed, in which were the other
relative of Baudin and a medical student named Dutéche.

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 bring-
ing out of the body attracted a curious crowd before the
door. The ueighbors flocked thither. Baudin’s brother,
assisted by Gindrier and Dutéche, 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,

180 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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 De-
montry died in exile at Cologne. Gindrier started for Co-
logne, 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 Dutéche. 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
@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 Pecple, 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

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 181

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.

Tue text of the judgment which was believed to have
been dvawn up by the High Court of Justice had been
brought tous 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 mem-
bers who had met together on the preceding day at the
Mairie of the Tenth Arrondissement had decreed the de-
position 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 Re-
publican 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 hadno
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 improvi-
sation of means, of policy, of expedients, of resources,

182 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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 opportu-
nity, 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
Forcign 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 neededa
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

istol to my throat, and I will print whatever you wish.”
t was only a question, therefore, of getting a few friends
together, of seizing this printing-office by main force, cf
barricading it, and, if necessary, of sustaining a siege,
while our Proclamations and our decrees were being
printed. Heizel 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
shert 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,—

“JT am in truth watching, not against you, but for you;
Iam guarding you.”

M. Yon, aware of our meeting at Landrin’s house and
fearing that we should be arrested, was, of his owu accord,
acting as police for us.

&

THK HISTORY OF A CRIME. 183

Hetzel had already revealed his scheme to Representa-
tive Labrousse, who was to accompany him and give him
the moral support of the Assembly in his perilous expe-
dition. A first rendezvous which had been agreed upon
between them at the Café Cardinal having failed, La-
brousse 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. Wecame back into the large room to read it tothe
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 even-
ing.

Emile de Girardin—after dispersing from around him
that mist which envelopes every combatant in party war-
fare, and which at a distance changes or obscures the ap-
pearance 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 under-
stands, he sees, he recognizes, he handles, so to speak,
the great and magnificent identity embraced under these

184 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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 te
be assumed, and the position to be maintained, but nc 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 Demo-
cratic; on the day when these three ideas, Democracy, Re-
publicanism, 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 rea-
son 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 de
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 Gen-
darmerie 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 Proc-
lamation.” “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 Proc-
lamation. 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 con-
queror, 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

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 185

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 Na-
tional 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 fromhim. Every power from which the nation
withdraws falls like a tree from which the roots are di-
vided. 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 thou-
sand daring men, whose blood mingled with yours, already
flows. Itis 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 unfort-
unately 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 will-
ingly 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, sur-
vives all political movement. Whatever Emile de Girar-
din might hope, there would always be a butcher who
would kill, a baker who would bake, men must eat! “To

186 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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 doubt-
less 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 bis
idea, persisted. Some might be shaken. Arguments,
which were so abundant in this vigorous and inexnaust-
ible 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 todo. We have not got to do it.
It is done. The gauntlet of the coup @ état is thrown
down, the Left takes it up. The matter is as simple as
this. The outrage of the Second December is an infa-
mous, 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 canarm itselfand 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 unani-
mous and would enlighten France, but that no other form
of resistance would obtain unanimity. That as for him-
self, having always considered the Constitution worthless,
having contended against it from the first in the Constit.
uent Assembly, he would not defend it at the last, that
he assuredly would not give one drop of blood for it

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 187

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 meas anexample. 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.

188 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

\

“ Be it so,” continued he, “ but listen to me. You run,
you yourself personally, great danger. 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 nick-
named 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

ou there. Come, day or night, at what hour you please,
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 Assem-
bly 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 after-
wards 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

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 189

ought to do nothing of the sort; that our decrees should
be published, not with the signature of a President, who-
ever he might be, but with the signature of all the mem-
bers 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. Noél 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 pre-
serve all the authority attached to the office of the Repre-
sentatives 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 Noél 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 accom-
plices.’

“ 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

190 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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 de-
cree the names of all the Republican Representatives re-
maining at liberty, the absent as well as those present.
We answered that the decree signed by all would as-
suredly 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 re-
sult 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.*

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?”

“Tmmediately.”

He continuea,—

“Having no longer any presses, as I have told you, I
ean 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?”

“T do persist.”

* 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,

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 191

A second copy was made of the decree, which Emile da
Girardin took away with him.

The deliberation was resumed. At each moment Rep-
resentatives came in and brought items of news: Amiens
in insurrection—Rheims and Rouen in motion, and march-
ing on Paris—General Caurobert resisting the coup d'état
—General Castellane hesitating—the Minister of the
United States demanding his passports. We placed little
ie in these rumors, and facts proved that we were
right.

Meanwhile Jules Favre had drawn up the following de.
cree, which he proposed, and which was immediately
adopted :—

« DECREE.
“Frenca REPUBLIC.
& Liberty,—Equality,—Fraternity.

“The undersigned Representatives remaining at lib.
erty, 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 multi-
plying 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:

« Art. I.— The State of Siege is raised in all Depart-
ments where it has been established, the ordinary laws
resume their authority.

« Art. Ii.—It is enjoined upon all military leaders under
penalty of Treason immediately to lay down the extraor-
dinary powers which have been conferred upon them.

“«“ Art. [I].—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.”

192 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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 pres-
ence of these words, “The Law of the 31st May is abol-
ished, 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 dic-
tated 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 Suf-
frage.

“ Louis Bonaparte has lied.

“Read his placards. He giants 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
granis 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 gen-
eration 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 lib.
erty considering that the Representative Baudin has died

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 193

on the barricade of the Faubourg St. Antoine for the Re.
ublic and for the laws, and that he has deserved well of
is country, decree: à

“That the honors of the Panthéon are adjudged to
Representative Baudin.

“Given in Permanent Session, 83d 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 willsee. Inthe meantime let them fight!
If they do not fight, if they do not rise, if they do not un-
derstand 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 satisfac-
tion which the Right had always obstinately refused, and
that the Left, master of the situation, ought hasten to ac-
cord. 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 Octrot Duties are abolished throughout the ex.
tent of the territory of the Republic.

“Given in permanent Session, 34 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 Representa-
tives withdrew I was teid 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 ina

5
te,

$94 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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
hodkin, 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 boo: 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 hun-
dred 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 hun-
dred copies shall be posted throughout Paris.”

I bad none of the documents with me which we had
just drawn up. Versigny had gone away with the copies.

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
wko misleads you. Of such a crime French soldiers
guould be the avengers, not the accomplices.

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 195

“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
‘ ghoulders. Soldiers! there is yet time—Stop! Come

"196 - THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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—lI 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 say-
ing, “You will see it again to-morrow morning.” He
‘kept his word. I found it the next 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 curi-
ously 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 ar-
rested 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 reassuringthem. They

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 197

gave me a packet of letters offering me places of refuge
for the night, some of them signed with names unknown
tome. 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 Thad 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.

CHAPTER VII.
THE ARCHBISHOP,

Ox 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 dis-
trusted 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 excep-
tional 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 com-
bat, one must bathe fully in those powerful homogeneous
mediums which are called parties. Great currents of men
follow gr2at 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, ong

198 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

cannot understand a Catholic Democrat. It is a combina.
tion 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 @état the democratic Catholic workman, whose
noble effort we are here relating, threw himself so resol-
utely 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 jm-
possible 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 defaul,ers,
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 oppor.
tunity is still greater.

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 199

“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 work-
man’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 insurrec-
tion, 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 lAriége came to his
mind.

Arnauld de lAriége 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 De-
mocracy with the Church. Arnauld de l'Ariège, young,
handsome, eloquent, enthusiastic, gentle, and firm, com-

200 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

bined 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 prin-
ciples, but he had not twofaces. On the whole the demo-
cratic spirit preponderated in him. He said to me one
day, “I give my hand to Victor Hugo. Ido not give it
to Montalembert.”

The workman knew him. He had often written to
him, and had sometimes seen him.

Arnauld de lAriége 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
PAriége 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 with-
out 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 PAriége 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
lAriége 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 encroachments of the Clerical party

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 201
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 in-
troduction, 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,—

“TJ 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?”

“JT myself.”

“ But there is danger.”

She raised her eyes, and answered,— ;

“Did I make that objection to you when you left ma
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?

“J 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

202 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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 bea 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 Arnauld
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 counselled by the workman. He spoke elo-
quently. He laid great stress upon this argument, that
the appearance of the Archbishop would bring about a
manifestation of the National Guard, and that a mani-
festation of the National Guard would compel the Elysée
to draw back.

“No,” said the Archbishop, “you hope for the impos-
sible. 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 nolonger any influence. Ifthe 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 @état? Where is the oath? Where is the

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 508

sworn faith? Where is the Respect for Right? A man
does not turn back when he has made three steps in such
acrime. No! no! Do not hope. This man will do all.
He has struck the Lawin 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 after-
wards, in the Church of Notre Dame, some one was sing-
ing the Ze Deum in honor of the treason of December—
thus making God a partner in a crime.

This man was the Archbishop Sibour.

CHAPTER VIIL :
MOUNT VALERIEN.

Or the two hundred and thirty Representatives prisoners
at the barracks of the Quaid’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, Vati-
mesnil, were locked in the wheeled cells, as also Eugéne
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 be-
fore the Representatives.

204 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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 Eugéne 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. Asa
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 ac-
complished 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.
Rouher 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

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 205

separated from the scarlet goats. A murmur which
seemed to be unanimous arose. These generous mani-
festations did honor to the Representatives of the Right.

“No! no! Let us name no one, let us not allow our-
selves to be sorted,” exclaimed M. Gustave de Beaumont.

M. de Vatimesnil added, “ We have come in here all
together, we ought to go out ail together.”

_ Nevertheless a few moments afterwards Antony Thouret

was intormed that a list of names was being secretly pre-
pared, and that the Royalist Representatives were invited
to sign it. They attributed, doubtless wrongly, this un-
worthy resolution to the honorable M. de Falloux.

Antony Thouret spoke somewhat warmly in the centre
of the group, which were muttering together in the dor-
mitory.

“Gentlemen,” said he, “a list of names is being pre-
pared. 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. To-
day 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.”

Afew 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.

206 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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 Rep-
resentatives 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; Eugéne Sue, Esquiros,
Antony Thouret, Pascal Duprat, Chanay, Fayolle, Paulin
Durrieu, Benoît, Tamisier, Tailard Latérisse, and three
members of the Right, who since the preceding day had
suddenly become Red in the eyes of the coup 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.

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 207

CHAPTER IX.
THE LIGHTNING BEGINS TO FLASH AMONGST THE PEOPLE.

Tux 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: “ Sou-
louque!”* Throughout that long line from the Madeleine
to the Bastille, the roadway nearly everywhere, except
igs this on purpose ?) at the Porte St. Denis and the Porte

t. 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

* A popular nickname for Louis Bonaparte. austin Soulouque
was the negro Emperor of Hayti, who, when President of the Repub-
lic, 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.

208 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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-op-
eration 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 atlength raise the people and over-
throw 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 outlawr
endorsing the judgment of the High Court, and with

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 209

our signatures attached. It was a placard twice as large
as one’s hand, and printed on paper used for proofs.
Noél Parfait brought us the five hundred copies, still
damp, between his waistcoat and his shirt. Thirty Rep-
resentatives 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 to-
wards him. “Shout ‘Down with Soulouque!’” said he,
“and you shall have some.” Allthis in the presence of
the soldiers. Even a sergeant of the line, noticing Chara-
maule, 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 Soulou-
que.” 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 @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 com-

14

210 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

pact there than elsewhere. All the shops were shui
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 mul.
titude, 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 sing-
ing. This formidable chorus was recognized,

* Aux armes, Citoyens ; formez vos bataillons 1”

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 com-
posed 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 swing-
ing 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 him-
self 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 bear-
ing 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.

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 211

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 to-
gether 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. Theson, 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 manslunk away.

The mob swelled on its road; the crowd opened out and
repeated the “ Marseillaise ” in chorus, but with the excep-
tion of a few swords no one wasarmed. 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

212 - THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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 regi-
ment 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-Com-
mandant Fleury, one of the aides-de-camp of the Presi-
dency, was summoned into the little room where M.
Bonaparte had remained throughout the day. M. Bona-
parte 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 Minis-
ters 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. Rouher, in particular, had disappeared, no one knew
where—a sign of tempest. Putting Louis Bonaparte on
one side, the coup @’ 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 vic-

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 213

e

tory; 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 todevour. 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 acomplices behind them.

CHAPTER X.
WHAT FLEURY WENT TO DO AT MAZAS.

