PROJECT PLAN B

THE HISTORY OF A CRIME THE TESTIMONY

OF AN EYE-WITNESS BY VICTOR HUGO THE

FIRST DAY—
THE AMBUSH. CHAPTER I. "SECURITY" On December 1, 1851,

Charras shrugged his shoulder and unloaded his pistols. In truth, the belief in the
possibility of a coup d'état had become humiliating. The supposition of such
illegal violence on the part of M. Louis Bonaparte vanished upon serious
consideration.
The great question of the day was manifestly the Devincq election; it was clear
that the Government was only thinking of that matter. As to a conspiracy against
the Republic and against the People, how could any one premeditate such a plot?
Where was the man capable of entertaining such a dream? For a tragedy there
must be an actor, and here assuredly the actor was wanting. To outrage Right, to
suppress the Assembly, to abolish the Constitution, to strangle the Republic, to
overthrow the Nation, to sully the Flag, to dishonor the Army, to suborn the
Clergy and the Magistracy, to succeed, to triumph, to govern