Durine the same night towards four o’clock the ap-
proaches of the Northern Railway Station were silently
invested by two regiments; one of Chasseurs de Vin-
cennes, 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 ~~.ch 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

914 - THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

filled by four sergents de ville placed between the prisonera
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

olice-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, Lamori-
ciére!”

“ Good-morning, Cavaignac ! ” replied the first voice.

General Cavaignac and General Lamoriciére 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. “Iam one of

ou!”

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
Lamoriciére, Cavaignac, and Changarnier. In the other
vehicle, which was placed foremost on the trucks, there
were Colonel Charras, Generals Bedeau and Le Fld, and
Count Roger (du Nord).

At midnight these eight Representative prisoners were
sleeping in their cells at Mazas, when they heard a sudden

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 215

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 quar-
rels 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 tothem. They had passed
the night on their feet, and at six o’clock in the morn-
ing 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, hear-
ing 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 Ro-
tunda, 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. “Iam no more disposed to tell
you my name than I am curious to learn yours,” answered
General Lamoriciére, 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 Lamori-
ciére’s division ; and it was General Lamoriciére who in
1848, then being Minister of War, had promoted him to
the rank of major. While passing through the clerk’s
office, General Lamoriciére looked fixedly at him.

When they entered the police-vans the generals were
smoking cigars. They took them from them. General
Lamoriciére 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

216 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

for some time, but however ended by saying to the gen.
eral, “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 North-
ern Railway Station; others thought to the Havre Rail-
way Station. They heard the trot of the escort on the
paving-stones.

On the railway the discomfort of the cells greatly in-
creased, General Lamoriciére, 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 communica-
tion with each other.

On hearing the names of the prisoners their keepers,
who up to that time had been rough, became respectful.
“JT 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 pris-
oners.

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 land-
scape. 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,
“T left the Prefecture at midnight, but I saw him up to

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 217

ee 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 car-
riages 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
Lamoriciére, “ 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 be-
neath 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 ofa 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.

218 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

They led them separately into the prison, each to the
room that was allotted to him. However, General Lamo-
riciére having been taken by mistake into Cavaignac’s
room, the two generals could again exchange a shake of
the hand. General Lamoriciére 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 com-
posed 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 con.
tains 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 Lamoriciére and General Changar-
nier. The five other prisoners were distributed in the
five rooms of the first floor.

The room allotted to General Lamoriciére had been oc-
cupied 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 ac-
count 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 Lamoriciére 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 wall, and stating the day when

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 219

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 organ-
izer of an ambush. To prison! This man is the victim
ofan 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 jus-
tice 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 out-
side.

CHAPTER XI.
THE END OF THE SECOND DAY.

We left Maries 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

220 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

with considerable energy. Without taking the trouble te
lean down and look, they ransacked under the beds with
bayonet thrusts. Sometimes they had difficulty in with-
drawing the bayonets which they had driven into the wall,
Unfortunately for this zeal, we were not there.

This zeal came from higher sources. The poor soldiers
obeyed. “Kill the Representatives,” such were their in-
structions. 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 banish-
ment, called us “those individuals,” which caused Schæl-
cher 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 occu-
pied in the Rue Richelieu; these rooms adjoining the
Théatre Frangais, were on the first floor of a house which,
like M. Grévy’s residence, had an exit into the Rue Fon-
taine Moliére.

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 ad-
venture I should write its history, I resolved immediately
to note down some detaiis of the state of affairs in Paris
at the end of this day, the second of the coup @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 commis:
sions to draw up the postscript of his crimes.

“ Léon Foucher refuses to be in it; Montalembert hesi-
tates; Baroche accepts.

“Falloux despises Dupin.

“The first shots were fired at the Record Office. In

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 221

the Markets in the Rue Rambuteau, in the Rue Beau-
bourg 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 barri-
cade 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 barri-
cade of the Carrefour Phélippeaux defended by twenty
young men who have all been killed; they are reconstruct-
ing 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 Barriére 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 en-

222 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

gineer-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 can-
non, 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 Courti-
gis brigade at the Faubourg St. Antoine; the Renaud
division atthe 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 ofthe Municipal Guard is bivouacking
inthe 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 Poissioniére); 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 com-
mands. To-morrow will be a terrible day.”

This page written, I went to bed, and fell asleep,

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 238

THE THIRD DAY.

THE MASSACRE.

CHAPTER I.
THOSE WHO SLEEP AND HE WHO DOES NOT SLEEP,

Durine this night of the 8d and 4th of December,
while we who were overcome with fatigue and betrothed
tocalamity 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 à super-
numerary 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 wasa cut-throat, and badly educated.
Morny laughed at him for his pronunciation of the “Sove-
ereign 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 vet-
eran 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 the-

294 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

atrical name was Florivan. He wasastrolling player trans-
formed into a trooper. He died Marshal of France. An
ill-omened figure.

The two colonels who awaited Saint-Arnaud in the ante-
room 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’Au-
male was pleased with this young captain for having given
him an opportunity for a deedof gallantry. He made
hima 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 sane 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 Do-
brudscha, an ill-used horse turned upon him and bit off
ae 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 Constan-
tine. Plenty of bravery and plenty of baseness. No

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 225

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
WOrléans, the second time by the Duc de Némours.

Such were these colonels.
: Saint-Arnaud spoke to them for some time in a low
one.

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 win:
dow, 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 Hin-
gray, so that he might print it immediately, the following
decree, compiled on the spur of the moment by Jules
Favre :—

« Frenca Repuguic.

& Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.

“The undersigned Representatives of the People who
still remain at liberty, having met together in an Ex-
traordinary 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 be 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 impre.
sa right of the People:

1

226 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

“ DECREE:

“ ARTICLE I. All prosecutions which have begun, and
all sentences which have been pronounced, for political
crimes or offences are annulled as regards ail 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 anda 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.

“ ArtictE 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 sig-
nature, 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
Conciérgerie as soon as the surprise which we premedi-
tated 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 en-
abled him to knew the whole body of the political and
municipal police. He warned us that he had seen sus-
picious figures roving about the neighborhood. We
were in the Rue Richelieu, almost opposite the Théâtre
Frangais, 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 Com-
mittee, 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 wil!
be taken and shot,” said he to us.

He entreated us to go elsewhere, M. Grévy’s brother,

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 227

consulted by us, stated that he could not answer for the
people of his house. É

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 sig-
nal advantage—a back outlet upon the Rue Fontaine-
Moliére. 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. Anoteworthy member of the Assem-
dly—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 placea
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, impas-
sive, 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 misgiv-
ings. We begged Durand-Savoyat in future to allow no
one to remain in the apartments, not even the Represent-
atives of the People, to take note of all news and infor-
mation, 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 for-
mulas; for us, “Things are looking well,” for himself,
« It shall be done.” “It shall be done,” a noble manner
in which to speak af duty.

228 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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,” con-
tinued 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?”

“Tt is not possible,” was the answer. “We have in.
structed 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.

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 22%

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 no-
ticeable. Ihave detained all the Representatives who have
come in, and have piaced 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 willnot reach you. We shall pay for you.
If there is any one to be killed, they will content them-
selves with us.” |

And without imagining that he had just uttered the
words of a hero, Durand-Savoyat went back to the ante-
chamber.

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 De-
cember 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 Assem-
bly,” 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

930 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

« DECREE.
placarded.

“The crime of Louis Bonaparte imposes great dutier
upon the Representatives of the People remaining at
liberty.

« Bens 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
@ 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
qe Hier, 1851, for the election of a Sovereign Assem-

y.

“ 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.

À ee ran at Paris, in Permanent Session, December
, 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 dis-
appeared. The Representative Charassin, a political econ-
omist, 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 wasignorant. She went to Mazas
to make inquiries for him there. A colonel who simulta-
neously commanded in the army and in the police, re-
ceived her, and said, “I can only permit you to see your
husband on one condition.” “What is that?” “You

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 231

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 inembers 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 : Beramont, Vivien, BUREAU DE Pury,
Ep. Caarton, Cuvier, DE RENNEVILLE, Horace
Say, BOULATIGNIER, Gautier DE Rumity, DE
JouvENcEL, Dunoyer, CARTERET, DE FRESNE,
Bovcnenay-Lerer, Rrvrt, BouneT, CoRMENIN,
Pons pe 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 24 of December, at the very
hour at which the Representatives of the Right had gone
from M. Darw’s to the Mairie of the Tenth Arrondisse-
ment, 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

232 THE HISTORY OF A CRMIE.

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 signa.
tures 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 trem-
bled, 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.” Boudet 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 38d, MM. Vivien and
Bethmont took the protest to Boulay dela Meurthe, Vice-
President of the Reguvuec, 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 ex-
cuse: “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

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 233

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? Itisa crime. What are we doing?” M Gau-
tier 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.

Dorine 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 trans-
mitted 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 submis-
sion to the coup @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 through-
out the night. In the adjoining room there was a Coun-
cilof War. From the sentry-box where he was stationed
Boillay saw defined on the windows black profiles and

234 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

gesticulating shadows, which were Magnan, Saint-Arnaud,
Persigny, Fleury,—the spectres of the crime.

Korte, the General of the Cuirassiers, had been sum-
moned, 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 car-
riages 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 ina
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 de-
ceived 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 Chateau-
briand, 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 ? *

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 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 up sourire aux lèvres de i’aurore.
Aussi doux que le tjen ?

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 235

- The precautions which had been taken in case of ac.
cident were visible even from outside. Since the preced-
ing 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 procla-
mations. They had been immediately arrested. Colonel
Forestier was arrested. They had transferred him to the
Fort of Bicétre, together with Crocé Spinelli, Genillier,
Hippolyte Magen, a talented and courageous writer, Gou-
dounéche, 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 case-
mates?” And Morny had answered, “ Cellars without air
or daylight, twenty-four métres 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 Bicétre,
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 print-
ing-presses had been placed under seal; that all the drums

936 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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 couplements, 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 centimétres in diameter should be employed.

“In truth,” Morny, who was in the secret, had said,
“ali 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 mem-
ber of the Socialist Committee, Arséne Meunier. This
last named occupied No. 32 of the Sixth Division. Adjoin-
ing, in No. 30, there was a Representative of the Right,
who sobbed and cried unceasingly. This made Arséne
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?” ex-
claimed 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 Govern-
ment 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

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 237

down with folded arms, and then the space being too con-
fined, 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 be-
yond 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 arhused 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.”

CHAPTER IV.
BONAPARTE’S FAMILIAR SPIRITS.

M. Mermest 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 sen-
timents 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 confi-
dant. 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

238 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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 ; 3 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 brig-
and’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 in-
sipid 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 wha were for use,
and the courtiers who were for ornament, {here were the
auxiliaries.

Certain circumstances called for‘reinforcements ; some-
times 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 with-
out seeing him, that she could not do without him, and
that shé 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

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 239

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 ITI. from being born.

. A RALRRIS number of salvoes of cannon saluted this

irth.

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 com-
panion 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, * 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 em-
balming, and preservation as far as the mummy : later on
a senator.

There was Larabit, a friend of Lacrosse, as much a do-
mestic 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 ap-
pears that one can say toa 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 Philaréte
Chasles, an ill-tempered writer who had become Minister
of the Marine, which caused Béranger to say, “Tks
Fortoul knows all the spars, including the ‘ greased pole.’ ”

There were some Auvergants there. Two. They hated

*Better known afterwards as Persigny.

240 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

each other. One had nicknamed the other “the mela,
choly tinker.”

There was Sainte-Beuve, a distinguished but inferia
man, having a pardonable fondness for ugliness. A great
critic like Cousin is a great philosopher.

There was Troplong, who has had Dupin for Pro.
curator, and whom Dupin has 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 every.
thing 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 ang
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 bad 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 re-
puted statesman. What constitutes the statesman isa
certain superior mediocrity.

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 241

‘here was Lavalette, completing Morny and Walewski.

There was Bacciochi.

And yet others.

Tt 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 for-
midable. 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 com-
pounded there as we have shown; Viellard was a classic
of 1830, Morny created Choufleury, Louis Bonaparte was
a candidate for the Academy. Strange place. Rambouil-
let’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. Itis at the Elysée that Napoleon the
First ended. and that Napoleon the Third began. It is at

20

242 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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.

CHAPTER V.
A WAVERING ALLY.

Durine 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 him-
self up meditates, and for such men to meditate is to pre
meditate. 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 trust-
worthy.

He had assuredly not been mistaken in Maupas. To
pick the lock of the Law he needed a skeleton key. He
took Maupas. Nor couid 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 com-
posite 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 re-
porters 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

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 243

by him, remained an honest man. Louis Bonaparte, mis-
trusting 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
vegan 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
mean his head sunk in his shoulders, was intrepid, and
admirably understood the handling of a brigade. Bu.
geaud, Lamoriciére, Cavaignac, and Changarnier were his
four stepping-stones to advancement At Paris, in 1851,
he met Lamoriciére, who received him coldly, and Chan-
garnier, who treated him better. He left Satory indig
nant, exclaiming, “ We must finish with this Louis
Bonaparte. Heïis 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 waker X. It
was Edgar Ney. X. was a prop for the coup @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

244 THE HISTORY OF À CRIME.

Chamber by its invaders, crossed the Place. La Roche-
jaquelein, 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?” “JZ 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 J am waiting, and We must see, preoccupied Louis
Bonaparte. Morny said, “ Zet us make use of the flying
squadron.

CHAPTER VI.
DENIS DUSSOUBS.

Gaston Dussouss 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

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 245

Conciérgerie with my two sons and my two imprisoned
friends. These great hearts and great minds, Vacquerie,
Meurice, Charles, and Frangois 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 meet-
ings. He was ill, “nailed down,” as he wrote me, b
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 @état, and was ex-
asperated 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 VIL
ITEMS AND INTERVIEWS.

LamoricieRE on the same morning found means to
convey to me by Madame de Courbonne* the following
information.

“ Fortress of Ham.—The Commandant’s nameis
Baudot. His appointment, made by Cavaignac in 1848,
was countersigned by Charras. Both are to-day his

* No. 16, Rue d'Anjou, Saint Honoré,

246 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

prisoners. The Commissary of Police, sent by Morny te
the village of Ham to watch the movements of the jailer
and the prisoners, is Dufaure de Pouillac.” *

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.

Lamoriciére, 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

iven.

: The arrests of the Generals were affected at the same
time at their respective homes under nearly similar cir-
eumstances. 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 Lamoriciére, according to his own expression,
was asound 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.f The General was awakened, seized, and carried
away.

While passing in a carriage along the Quai Malaquais,
Lamoriciére noticed troops marching by with their knap-
sacks 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

* The author still has in his possession the note written by Las
moriciére.

t Later on, the wound having got worse, he was obliged to have his
leg taken off

.

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 247

they were locked up and forgotten. At eight in the even-
ing General Changarnier had eaten nothing.

These arrests were not pleasant tasks for the Commis-
saries of Police. They were made to drink down their
shame in large draughts. Cavaignac, Leflô, Changarnier,
Bedeau, and Lamoriciére 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 whe 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 re-
ceived 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. Serriére published
the Presse and the Avénement du Peuple, the latter a new
name for the Ævénement, which had been judicially sup-
pressed. 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 Lieu-
tenant named Pape (since decorated for this achieve-
ment). Thisman had given Serriére an order prohibiting
the printing of any article signed “Nusse.” A Com-
missary of Police accompanied Lieutentant Pape. This
Commissary had notified Serriére of a “decree of the
President of the Republic,” suppressing the Av nement
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

248 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME,

=
\

Municipal Guards arrived, with twc 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, Z should like a Colonel of
your stump.” 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 jest-
ed, drank champagne and coffee, and said, “ We fill the
places of the Representatives, we have twenty-five francs &
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, Tam on your side.” The gendarme replied, “ What
ts that to me?”

At three o’clock on the morning of the 4th all the
printing-offices were evacuated by the soldiers. The Cap-
tain said to Serriére, “ We have orders to concentrate in
our own quarters.” And Serriére, in announcing this fact,
added, “Something is in preparation.”

Thad 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. Mèrimèe, “ I was lookine for you.”
I answered him,—

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 249

“TI hope you will not find me.”

| He held out his hand to me, and I turned my back on
im.

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. Heisaclever 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 Liége. I have the honor of his ac-
quaintance. 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 Leflé, 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 Leflé were invited, and had
made an appointment there with General Canrobert. But
the ball did not form a part of Madame Leflé’s conversa-
tion 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 Canro-
bert, “is my resignation and,” he added, “you may tell
General Lefié so.” He was pale, and walked up and down,
apparently much agitated. “Yourresignation, General ?”
“Yes, Madame.” “Is it positive?” “Yes, Madame, if
there is no riot.” “General Canrobert,” exclaimed Ma-
dame 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.”

350 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

CHAPTER VIII.
THE SITUATION,

Atrnoveu the fighting tactics of the Committee were,
for the reasons which I have already given, not to con-
centrate 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 in-
stinctively, as also the criminals of the Elysée on their
side, that the day would be decisive.

The moment drew near when the coup Wétat 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 fau-
bourgs of Paris, abandon their Representatives? Would
they abandon themselves? Or, awakened and enlight-
ened, 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 tz
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 Gressier 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 HISTORY OF A CRIME. 251

the placards of the coup @état, which pronounced the pen-
alty of death against any one who should placard the
decrees emanating from the Representatives. Hingray
told us that our proclamations and our decrees had heen
lithographed and distributed by hand in thousands. It
was urgently necessary that we should continue our pub-
lications. 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 Repre-
sentative 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 patrictic assistance of several young med-
ical 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 fight-
ing took place on the right bank, it was necessary to trans-
port this powder across the bridges. They managed this
in the best manner they could, Towards nine o’elock 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 cn
the Pont Neuf.

A certain strategical plan became manifest. The ten
central bridges were militarily guarded.

People were arrested in the street on account of their
personal appearance. A sergent-de-ville, at the corner of
the Pont-au-Change, exclaimed, loud enough for the pass-
ers-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.

252 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

“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 Pan.
theon.”

Signs of good omen grew morenumerous. An old hot.
bed 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 deter-
mined 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 morn-
ing 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, alternat-
ing with the rapid sound of the printing blankets. Ina
few hours fifteen hundred copies were pulled, and at day-
break 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 disheart-
ened on the preceding day; he now had become hopeful.

On the preceding day he wrote :—“ Where are the Rep-
resentatives ? The communications are cut. The quays
and the boulevards can no longer be crossed. It has be-
come impossible to reunite the popular Assembly. The

eople need direction. De Flotte in one district, Victor

ugo inanother, 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 crganized
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.”

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 253

Now, this man so intelligent and so courageous re-
covered confidence, and he wrote,—

“Decidedly, Louis Napoleon is afraid. The police re-
ports are alarming for him. The resistance of the Re-
publican Representatives is bearing fruit. Paris is arm-
ing. 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 theservices. 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

oint to this, On the preceding evening a tall man had

een 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 Com-
mittee; the following letter * was brought to our knowl-

edge.
«“ 3d December.

“My prar Bocacr,

“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,

“ At. Dumas.”

At the back was written, “Bocage, 18, Rue Cassette.”
It was necessary that the minutest details should be

© The original of this note is in the hands of the author of this
Dovk. It was handed to us by M. Avenel on the part of M. Bocage,

254 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

considered. In the different places of combat a diversity
ot 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 bar-
ricades. In the Rue Rambuteau the password was
“ Eugéne Sue and Michel de Bourges ;” in the Rue Beau-
bourg, “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 be-
ing 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.”

Wereceived 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 Hétel 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 strate-
gical importance on the Quai des Gévres, on the Quai
Lepelletier, and in the Rue de la Cité, to be silently oc-
cupied, 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 twc
points. Captain Jourdan, we may at once mention, did
what he had promised us; unfortunately, as we learnt

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 255

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 Her-
billon having been forced to leave it with his cavalry to
take the barricades of the centre in the rear. The attack
of tre Republicans burst forth instantly. Musket shots
were fired trom 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 La-
rochette before the Hétel de Ville, the 44th retraced its
steps, and the attempt failed.

Bastide arrived, with Chauffour and Laissac.

“Good news,” said he to us, “allis 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 inthe 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 me.” “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. 1
explained to the driver who I was, and that I was about
to visit and encourage the barricades; that I should go

266 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

sometimes on foot, sometimes in the carriage, and that !
trusted myself to him. I told him my name.

The first comer is almost always an honest man. This
trus-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.

CHAPTER IX.
THE PORTE SAINT MARTIN.

Twrortant deeds had been already achieved during the
morning.

“Tt 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 draw-
ing 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 irresist-
ible 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 move-
ment 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 revolt+
ing, the Bastille when the people are revolting. The eye

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 257

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 Revolu-
tion seem ever to smoulder.

When à 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, noth-
ing had been able to awaken it. An entire park of artil-
lery was encamped with lighted matches around the July
Column, that enormous deaf-and-dumb memento of the
Bastille. This lofty revolutionary pillar, this silent wit-
ness of the great deeds of the past, seemed to have for-
gotten 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 pla-
cards of the coup d'état; they posted up our Proclama-
tions ; 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 eopies from each other. Men mounted on the kerb-
stones read aloud the names of the 120 signatories, and,
still more than on the day before, each significant or cele-
brated name was hailed with applause. The crowd in-
creased 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, crying,
“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 beczme covered with
barricades.

17

258 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

CHAPTER X.
MY VISIT TO THE BARRICADES.

My coachman deposited me at the corner of Saint Eu.
stache, and said to me, “Here you are in the hornets’
nest.”

He added, “TI will wait for you in the Rue de la Vril-
liére, 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 Bergére, 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 ran-
dom; 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 vis-
ited 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 Gre-
netat. One farther on in the Rue Grenetat, barring the
Rue Bourg-Labbé (in the centre an overturned flour wag-
on; a good barricade). In the Rue Saint Denis one bar.

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 259

ring 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 im-
provised by Leguevel at a chemist’s opposite the Rue
Guérin-Boisseau.

“They are constructing the barricades amicably, with-
out 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. Itis a perfect sewer. They hesitate to ask for
a truss of straw. They lie down in the water or on the
pavement.

“JT 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 barri-
cade 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 barri-
cades. He presented his first lieutenant to me, Charpen-
tier, a man of thirty-six, lettered and scientific. Charpen-

260 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

tier 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 am-
munition 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 be. Charpentier
had never in his life touched a firearm. 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 gasmon’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 ap-
proached, 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 barri-
cades, 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,

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 261

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 Rous-
seau, 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 chief 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, fear-
ing 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 officers 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 ?”

262 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME,

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 in-
solent. 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 Vrilliére. He brought
me back to No 15, Rue Richelieu.

CHAPTER XL
THE BARRICADE OF THE RUE MESLAY

Tue 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 ob-
stacle. No portion of the piled-up stones was higher
than aman. In a goud third of the barricade the stones
did not reach above the knee. “It will at all events be

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 263

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 en-
counter ; the troops regarding the barricade bristling with
guns, the barricade regarding the gaping cannon. After
a while the order fora general attack was given. The
firing commenced. The first shot passed above the barri-
cade, 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 ad-
vanced 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 can-
non recommenced firing. 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 cf the bugle could be distinctly
heard on the other side of the block of houses which con-
cealed the troops echelloned on the Square of Saint Mar-
tin, and it was manifest. that a second attack was being
prepared.

264 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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 de-
fended. 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 barri-
cade 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,* who was a workman, and who also was a poet,
had worked during a portion of the morning at the barri-
cades, 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 win-
dows 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 kim, 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.

* It must not be forgotten that this has been written in exile, and
that to name a hero was to condemn him to exile,

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 265

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 ex-
hausted. 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 unpro-
tected. There was a perfect rain of musketry and grape-
shot. Three or four were killed there, one, like Baudin,
by a ball inhiseye. 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.

“J shall remain,” said Pierre Tissié,

« And I also,” said the boy.

266 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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 barri-
sade.

HAPTER XII.

THE BARRICADE OF THE MAIRIE OF THE FIFTH ARRON-
DISSEMENT.

Nationa, Guarps 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 re-
ceived them with shouts of “Down with Louis Bona-
parte!” 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 set to work to tear up the paving-stones.

A large cart laden with sacks of flour was descending
the faubourg, and passed before the gate of the Mairie

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 267

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 ay
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 car-
tridge.

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

268 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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 Hvénement 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. Coste 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.”

“JT 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 predica-
ment, gave them a packing-cloth. They enveloped the
drum in it, and reached Batignolles by the lonely streets
which skirt the walls.

CHAPTER XIII.
THE BARRICADE OF THE RUE THEVENOT.

Gxorces Biscarrat was the man who had given the
aignal for the hooting 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

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 269

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 under-
ground 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 del’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 af.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 lEcheile. 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 therear. 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
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 Pretorians!” The soldiers

270 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

looked at him with bewilderment, and the crowd with as.
tonishment. Georges Biscarrat (he teld 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 @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, Berthelon, 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 Representa-
tives did not know him, 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 ? ”

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 271

“[ 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 Biscar-
rat. 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 Bis-
carrat. 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. Heis 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 the 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 Ha-
sard-Saint-Sauveur they requisitioned iron bars and ham-
mers from a large courtyard belonging to a locksmith.
Having the arms, they had the men. They speedily num-
bered 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

272 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

formidable. Toabridge. At eleven o’clock Georges Bis-
carrat 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 un-
masked, 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 fol-
lowed 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 Hen-
nett de Kesler.* 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; “ Z 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. Teste-
lin, 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,

* Died in exile in Guernsey. See the “Pendant l’Exil,” under
the heading Actes et Paroles, vol. ii,

THE HISTORY OF A CRIM4. 273

where Baudin had just been killed. All was at an end in
that direction. Testelin was accompanied by Charles
Gambon, another dauntless man.* The two Representa-
tives 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 curi-
ous. Testelin, nevertheless, having come to the Com-
mittee, informed us of the following :—At the corner of a
street of the Faubourg Saint Antoine Gambon and him-
self had noticed a crowd. They had gone up toit. 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 Gam-
bon. Testelin took the pencil, went up to the placard,
and wrote his name beneath mine, then he gave the pen-
cil 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 @ état by the weariness of the army; such was
the plan discussed and adopted.

The order was acordingly given that the barricades
should be but slightly defended.

We repeated in every possible form to the comba-
tants,—

“ Shed as little blood as possible! Spare the blood of
the soldiers and husband your own.”

Nevertheless, the struggle once begun, it became impos-

t Died in exile, at Termonde,

18

274 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

sible 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 dis-
appeared in the smoke of the combat. Radoux, an archi-
tect, Deluc, Mallarmet, Félix Bony, Luneau, an ex-Cap-
tain of the Republican Guard, Camille Berrn, editor of the
Avénement, gay, warmhearted, and dauntless, and that
young Eugène Millelot, who was destined to be con-
demned 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 six-
teen resolute men defended it; two were killed.

The barricade was carried with.the bayonet by a bat-
talion of the 16th of the line. This battalion, hurled on
the barricade at the double, was received by a brisk fusil-
lade; 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 toa 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. Accord-
ing 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 hither-
to 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 HISTORY OF A CRIME. 275

the present era, denied themselves bread to afford him
knowledge. In this manner he attained to the Poly-
technic 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 8d 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, Trans-
nonain, 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.

276 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

« An’ 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.”

“T 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
Bartholemew. “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.*

Meanwhile Ossian Dumas appeared determined. The
captain made a last effort.

“You will ruin yourself,” said he.

“T 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 barri-
cade will be attacked. Your comrades will fall, dead or

* Pro Hugonotorum strage. Medal struck at Rome in 1572,

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 277

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 in-
cident.

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 pretorian accomplices. After having mas-
sacred, 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. Not-
withstanding 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” inabody. 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 aloud voice, and with an open
voting-paper, “ No.”

Then he sent in his resignation. At the same time

278 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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 danger-
oug 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 with-
drawal 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 Au-
maire, 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! ”

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 279

CHAPTER XV.
THE QUESTION PRESENTS ITSELF,

Ir was one o’clock in the afternoon.

Bonaparte had again become gloomy.

The gleams of sunshine on such countenances as these
last a very short time.

He had gone back to his private room, had seated him-
self before the fire, with his feet on the hobs, motionless,
and no one any longer approached him except Roguet.

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 Roguet 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. Mazas became eccentric, the
prison unbent itself; the interior experienced an unde-
finable reverberation from the outside. The warders,
who the preceding evening had been insolent to the Rep-
resentatives when going for their exercise in the court-
yard, now saluted them to the ground. That very morn-

280 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

ing 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 Leflé’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 move-
ment 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. Ateleven 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 Fau-
bourg 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 cross-
roads. The beginning of the fire. The fire had caught.
The old central market quarter, that city which is con-
tained 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.

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 281

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 uncer-
tainty 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 con-
test, 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?”

“J 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 punish-
ment. Michel de Bourges realized this.

Moreover this incident shows to what a pitch our hopes
had been raised.

Appearances were on our side, a¢tual 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 horse-
back in the Place de la Madeleine, at the head of his waver-
ing 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

282 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME,

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
avanquished 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 regi.
ments and the limbered batteries quitted the faubourg
and stationed themselves noiselessly around the boule.
vards. 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 thearmy; 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’ Hétel 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,”

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 283

At two o’clock five brigades, those of Cotte, Bourgon,
Canrobert, Dulac, and Reybell, five batteries of artillery,
16,400 men,* infantry and cavalry, lancers, cuirassiers,
grenadiers, gunners, were echelloned without any osten-
sible reason between the Rue de la Paix and the Fau-
bourg Poissoniére. Pieces of cannon were pointed at the
entrance of every street ; there were eleven in position on
the Boulevard Poissoniére 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 re-
mained outside their scabbards, and the lighted matches
of the cannon smouldered 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. BE

What was coming out of this thick darkness ?

* 16,410 men, the figures taken from the Ministry of War.

284 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME,

CHAPTER XVL

THE MASSACRE.

SUDDNLY 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 boule-
vard 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 appeareô
in the gloom, shooting down and massacring.

“No; we do not attribute to the French army wh-”
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 HISTORY OF A CRIME. 285

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, Ex-
termination. Against Erinnyes they set up Medusa.

To put Nemesis to flight, what a terrifying triumph!

To Louis Napoleon pertains this glory, which is the
cummit 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 bul-
lets 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 unprece-
dented moment. It seemed as though a handful of light-
nings 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 youin
the street? Why do you cross the path of the Govern-
ment? The Government is a cut-throat. They have an-
nounced 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 Cambacérés 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

286 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. >

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. Every-
where 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,—

“T 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 Poissonniére, 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 yéars,
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, Mes-
dames Vidal and Raboisson, sempstresses, are in their
room; they killthem. Belval, a cabinet-maker, 10, Rue
de la Lune, is at home; they kill him. Debaécque, a
merchant, 45, Rue du Sentier, is in his own house; Cou-
vercelle, 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, Cou-
vercelle, and Debaécque. They sabre at her own home,
240, Rue Saint Martin, a poor embroideress, Mdlle. Se-
guin, who not having sufficient money to pay for a doctor,
died at the Beaujon hospital, on the Ist of J: anuary, 1852,
on the same day that the Sibour 7e 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
short down before the Archbishop’s palace, and died at

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 287

the Morgue. Passers-by, Mdlle. Gressier, living at 209,
Faubourg Saint Martin; Madame Guilard, living at 77,
Boulevard Saint Denis; Madame Garnier, 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 were performed. Colonel
Rochefort, who was probably created General for this,
charged in the Rue de 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 Hip-
polyte 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 fore-
head, 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 Prophéte, a father,
mother, and two daughters weresabred. Lefilleul, another
bookseller, was shot in his shop on the Boulevard Pois-
sonniére; 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
T also am discoursing sweet music.” The Café Leblond
was given over to pillage. Billecog’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.

288 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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 rattlein 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 Gymnase;
another from the Bonlevard Bonne Nouvelle to the Porte
Saint Denis; the 75th of the line having carried the
barricade of the Porte Saint Denis, it was longer a fight,
it was a slaughter. The massacre radiated—a word hor-
ribly true—from the boulevard into all the streets. It
was a devil-fish stretching outits 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 isan 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 HISTORY OF A CRIME. 289

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 divsion
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 hima
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 donot 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 chil-
dren. 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, Faubeurg 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,
erying, “They kill! they kill! they kill! they kill! they
kill!”

The soldiers wagered. “Bet you I bring down that

19

290 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

fellow there.” In this manner Count Poninsky was killed
whilst going into his own house, 52, Rue de Ja 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 feel-
ing one no longer thinks, or if one thinks, it is distract-
edly. 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 toangers and
to revolts. One only retains this ambition, to be a useful
corpse.

1 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 itdoes 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 boule-
vard. He said to me, “Ah, here you are. I have just
met Madame D. She is looking for you.” Madame D.*
and Madame de la R.,f 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.

*No. 20, Cité Rodier t Rue Caumartin. See pages 142, 145-148,

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 291

The following incident happened to her. She stopped
before a heap of bodies, and had had the courage to mani-
fest her indignation; at the cry of horror to which she
gave vent, a cavalry soldier had run up behind her witha
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 ex-
aggerates. 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

292 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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. Thesementriumphed. 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 Viéillard. In truth this carnage made Bona
parte 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 Priuce 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 suc-
ceeded 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.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE APPOINTMENT MADE WITH THE WORKMEN'S
SOCIETIES.

Waar 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

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 293

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 them-
selves 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 appear-
ances, 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 Mont-
habor. 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 Neuve 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, ques-
tioning one another, running. The shopkeepers, at the

294 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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 finerain 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 Conciérgerie.

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. Ashe
passed close by us he pronounced the name of Louis Bona-
parte 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 aninner courtyard. Fiveorsix 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 econ-
omy and executivelaw. 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

THE HISTCRY OF A CRIME. 295

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 strugyle by evading too decisive en-
counters. 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 As-
sociation of the Rights of Man was in the streets; the
ex-constituent Beslay had assembled, in the Passage du
Caire, six er 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 Com-
inittee 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 con-
tinue to restrain them or send them under fire without
delay. They believed themselves certain of their adher-
ents ; 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 werein 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 Bon-
aparte was lost. Paris does not allow herself to be
trampled upon by an army for a whole week. Neverthe-
less, I was for my own part impressed with the follow-
ing :—The workmen’s societies offered us three or four
thousand combatants, a powerful assistance ;—the work-
man does not understand strategy, he lives on enthusi-
asm, abatements of erdor discourage him ; his zeal is not

296 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

extinguished, but it cools:—three thousand to-day would
be five hundred to-morrow. And then some seri-
ous 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 mod-
ify the situation, and consequently change our plan of
vattle. 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; Iadded that revolutionary
warfare often necessitates sudden changes of tactics, that
a general in the open country and before the enemy oper-
ates 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. Whois withus? 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
ahandful of dust to-morrow. We only can plainly dis-
tinguish our duty, as regards all the rest it is black dark-
ness. Weare guessing at everything. Weare ignorant
of everything. Weare 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 re-
quested in our name to come down into the streets

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 297

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 ifa Represent-
ative, a member of the Committee, were with you to-
night with his sash girded?”

“ Doubtless,” he answered.

« Well, then,” resumed I, “ hereI am! Take me.”

“We will all go,” exclaimed Jules Favre.

The delegate observed that it would suffice for one ofus
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 ral-
lying-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 Dréme. I said to
him, “ Worse than Bomba,—Satan.”

CHAPTER XVIII.
THE VERIFICATION OF MORAL LAWS.

Tur carnage of the Boulevard Montmartre constitutes
the originality of the coup d'état. Without this butchery
the 2d of December would only bean 18th Brumaire. Ow.

298 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

ing to the massacre Louis Bonaparte escapes the charge
of plagiarism. ee ù

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 villany,
a little Nero swelling himself to a huge Lacénaire; such
is this phenomenon. Art for art, assassination for assas-
sination.

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 isa
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 de-
sires, with expedients, with dreams of one knows not
what Cesarian socialism, like a Hydra dimly visible ina
transparency of chaos. Hardly was he aware that he was
fostering this hideous idea. When he needed it, he found
it, armed and ready toserve him. His unfathomable brain
had darkly nourished it. Abysses are the nurseries of
monsters,

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 299

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 up hill,
a little above petty rascals, alittle below great malefac-
tors. 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 pane-
gyrists 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. Unfort-
unate 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

300 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

is the torch of Justice, of Truth, and of Life reversed ana
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 hed 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 swind-
ler stealing Cesar’s mantle. This man was little, it is
true, but terrifying. Paris consented to this terror, re-
nounced 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 Æschylus 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 dis-
honored one, is condemned.

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 301

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’
itall? 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 Mont-
aabor, ordinarily s0 deserted, was becoming thronged
with suspicious figures. Men seemed to be attentively
watching number Eleven. Some of these men, who ap-
peared 40 be acting in concert, belonged to the ex-‘ Club
of Clubs,” which owing to the manœuvres of the Re-
ationists, 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 oneknew. We were filled with a terrible
dread. &

802 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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, return-
ing towards the centre of Paris, a voice suddenly whis-
pered 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 meas 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.” Onespeaks as though
all were in full flight.

“ Ah! itis you!” Iexclaimed. “What do you want
with me?”

He answered me, “TI live in a house over there.”

And he added,—

“Come.” ,

He drew me into a dark street. We could hear explo-
sions. 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.*

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 ashop. 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,

+ * Les Chatiments.”

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 303

The lamp was placed over the fireplace, where à 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,—
ae Fe ia to think that he called me ‘Granny’ this morn-
ing !

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. |

Atthe 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

d

ed.

The child had his eyes half open, and that inexpressible
gaze of the dead, where the perception of the real is re-
placed 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,—

“Ts this then the Government?”

“Yes,” I said to her.

804 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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 Bona-
parte, 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 see-
ing a vision before her, and was more of a phantom than
the dead child.

Then she again buried her face in her hands, pleced
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 over-
whelmed.

It was quite dark. Bancel and Versigny left me.

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 fusilades
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?”

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 805

He answered,—

ce Yes.”

“€ For whom ? ”

‘€ For you.”

And he added, towering 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 our-
selves to terming him throughout the course of this story
by his trade, calling him the “last-maker.” *

“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 him-
self, and said,— :

« After all, you are not bound to believeme. One does

* We may now, after twenty-six years, give the name of this loyal
and courageous men. His name was Galoy (and not Galloix, as cer-
tain historians of the coup d'état have printed it while recounting,
after #00 fashion, the incidents which we are about to read),

2

306 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

not think of everything: Iought to have asked them ta
give me a word in writing. Ata time like this one dis-
trusts everybody.”

“ On the contrary,” I said to him, “one trusts every-
body. 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. 1 sank down into
an arm-chair, Tate 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. Ithad 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 men-
tion here without pointing out victims for the proscrip-
tion. In these two houses we got no news; no one had
come there on the part of the societies.

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 307

“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
and 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 Mon-
torgueil. On the peaks of the high dismantled gables
could be seen a flickering red glow, doubtless the reflec-
tion 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, how-
ever, 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. Never-
theless 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 en-
tirely 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 tho
barricade.

308 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

«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 dark-
ness, 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
tous. I gazed at this vision; Ialmostlistened. Suddenly
it disappeared.

This face re-entered the gloom; the match had just
gone out.

We went away insilence. 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

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME, 809

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?”
alswered,—

“There are two of us.”

“Ts 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; witha
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 com.
pletely unpaved behind the barricade, was nothing better
tran a sewer, ankle deep in water.

“Tsay 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.”

“T 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

s

810 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

‘oined planks, through which shone in places a feeble
fight. 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 thera
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, Wewereina room on the ground floor. Atthe end,
on the left, a half-opened door emitted the reflection of a
ught. The room was only lighted by this reflection. A
counter anda 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 thelight. 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 stand-
ing 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

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 311

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.

“Tt is the ambulance,” said the last-maker.

The old woman turned her head, and seeing us, shud-
dered 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
ballin 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 thathas 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 bandagss. ;

It seemed to me that his gaze fastened upon me in a

312 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

singular manner. I went up to him, I stooped down, and
I gave him my hand, which he took in his own. “Doyou
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 neigh-
borhood 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.”

Iasked 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 hap-
pened ; 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 pass-
ing 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. Ihope 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 im-
printed onit. A wounded man on entering had probably
placed his hand on the table on the spot where the news-
paper lay. My eyes fell upon these lines :—

“M. Victor Hugo has just published an appeal to pil
lage and assassination,”

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 313

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 medi-
cine 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, follow-
ing one after another, and which seemed but a short dis-
tance off. In the silence of this dark night it resembled
the sound of a load of wood being shot on to the pave-
ment.

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.”

à I answered him, “But you yourselves are going to stay
ere.”

« 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 noth-
ing. But you have not. You must go away.”

“TI 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. mas

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,
“Tt is the cannon!” or |

“ No,” said the little man, “ib is the slamming of a

814 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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. Allis 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 ter-
rified, 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 out-
let 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
beat they have no arms, and to think that I have no

n

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 bails 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 andsat down. The two workmen were

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 315

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 sol-
diers 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 press-
ing 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 havethey gone? They wereat 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.”

816 THE HISTORY OF A:CRIME.

« All the same,” repeated the others, “letus 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 win-
dows, 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 Jet us make haste, for they will probably come

ack.”

“ 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.” Leavy-

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 317

ing 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 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,

CHAPTER II.

WHAT HAPPENED DURING THE NIGHT.—THB
PETIT CARREAU.

On the same night, almost at the same moment, ata
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 junc-
tion 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 de-
serted 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

818 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

had halted there and had waited. These men were as-
tonished 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 con-
jectures. 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 direc-
tion, 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 car-
tridges.

These were sufficient for an hour’s fighting. They be-
gan 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 com-
mander.

Two barricades, enclosing in the same manner some
forty yards of the Rue Montorgueil, had just been con-
structed 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.

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 319

Evening was closingin. The fusilade was ceasing upon
the boulevard. A surprise was possible. They estab-
lished a sentry-post at the corner of the Rue du Cadran,
and sent a main-guard in the direction of the Rue Mont-
martre. 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. Taey put
themselves in communication with the barr‘:ades 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 neigh-
boring 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 com-
pany 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.

820 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

The sentries, whom it was necessary to post in evei'y
direction, and who were chosen from the most trustworthy

men, thinned and exhausted the little central band. _

There were scarcely thirty in the barricade itself.

There, as in the Quarter of the Temple, all the street-
lamps 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 fusilades. 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.

Diaicgues like the following took place amongst
them :—

“J 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 gioomy 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 Carreau. In it
was a clock by which they regulated the sentries’ relief.
In a back room they had locked up two suspicious-look-
ing 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.

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 321

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 behiad in the barricade where he had fought:
and he had replaced his bullet-pierced overcoat, which
was made of Bolleisle cloth, by a pea-jacket bought ata
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 ashorttimesince. We are ahun-
dred now.”

All pressed round the new-comer. Jeanty Sarre offered
him the command.

& No,” said he, “I donot understand the tactics of bar-
ricade fighting. I should be a bad chief, but I am a good
soldier. Give mea gun.”

| seated themselves on the paving-stones. They ex-

322 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

changed their experiences of what had been done. Denis
described to them the fighting on the Faubourg Sains
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 Lambesc had called the “Coup de Bas.”

Throughout all Paris there was now only this point
which offered any resistance. This knot of barricades,
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 allsides. 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-com-
mand 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 doc-
ument 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 deter-
mined 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 Grena-
diers and the Light Infantry, hurled forward at the double,
quickly carried the three little barricades which were on

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 823

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 flash-
ing of the fusilades 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 happen-
ing. 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 barri-
cade 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 Mau-
conseil 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

ns.
thés 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 advanc-

824 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

ing 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.

«“Thatisright. Rage away, Red Breeches,” said, laugh.
ingly, 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 glad-
iators of the next combat.

The six men of this Mauconseil redoubt resisted the on-
slaught 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 theirammunition. The last,
he who had three cartridges, did not leave until the
soldiers were actually scaling the summit of the barri-
cade.

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 out on the
Mauconseil redoubt. The bayonets and the brass orna-
nee 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
mids tof 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. ‘’

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 325

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 barri-
cade 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 posi-
tion 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 en-
counters drew to a close. The preparations were com-

leted on both sides. Thesoldiers 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 barri-
cade, 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.

326 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

Denis continued,—

“Citizens of the Army! Listen to me!”

The silence grew still more profound.

He resumed, —

“ What have you come to dohere? 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 ofthe
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
same 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 barri-
cade 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 accom-
plished; the hour of the heroic falsehood had arrived.
He cried out,—

“Soldiers, do you know what the man is who is speak-
ing to you at this moment? He is not only a citizen, he

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 327

is a Legislator! He is a Representative chosen by Uni-
versal 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. Sol-
diers, 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 can-
not 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; æ
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 vic-
tories, 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 frater-
nity with which his soul overflowed, he interrupted him-
self 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 hun-
dred 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 eacn

328 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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. Iam 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 in-
expressible 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 Mau-
conseil 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 com-
pletely 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 fusilade burst forth.

They had fired upon Dussoubs when he was at the
muzzles of their guns,

Dussoubs fell,

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 329

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 dif-
ferent titles Patrie, Univers, Moniteur, Parisien, etc., an-
nounced 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.

Wuen 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? Sucha
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 Pétat, a struggle of despair on the side of the Re-

330 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

public. On the side of the soldiers an appalling and cold-
blooded resolution, a passive and ferccious 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 posi-
tion 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 Mau-
conseil 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
manœuvre, 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 bar-
rels 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

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME, 831

low, were hit. Three were killed on the spot. One fell
wounded by a ballin 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 car-
ried him to the Rue 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 voice cried 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 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 work-
man, 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 * 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

* February 18. Louvain,

832 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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 q''arters. 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!” Thesoldiers killed those who were stand-
ing, 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
committeeof 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 werein 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
peyous to die. At midnight all was at an end. The
night wagons carried away on the next day nine
curpses to the hospital cemetery, and thirty-seven to
Montmartre.

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 333

Jeanty Sarre escaped by a miracle, as well as Charpentier,
and a third whose name we have not been able to as-
certain. 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 gotup 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 recom-
mence 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 Char-
pentier 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 doubt-
less 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 for.

334 THE HISTORY OF À CRIME.

gotten 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 re-
joined the battalion.

One of his old friends, a man to whom he had rendered
services such as are not forgotten, lived in this very Pas-
sage 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 night-
shirt, with a candle in his hand.

He recognized Jeanty Sarre, and cried out, “ You here!
What a state you arein! Where have 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 mea 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 pear 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 think-
ing of you. Even in my affliction itself there was some-
thing 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

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 335

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 dearly, my

darling? We had no secret from each other because we

had no need to have one, and our lips uttered the thoughts

cE ut hearts without our thinking to keep anything
ack.

“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 welove! Circum-
stances 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. Iimagine 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 I
will remain to the end without fear and without reproach,
but which daily breaks me down and consumes my life.

«JT 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. Isuffer....Iwish 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

836 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

to a burning iron bar; weariness preys upon me and
devours me. I feela maddening desire to recover life. Is
it Paris that produces this effect upon me? I always
yearn to be in places where Iam not. I live here in a
complete solitude. I believe you, Marie........ 2

Charpentier’s note-book only contained this line, which
he had written in the darkness at the foot of the barri-
cade while Denis Dussoubs was speaking :—

Admonet et magna testatur voce per umbras.

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 Frangois Criscelli,* a man
attached to the secret and personal service of Louis Bona-
parte, 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, Montor-

* 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 Kelch, ‘suspected of plotting the assassination of the Em:
peror. :

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 337

guei], Rambuteau, Beaubourg, and Transnonain barricades
were gallantly defended. There, there was an impene-
trable 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 Charpen-
tier they had no time toclimb it. Besides, they heard the
soldiers coming on both sides. In a corner at the en-
trance 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 every where 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 these 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.

22

338 E HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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 even-
ing. The fugitive said to the traveller, “Iam 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 soldiers 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
de su 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 human-
ity? 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 be-
neath 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 doubt-
less they also would be transported, or brought before
the Councils of War, and that they had plenty of time
before them.

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 339

_ They were thirsty. Many of them had been fighting
since that morning, and nothing parches the 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, ap-
peared 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 ran-
dom, 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 hav-
ing come to an end, they ranged them in close columns,
still two by two and arm-in-arm. They were not tied to-
gether, 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 march-
ing 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

840 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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-Caillou,
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?”

“Tt 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 com-
manded 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 intothem. 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.

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 341

These 336 corpses were amongst those which were
earried 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 fusilades 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* said to me, “ On the
next day I passed by there, they showed me 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 Bona-
parte. Stir up this mud, you will find blood.

Let this then be known to History :—

The massacre of the boulevard had this infamous con-
tinuation, the secret executions. The coup @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 fusil-
ades on the Champ de Mars every night.

At Mazas, Chambolle, on the second night of his incar-

2 The Marquis Sarrazin de Montferrier, a relative of my eldest
brother. I can now mention his name,

342 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

ceration, heard from midnight till five o’clock in the movae
ing, such volleys taat he thought the prison was attacked.

Like Montferrier, Desmoulins bore evidence to blood
between the paving-stones of the Rue de Jérusalem.

Lientenant-Colonel Caillaud, of theex-Republican Guard,
is crossing the Pont Neuf; he sees some sergents de ville
with muskets to their shoulders, aiming at the passers-
by ; hesays to them, “ You dishonor the uniform.” They
arrest him. They search him. A sergent de ville says to
him, “ It 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 your-
self 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; [know
what is said ; I divine what is not said. I hear certain
noises during the night; I see certain traces in the morn-
ing. As for myself I am not a bad fellow. Iam taking
care of you. Iam 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 dela 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, ina 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 anend. 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 wend-
ing 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,

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME, 843

CHAPTER VI.
THE CONSULTATIVE COMMITTEE.

Aut danger being over, all scruples vanished. Prudent
and wise people could now give their adherence to the
coup @ 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, à

& Has created a Consultative committee, which is com-
posed 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).

Barrot (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).

344 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

Berger, Prefect of the Seine (of Puy-de-Déme).

Bertrand (of the Yonne).

Bidault (of the Cher).

Bigrel (of the Cétes-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). É

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).
pe Chazelles, Mayor of Clermont-Ferrand (of Puy-de-

ôme).

.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 Basseé-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),

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 345

Drouyn de Lhuys, ex-Minister (of the Seine-et-Marne).

Théodore Ducos, Minister of the Marine and of the Col-
onies (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).
rie Excelmans, Grand Chancellor of the Legion of

onor.

Ferdinand Favre (of the Loire-Inférieure).

General de Flahaut, ex-Ambassador.
io Minister of Public Instruction (of the Basses-

pes).

Achille Fould, Minister of Finance (of the Seine).

De Fourment (of the Somme).

Fouquier-d’Hérouél (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 Council
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).

Hallez Claparède (of the Bas-Rhin).

General d’Hautpoul, ex-Minister (of the Aude).

Hébert (of the Aisne).

De Heeckeren (of the Heat en

D’Hérembault (of the Pas-de-Calais).

Hermann.

Heurtier ae the Loire).

General Husson (of the Aube).

Janvier (of the Tarn-et-Garonne).

Lacaze (of the Hautes-Pyrénées).

Lacrosse, ex-Minister (of Finistére).

346 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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 Riboissiére. (of Ille-et-Vilaine).

General Laweestine.

Lebeuf (of the Seine-et-Marne).

General Lebreton (of the Eure-et-Loir).

Le Comte (of the Yonne).

Le Conte jo 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).
ao Magnan, Commander-in-chief of the Army of

aris.

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 Lozére).

De Montalembert (of the Doubs).

De Morny (of the Puy-de-Déme).

De Mortemart (of the Seine-Inférieure).

De Mouchy (of the Oise).

De Moustiers (of the Doubs).

Lucien Murat (of the Lot).

General d’Oznano (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).

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 347

Portalis, First President of the Court of Cassation.
Pongérard, Mayor of Rennes (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 Bussiére (of the Bas-Rhin).
Renouard (of the Lozére).
General Rogé.
Rouher, Keeper of the Seals, Minister of Justice (of the
Puy-de-Déme).
De Royer, ex-Minister, Attorney-General at the Court
of Appeal of Paris. ;
General de Saint-Arnaud, Minister of War.
2 De Saint-Arnaud, Barrister ‘at the Court of Appeal of
aris. :
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, Dz Moryy.”

‘

348 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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 :—

“T approve of the proceedings of the National Assem-
bly at the Mairie of the Tenth Arrondissement on the 2d
of December, 1851, in which I was hindered from par-
ticipating by force.

“Darv.”

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 dis-
agreeable 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 circum-
stance 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
is 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 un-
obtrusively, 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 pre-
serve dead things,

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 349

‘€ 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 jus-
tice, drew up judgments, pronounced sentences, violated
every law judicially without the regular magistracy in-
terposing the slightest obstacle to this irregular magis-
tracy : 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. Thenews-
papers 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 Marshal 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.”

850 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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 cour-
age. They will willingly be supporters; they will not be
proscribers.”

General Rulhiére was dismissed for having blamed the
passive obedience of the army. 7

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 Cassation.

CHAPTER VII.
THE OTHER LIST.

Oprosirs 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.

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME, 361

Joseph Burgard.
Jean Colfavru.
Joseph Faure (du Rhône).
Pierre-Charles Gambon.
Charles Lagrange.
Martin Nadaud.
Barthélemy Terrier.
Victor Hugo.
Cassal.

Signard.

Viguier.

Esquiros.

Madier de Montjau.
Noël Parfait.

Emile Péan,
Pelletier,

Raspail.

Théodore Bac.
Bancel.

Belin (Drôme).
Besse.

Bourzat.

Brive.

Chavoix.

Clément Dulac.
Dupont (de Bussac.)

Ennery.

Guilgot.
Hochstuhl.
Michot Boutet.
Baune.
Bertholon.
Schcelcher,

De Flotte.
Joigneaux,
Laboulaye.
Brays.

Gaston Dussoubs.
Guiter

Lafon.

Lamarque.

Pierre Lefranc.
Jules Leroux.
Francisque Maigne,
Malardier.
Mathieu (de la Dréme).
Millotte.
Roselli-Mollet.
Charras.
Saint-Ferréol.
Sommier.
Testelin (Nord).

“ARTICLE Il.—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, Jaunary 9th, 1852.

« Louis BoNAPARTE.

“Dz Morny, Minister of the Interior.”

There was besides a list of the “ provisionally exiled,”
on which figured Edward Quinet, Victor Chauffour, Gen-
eral Laidet, Pascal Duprat, Versigny, Antony Thouret,
Thiers, Girardin, and Remusat. 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

852 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

in addition tc the massacres, the victory of the coup @état
was paid for by these figures: eighty-eight Represent-
atives 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.

Brurazrries and ferocities were mingled together. The

eat sculptor, David d’Angers, was arrested in his own
[as 16, Rue d’Assas; the Commissary of Police om
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 statiop -
house of the Prefecture of Police.

Although there was only space for 120 prisoners, thers
were 700 there. David was the twelfth in a dungeon in-
tended for two. No light nor air. A narrow ventilation
hole above their heads. A dreadful tub in a corner, com-
mon 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

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 853

had been thrown on the floor, not having room tolie 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 mat-
tresses 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 Mon-
arque, 89, Rue des Fripiers.”* And he added laughing,
& The Great Monarch—the King. The old clothesmen—
the Royalists, 89. The Revolution.” Chance occasionally
furnishes some wit.

® Anglice,“* old clothes men.”

364 {HE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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;
op 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 Conciérgerie. 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,” bnt he had come there. For what purpose? To
give in his submission.

We no longer possessed a refuge. No. 15, Rue Riche-
lieu, was watched, No. 11, Rue Monthabor, had been de.
nounced. 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

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 355

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 con-
versation they held :—

* What has become 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 pro-
pose 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.

“ Wenumber,” resumed he, “about fifty Representatives
of the People, still standing and assembled together. We
are all that remains of the National Assembly, of Uni-
versal Suffrage, of the Law, of Right. To-morrow, where
shall we be? Wedonot 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 py it.” ee.

He stopped, looked at us fixedlv with his steadfast gaze,
and resumed,—

356 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

« 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 ina
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.”

“T 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.”

“JT 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 Bona-
parte! 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

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 857

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 illus-
trious, 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 diffi-
cult 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, itis 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 sup-
pression 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 Riche-
lieu 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 morn-
ing at daybreak on waking I thought of the duties which
awaited me. I thought that I was about 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.

358 THE HISTORY OF A CRIMB.

CHAPTER X.
DUTY CAN HAVE TWO ASPECTS

Hap 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 silenze. On the 16th November, 1851,
I was in my study at home at 37, Rue de la Tour
d’Auvergne; it wasabout midnight. Iwas 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 distin-
guished man. Letit 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 hand-
writing. My visitor, to whom I gave it back, turned over
the leaves for a few moments, and then suddenly inter.
cupting himself, he turned to me and said,— |

“ The Republic is lost.”

I answered,—

“ Almost,”

He resumed,—

“ Unless you save it.”

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 359

“7?”

« 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 des-
perate 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 mis-
trusted 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

360 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

eyesight, their perspective was bad, each saw the future
after his own fashion, and a sort of political short-sighted-
ness 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 net
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 meaning of the grumblings
of the Left on the one side, of the bleatings of the Right
on the other, they ran the risk of suddenly feéling 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.”

“ Tsay, 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

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 361

President; that the National Guard favored the Assem-
bly, 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, never-
theless, 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 Presi-
dent 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 Lawoéstyne at Paris.”

He got up and leaned against the chimney-piece; I can
still see him there, standing thoughtfully; and he con-
tinued :

“TI 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. Na-
poleon 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.

362 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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
jonger 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 crime. 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 Iam 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. Wewho condemn all usur-
pation 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 tha
Constitution, we should break the Constitution. We, the
men of the Law, we should violate the Law. It isa 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,”

6 Why ?”

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 863

“Because it then becomes an example.”

“You do not then approve of the Eighteenth Fruc
tidor ?”

“No.”

“But Eighteenth Fructidors prevent Eighteenth Bru
maires.”

“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 ex-
ceedingly honest minds.”

“T know that”

“ Blanqui is in its favor, with Michelet.”

“Tam against it, with Barbés.”

From the moral aspect I passed to the practical aspect.

“This said,” resumed I, “let us examine your plan.”

ae plan bristled with difficulties. I pointed them out
to him.

“Count on the National Guard! Why, General Law-
oéstyne 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 Lawoéstyne, 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 con-
sequently 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 Suc-
cess, it is always Right. But here, even if we had ob-
tained success, we should not have Right. In order to
arrest the President an order of the Assembly was nec-
essary ; we should replace the order of the Assembly by
an act of violence of the Left. A scaling and a burg-
lary; 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.”

364 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

“No, indeed,” he exclaimed, “it is the salus populi.”

And he added,—

“ Suprema Lew.”

“Not for me,” I said.

I continued,—

“JT 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 ac-
cording to the uprightness of the Romans; for me, Iam
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.”

“JT fear so.”

“ And this unequal combat can only end for you, Victor
Hugo, in death or exile.”

“T believe it.”

“Death is the affair of a moment, but exile is long.”

“Tt is a habit to be learned.”

He continued,—

“You will not only be proscribed. You will be calum-
niated.”

“Tt 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——-”

“TI 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

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 365

France, and you will be banished from France by a Bona-
parte!” *

“ 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?”

“T 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.”

“Tt is grand.”

There was another pause. He broke it.

“You do not know what exile is. I do know it. Itis
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.”

“Tf 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 everything.”

“ Well, then, why accept exile when itisin your power
to avoid it? What do you place above your country?”

“ Conscience.”

This answer made him thoughtful. However, he re-
sumed.

“But on reflection your conscience will approve of
what you will nave done.”

« No.”

“Why?”

“T have told you. Because my conscience is so consti-
tuted 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 tobe betraying Louis; but I am

* 14th of June, 1847. Chamber of Peers. See the work ‘* Avant
'Exile.”

366 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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.”

“Itis 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 com-
mitted 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 pro-
scriber. 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.”

“T 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.”

“J 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 conversa-
tion had lasted more than two hours. Idid not go to bed
until I had written it out.

CHAPTER XI.
THE COMBAT FINISHED, THE ORDEAL BEGINS.

I pi not know where to go.

On the afternoon of the 7thI 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 ?”

THE HISTORY OF À CRIME. 367

“Yes.”

“ And taken.”

“No.”

She added,—

“Come.”

We crossed the courtyard, and we went out by a back-
door into the Rue Fontaine Moliére; 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,—

“T do not know.”

“T 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 Representa-
tives; 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 ener-
getic. We entered into the second phase of duty—the
catastrophe accepted and submitted vo. The vanquished
became the proscribed. Each one of us had his own con-
cluding adventures. Mine was what it should have been
—exile ; death having missed me. I am not going to re-
late 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 ina
narrative which is one of the testaments of exile. *

Notwithstanding the relentless pursuit which was di-
rected 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.

* “Les Hommes de l’Exile,” by Charles Hugo,

368 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

I had a last interview with Jules Favre and Michel de
Bourges at Madame Didier’s in the Rue de la Ville-
Lévéque. It was at night. Bastide came there. This
brave man said to me,—

“You are about to leave Paris; fur 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,”

“J 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 vanish-
ing of all the combatants for Right and for Law. A
tragical disappearance.

CHAPTER XII.
THE EXILED.

Tux 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 dif-
ficulty in leaving Paris and France. Madier de Montjau
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 him-
self up as a priest. This costume became him admirably,
and suited his austere countenance and grave voice. A

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 869

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.*

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 Hétel de la Porte-Verte ; it was mid-

‘ night ; Ihad just gone to bed and was falling asleep, when

a knock sounded at my door. Iawoke. I always left the
key outside. “Come in,” Isaid. 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. Hetook 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 à short young man, thin and pallid, with spec-
tacles. 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 Cantacuzéne, 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 per-
sonate 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 Lillethe danger was
great. The gendarmes went from carriage to carriage ;
entered them lantern in hand, and compared the written

* See ‘‘ Les Hommes de l’Exile,”
24

370 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

descriptions of the travellers with their personal appear.
ance. Several who appeared to be suspicious characters
were arrested, and were immediately thrown into prison.
Edgar Quinet, seated by the side of Madame Cantacuzéne
awaited the turn of his carriage. At length it came.
Madame Cantacuzéne leaned quickly forward towards the
gendarmes, and hastened to present her passport, but the
corporal waved back Madame Cantacuzéne’s passport say
ing, “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 de-
scription. The corporal frowned, and said to his subor-
dinates, “ An irregular passport! Go and fetch the Com-
missary.”

All seemed lost, but Madame Cantacuzéne 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 Walla-
chia 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 con-
sented to conceal him; the Abbé Maret was honest and
good. Arnauld d’Ariége 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 Bona-
parte took away from France and gave to Rome. This let-
ter angered the Archbishop. Arnauld, proscribed, reached
Brussels, and there, at the age of eighteen months, died
the “little Red,” who on the 8d 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.

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME, 371

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 ex-
pression 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 after-
noon 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 com-
rades of the fight, Huy and Lorrain. Suddenly, he per-
ceives 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 counte.

372 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

nance 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,—

“ T 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.

«“T 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 jiacre 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

im,—

“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,

THE HIstORY OF A CRIME. 373

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?”

“JT do not say ‘No. ”

“TJ will not go.”

“ You will go, nevertheless.”

“T tell you I will not go,” exclaimed Cournet.

And with a movement, unexpected as a flash of light-
ning, 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 hé 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.

874 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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 Madelon-
nettes, where he had been confined for the matter of the
Solidarité Républicaine. Buvignier was oné of the note-
worthy 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
kad 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,—

“J 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; Cour-
net and he reached there that evening.

But they had hardly arrived when some peasants said
to Buvigny, “The police have already been here to arrest

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 375

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 .m an Inspector of

376 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME,

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, 1 know
not. Iam 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 beena
smuggler, and who will help me to pass the frontier.”

They brought him a small lad of eighteen; fair-haired,
ruddy, hardy, a Walloon * 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?”

&T am one still.”

“Do you know the roads ?”

“No. Ihave nothing to do with the roads.”

& What do you know then?”

“J know the passes.”

« There are two Custom House lines.”

“T know that well.”

«Will you pass me across them ?”

« Without doubt.”

« Then you are not afraid of the Custom House officers?”

“Pm afraid of the dogs.”

& In that case,” said Cournet, “ we will take sticks,”

They accordingly armed themselves with big sticks.

* The name given to a population belonging to the Romantic family,

and more particularly to those of French descent, who occupy the

on along the frontiers of the German-speaking territory in the
South Netherlands from Dunkirk to Malmedy in Rhenish Prussia,

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME, 877

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 pit-
fallsand quagmires. It had been raining, and all the holes
were pools of water.

An indessribable footpath wound through an inextric-
able 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, stum-
bling 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.

ad Bravo!” he said. “J 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 noth-
ing more to fear, neither from the Custom House nor from
the coup @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 rail.
way 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 crustof bread. He was more delighted

878 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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
Keechlin, 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 note-
book 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 long-
ing for a good sleep. A good bed to-night, he thought,
and to-morrow the Deluge! At the Hétel de Brabant he
paid the coachman, but did not go into the hotel. More-
over, he would have asked in vain for the Representa-
tives 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, lam not a thief, I am a proscript ; mone
is now my only passport. I have just come from Paris,
wish to eat first and sleep afterwards.”

The landlord was touched, took the double louis, and
gave him bed and supper.

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 379

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 un-
buttoned cassock.

At the time of which we are speaking (December, 1851),
the Clerical party bad 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 to go 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 adminis
tration forms part of the Ministry of Justice, an arrange

880 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

ment which does not greatly raise the police and some.
what 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 @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 pass-
port 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 @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 nec-
essary to save Préveraud. He was little and slim: they
dressed him as a woman. He was not sufficiently pretty

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 381

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, Préve-
raud made a charming woman. He became Madame Ter-
rier, 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 night-
fall they left for Brussels. They were alone in the car-
riage, 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, Ter-
rier 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 hus-
band, he ventured his hand as far as her dress, a circum-
stance foreseen by Moliére, but the fair veiled one was
virtuous. Préveraud, full of surprise and rage, gently
pushed back the gendarme’s hand. The danger was ex-
treme. 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 indict-
ment, 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 out-
rage. The danger increased every moment. Terrier was
sleeping. Suddenly the train stopped. A voice cried,

382 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

& Quièvram!” 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 ll break your jaw!”

ms

CHAPTER XIII.
THE MILITARY COMMISSIONS AND THE MIXED COMMISSIONS.

JusrTice 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 proscrip-
tion 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 mas-
ter had over them tne authority that a thief has over
a purse. No reply. Obey. Nothing resembles those
infamous times.

Every iniquity was possible. Legislative bodies super-
vened 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 Commis-
sions and the Mixed Commissions.

The Military Commissions sat in judgment with closed
doors. A coionel presided.

In Paris alone there were three Military Commissions;

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 383

gach received a thousand bills of indictment. The Judge
of Instruction sent these accusations to the Proccreur 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 :—

— + co)

—signified consignment to Lambessa.

+signified transportation to Cayenne. (The dry guillo-
tine. 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?”

ÿ The wife, the sister, the daughter, the mother an.
swered,—

“JT 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 trans-
portation. ce |

A wine-seller of the Batignolles, named Brisadoux, was

l

884 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

transported to Cayenne for this line in his deed of acéu.
sation: His shop is frequented by Socialists.

Here is adialogue, 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 es Think what you have done.”

66

“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 re-
mained 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.”

“JT 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 goingon. Itis 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
oroken his oath.” ;

“ And then?”

“That he had not the right to arrest the Represent-
atives.”

“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,—

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 385

# 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 func-
tionaries, 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. Whatwitnesses did they question? None. What
deliberation did they enter upon? None. What public
did they callin? None. Thus, no public, no deliberation,
no counsellors, no witnesses, judges who are not magis-
trates, a jury where none aresworn 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; illustriôus victims suffice for them.
But the Second of December had its refinements of cruelty ;
it required in addition petty victims. Its appetite for ex-
termination 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

25

386 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

foom. Men accepted this mission of causing the immense
public calamity to fall, morsel by morsel, upon the hum-
blest walks of life. Detestable task! To crumble a
catastrophe upon the little and on the weak.

CHAPTER XIV.
A RELIGIOUS INCIDENT.

A urtie religion can be mingled with this justice,
Here is an example.

Frederick Morin, like Arnauld de l’Ariège, was a Cath-
olic Republican. He thought that the souls of the victims
of the 4th of December, suddenly cast by the volleys of
the coup @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 witha refusal. They applied to the Archbishop:
again a refusal. As many masses for the assassin as they
liked, but for the assassinated not one. To pray for dead
men of this sort would bea scandal. The refusal was
determined. How should it be overcome? To do with-
out 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 sub-
urban 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.

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 887

“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 com-
mandant 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. Iam instructed to have you con-
ducted 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 toimprison me. I have
on my side the Law, Right, my old services, my commis-
sion. 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, Iam 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!”

388 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.
“ 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. Whois 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 be-
long:to a family whose members have always borne the
name oftheir 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.” \

ae 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 apparentlyas free as other
travellers. Only they isolated them in empty compart-

_ ments, 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 Chan:

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 889

garnier 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 some-
thing 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 recon-
ducting 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 para-
mount. 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 nimself su-
perintended 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,

390 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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 em.
ployed in Paris, and had been frequently sent to the head-
quarters of the staff at the Tuileries, to General Chan-
garnier. 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 Chan-
garnier.

All this appeared most irregular to the mind of a pro-
vineial 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 succeed-
ing.

“ Come down, all three of you!” exclaimed the Commis-
sary.

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 !”

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 391

And looking Charras in the face,—

“ Are you Colonel Charras ? ”

“Head!” 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 suspi-
cions 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 Changar-
nier had been too near the Dictatorship not to make them
thoughtful. Who can foresee the course of events?
Everything is possible. Yesterday called itself Cavai-
gnac, 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 plat-
itudes 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 thenthey werespiedupon. This takes place
between officials. The slightest word would be mali-
ciously interpreted, the slightest gesture would be laid to
their discredit. How should he keep on good terms at

892 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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 Bona-
arte ?

The sub-prefect thought to get out of the difficulty by
saying, “General, you are my prisoner,” and by adding,
with a smile, “Do methe 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 Com-
‘missary, “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
m 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 ‘tobe
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

THE HISTORY Of A CRIME. 393

pushed profundity to the point of stupidity. That some-
times 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!”

; a 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? Sup-
pose 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 block-
heads. Very well, my friends, let me go to sleep.”

And he went to sleep.

894 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

Almost the same incident happened nearly at the same
moment to Generals Changarnier and Lamoriciére 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 ser-
geants dumfounded.

The police released Charras at Brussels, but did not
release General Lamoriciére. 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 @ 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

TLE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 395

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 knock-

_ing, but he did not krow any more than General Bedeau.

Generai Bedeau’s window looked out on the inner court-
yard 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 ac-
companied 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 uneasi-
ness when arresting General Cavaignac: the picket of
fifty men, which had been told off to assist the police hav-
ing 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

896 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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 lav-
ished 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 atten-
tion 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, encroach-
ments, 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
l'état” |

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME, 397

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 policeagents. “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. Ithad 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 be-
ing 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 Represent-
atives 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.

Tue 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

898 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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.

X few men, a mere handful, 120 Representatives of the
people escaped by chance from arrest, plunged in dark.
ness 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 every-
thing 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 tot-
tered, and was obliged to support itself by assassination.
We have 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 with-
out a truce, a struggle against the army during the day,
and against the police during the night,—an uneq'al

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 399

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 Representa-
tives, 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 J pride myself with having for
three years served the holy cause of human progress, to
this Left, insulted, calumniated, unappreciated, and daunt-
less, 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 parlia-
mentary 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 remain-
ing 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 @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, twocomplaints. 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.

rom 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 dis-
covered and taken, that is to say—massacred ; repaired

400 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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 pre-
cautions. 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 34d,
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. [await your orders.
Try, then, to find me something to do, be it but to die.”

In these meetings each man preserved his usual demean-
or. At times one might have thought it an ordinary sitting
in one o: ths bureaux ofithe Assembly. There was the calm
of every dny, mingled with the firmness of decisive crises.
Edgar Quinet retained: all His lofty judgment, Noël Par-
fait all his mental vivacity, Yvan all his vigorous and in-
telligent penetration, Labrousse all his animation. Ina
corner Pierre Lefranc, pamphleteer and ballad-writer, but a
pam phleteer like Courier, anda ballad-writer like Béranget
smiled at the grave and stern words of Dupont de Bussac:

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 401

All that brilliant group of young orators of the Left,
Bancel with his powerful ardor, Versigny and Victor
Chauffour with their youthful daring. Sain with his cool-
headedness which reveals strenrth, Farconnet with his
gentle voice and his onergetic inspiration, lavishing his
efforts in resisting the cous d’état, sometimes taking part
in the deliberations, at others amongst the people, prov-
ing that to be an orator one must possess all the qualifi-
cations 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 them-
selves 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 de-
crees 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. Inthe secret sittings
of the Committee Madier de Montjau, that firm and
generous heart, De Flotte, brave and thoughtful, a fight-
ing philosopher of the Revolution, Carnot, accurate, cold,
tranquil, immovable, Jules Favre, eloquent, courageous,
admirable through his simplicity and his strength, inex-
haustible in resources as in sarcasms, doubled, by com-
bining 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 exp on his head, had an answer for every suggestion,
gave b=ck 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

26

402 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

had entered into a life-and-death struggle. They had na
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, Morny. These words
the placards of Saint-Arnaud interpreted by decrees, the
Pretorians 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 every-
thing. 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 every-
thing amused them. On the morning of the 4th Mathieu
de la Drôme came in. He had organized for his part a
committee which communicated with the Central Com-
mittee, he came to tellus 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 pave-
ment 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.

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 403

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 my-
self killed,” he answered, “and then you can reproach me
with what you like.” And he added, “ How can you dis-
trust me, who am a Republican up to the hilt?” ‘Bastide
would not consent to call our resistance the “ insurrec-
tion,” 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 @état were levelled at the Representatives of the
people, he said smilingly to Madier de Montjau, “ Ask
Schœlcher what he thinks of the abolition of the penalty
of death.” (Schcelcher, 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 distrib-
uted themselves amongst them. Nearly all the Repre-
sentatives of the Left repaired to the barricades, assisting
either to build them or todefend them. Besides the great
exploit at the Saint Antoine barricade, where Scheelcher
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 the Rue Beaubourg, Arnauld de lAriége to
that of the Rue du Petit-Reposoir, Viguier to that of the
Rue Pagevin, Versigny to that of the Rue Joigneaux ; Du-
pont de Bussac to that of the Carré Saint Martin; Carlos

404 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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, Jam 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 Repre-
sentatives 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 masonin 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. Noél 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 HISTORY OF A CRIME. 405

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 with-
out 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 Ludlow, 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 As-
sembly 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 Republi-
can minority, which was bravely doing its duty in de-
nouncing 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.

406 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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
decrepet. On the decisive day this sap asserts itself.

The Legislative Assembly, laden as it may be with
formidable responsibilities, will, perhaps, be less over-
whelmed 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.

Wet then, yes, I will kick open the door of thir
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 downthe
curtain, I will open the window, I will show to every eye
such as it really is, infamous, horrible, wealthy, trium-
phant, 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]

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 407

And above all the innermost circle, the Holy of Holies,
the private Council, the snug 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 there! It is there! Dishonor, base-
ness, 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 ofa crime. Noth-
ing 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,
Itell 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;—heis a dog. He gobbles
human flesh. And that one? Ishea dog? No, heisa
courtier—he has blood on his paw.

New men, that is what they term them. New, in
truth! Unlooked-for, strange, unprecedented, mon-
strous! Perjury, iniquity, robbery, assassination, erected
into ministerial departments, swindling applied to univers-
al 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 com-
pounded.

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 your-
selves, 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,

408 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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, bor-
rowed 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. Thatis 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 par-
don me, I will raise a gibbet a hundred yards high, I will
take hammer and nails, and I will crucify this Beau-
harnais called Bonaparte, between this Leroy called Saint.
Arnaud, 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: Jusrice!
and this Troplong, this judicial glorifier of the violation
of the laws, this lawycr 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 fero-
cious despotism, opening out under the victory, he is the
mad fulness of power, seeking limits and finding none,

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 409

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 whoadore him, thirty correspond-
ents 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 beoverrun. Heis 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 for-
midable duel, Providence could have chosen a more illus.
trious 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

iven to the world. What is this in truth? It is intel.
Bat, an atom which resists strength—a colossus,

410 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME,

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 attaek 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.

Tue 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.” *

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.

# “ Archives of the house of Orange.” Page £25, Supplement,

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 411

CONCLUSION.

THE FALL.

CHAPTER 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 Lux-
embourg 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 land-
scape.

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 unde-
finable 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
pne 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 ap-
proaching 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 hum-
ming 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

412 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

approaching death; the sweetness of the sun was inde.
scribable. 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 dis-
tance, 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 inex-
orable 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

: THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 413

enterprise of the 2d of December had burst asunder. A
fearful shipwreck.

The gloomy pathways of Fate cannot be studied with.
out profound anguish of the heart.

CHAPTER IL

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 divis-
ions, 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 spe-
cies 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, be-
tween 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, com-
manded 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 compara-
tively weak, too open on the side of Givonne, and only
protected on the side of the Meuse by the two cavalry

414 “HE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

divisiotæ & Margueritte and Bonnemains, and by Guyo
mar’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 divis-
ions of Vassoigne and the brigade of Reboul, on this side
of Iges were the two cavalry divisions of Margueritbe 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 com-
plete 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
Méziéres, and at the worst the Belgian frontier. Was it,
however. needful to provide for such extreme eventu-
alities? In certain cases foresight is almost an offence.
They were all of one mind, therefore, to be at their ease.

Ifthey 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 Méziéres open behind it.
They disdained ta take the most ordinary precautions,

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 415

they made no cavalry reconnaissances, they did not even
place outposts. A German military writer has stated
this.* Fourteen leagues atleast separated them from the
German army, three days’ march; they did not exactly
know where it was; they believed it scattered, possess-

ing little unity, badly informed, ied somewhat at random ::

upon several points at once, incapable of a movement con-
verging upon one single point, like Sedan; they believed
that the Crown Prince of Saxony was marching on Cha-
lons, 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 effect-
ive force. Was it still following the strategy of Gustavus
Adolphus? Was it still following the tactics of Frederick
IL? Noone 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.

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
elose communication with each other. The order was

* M. Harwik,

416 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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 Méziéres. 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 Wadelin-
court. 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 posi-
tion to the south of Frénois: the 1st Bavarian Corps
installed itself at Remilly; the 5th Cavalry Division and
tke 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 horse-
back 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

‘THE HISTORY OF À CRIME. 417

Menges and Donchery; Count Stolberg and his cavalry
FY Donchery; in front, towards Sedan, the 2d‘ Bavarian
my. ee

All this was carried out ina ghostly manner, in order,
without a whisper, without a sound, through forests,
Tavines, 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 await-

‘ing 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.

‘Ler us review the situation. ese

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 glo-
rious, but surprise is profitable. | ee

A surprise, that is the true description of this brilliant
‘xploit.

Ts it fair warfare? Yes. But if this is fair, what is
‘’anfair 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 itrollstothe very bottom. Itmust beso, "The guard.
jan of Justice is doomed to justice,

27

3 ‘THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

The Buttle of Sedan is more than a battle which hag
een fought; it is a syllogism which is completed; a for.
pidable premeditation of destiny. Destiny never hurries,
fut it always comes. At its hour, there itis. 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 ta
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 tha
morning the world awoke under the sun, and the French
army under the thunderbolt.

CHAPTER V.

Bazerrres takes fire, Givonne takes fire, Floing takes
fire; the battle begins with afurnace. The whole horizon
is aflame. The French camp is in this crater, stupefied,
affrighted, starting up from sleeping,—a funereal swarm-
ing. A circle of thunder surrounds the army. They are
encircled by annihilation. This mighty slaughter is
carried on on all sides simultaneously. The French re-
sist, and they are terrible, having nothing left but de-
spair. 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’
Germaa batteries upon La Moncelle alone; the 3d and 4th
Abtheilung, an awe-striking artillery, upon the crests o?
Givonne, with the 2d horse battery in reserve; opposite
Doigny ten Saxon and two Wurtemburg batteries; the
turtain of trees of the wood to the north of Villers-Cernay
masks the mounted <Adthetlung, which is there with the
bd 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
Suard sets fire to the Garenne Wood; the shells and
dalls riddle Suchy, Francheval, Fouru-Saint-Ren

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 419

wwe valley between Heibes and Givonne; and the third
md fourth rank of cannon extend without break of con-
jinuity as far as the Calvary of Illy, the extreme point
of the horizon. The German soldiers, seated cr lying be-
fore 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 officer, on
which they will find, after the battle, a sealed note, con-
taining this order, signed Napozxon : “ To-day, September
1st, rest for the whole army.” *

The gallant 35th of the Line almost completely disap-
pears 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 Margueritte
Division hurled against the German infantry, halts and
sinks down midway, “annihilated,” says the Prussian
Report, “by well-aimed and cool firing.” This field of
carnage has three outlets; all three barred: the Bouillon
road by the Prussian Guard, the Carignan road by the
Bavarians, the Méziéres road by the Wurtemburgers. The
French have not thought of barricading the railway via-
duct; 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
ef the thunder is continuous, a dismal pulverization of
90,000 men! Never before has anything equal to this

* The Franco-German Warof 1870-71. Report of the Prussian Staff
page 1087.

“420 ‘THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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 heltér-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, ap-
pears 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 !

‘CHAPTER VI.

‘Tuts disaster of Sedan was easy of avoidance by any

other man, but impossible of avoidance for Louis Bona-
parte. He ‘avoided ‘it so little that he sought it. Zex
fati.
é Our army seemed expressly arranged for the catas-
trophe. The soldier was uneasy, ignorant of his where-
abouts, 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 com-
manded and driven at the stick’s end like the ‘army of
the Xerxes, achieved marches of fourteen leagues in fifteen

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 421

hours, whieh enabled. it to arrive unexpectedly, and to
surround the French army while asleep. It was cus-
tomary 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 Wurtem-

* “ The French were literally awakened from sleep by our attack.”
HELvic. ;

422 HE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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 situa-
tion, and is rather an error than a fault. Wimpfen, des-
perate, 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 Mont-
martre, 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 massacre, and to end with
the white flag of disgrace.

CHAPTER VIL.

TuEre was no alternative between death and oppro-
brium; either soul or sword must b= surrendered. Louis
Bonaparte surrendered his sword

He wrote to William :—

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. ‘423

& SRE, MY BROTHER,
_ “Not having been able to die in the midst of my troops,
L only remains for me to place my sword in your Majesty’s
ands.
“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 “ wouid not ” receive him yet awhile. Louis Bonaparte
entered into a hovel by the side of the road. A tableand
two chairs werethere. 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 Bon-
aparte. 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 con-
quered 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 8d of September, Louis Bonaparte handed over
to Germany 83,000 French soldiers.

424 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

“In addition” (says the Prussian report):

“One eagle and two flags, j

“419 fleld-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: Séz-
teen thousand four hundred men: This number canses,a
shudder, For it,ig that very number, Siateen thoysand
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.
Afew. sentinels watched over this army.

They, placed but few, insolently. These conquered,
men remained there ten days, the wounded almost with-
out care, the able-bodied almost without. nourishment.
The German army, sneered around them. The Heaps
took part against them. The weather was fearful.

either huts nor tents. Not a fire, not a truss, of straw.
For ten days and ten nights these 83,000 prisoners bivou-
acked 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.

ne King placed the Emperor in some place or, other,
Wilhelmshôhe. ; |

What a thing of rags and tatters, an Emperor “ drawn *
like a fowl!

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME, 425

CHAPTER VII.

Iwas there, thoughtful. I looked on these fields, these. _
ravines, these, hills, shuddering, I would, willingly have
msulted-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 evérything, had cleaned
everything, had swept everything, had replaced. every-
thing. 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,
Isaw 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 sur-
rendered 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 untilit 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 adog growled on the chain; he had seated
himself on a stone close by a dunghill, and he had said,
“J.am thirsty.’ A Prussian soldier had brought him a
glass of water.

Terrible end of the coup @état / Blood when it is drunk
does not quench the thirst. An hour was to come when
the unhappy one should uttgr the cry of fever and of

426 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

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 trem-
bling 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: Drover. 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

eople.

‘ 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 ofa 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 Marguerxitte’s cavalry. From these two
heights, the most elevated of this circle of hills, Daigny,
opposite Givonne, which is 266 métres 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 Des-
tiny. 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 dis-
aster, 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 escarp-
ments of La Marphée, at these thickets, at these decliv-
ities, at these precipices, at these forests filled with
ambushes, and in this terrible shadow, O Thou the In-
visible! I saw Thee.

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME, 427

CHAPTER IX

Never was there a more dismal fall.

No expiation can be compared with this. “yne anpre-
cedented drama was in five acts, so fierce that Æschylus
himself would not have dared to dream ofthem. “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
a seemed a traitor. God alone could permit Himself

edan.

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,* 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 overth:ew 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 mo-
ment that his crime suddenly seized him. He did not
struggle against it; he was the ccndemned 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 Lebeeuf,
he attacked Moltke. He confided Strasburg to Uhrich:
he gave Metz to Bazaine to guard. He had 120,000 mer

*“L) Année Terrible”

428 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME,

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—pur-
posely, and yet despite himself; willing and yet unwill.
ing, knowingly and yet unknowingly, a miserable mind,
a prey to the abyss—he led his army into a place of anni-
hilation; he made that terrible choice, a battle-field with-
out 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 thunder-
struck in the back,

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. Tocreate 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

uman 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 indanger. Would they allow Ger-
many 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

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME. 429

visible. What she has lost in territory she has gained in
radiancy. Morever, she is fraternal without an effort.
Above her misfortune there is her smile. It isnot on her
that the Gothic Empire weighs. Sheis 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 tothesword. 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 mili-
tary, will deprive her of this mysterioussupremacy. 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 her-
self beloved because she is good, and the greatest of all
powers is tn be loved. The French revolution is for all
the world, Itis a battle perpetually waged for Right,
and'perpetually gained for Truth. Rightis the innermost
part of man; Truth is the innermost part of God,
What can be done ‘agaist a revoiution 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 #iory of barbarians is to be con-
quered by humauity ; the glory of savages is to be con-
quered by civilization; the glory of darkness is to be con-
quered 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

430 THE HISTORY OF A CRIME.

seem to gain a glimpse of that august and mysterious pro
blem, the formation of the future. It may be said, that ia
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
ber heaven she possesses as much dawn as the East,
and as many stars as the North. Sometimes her glim-
mer 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.

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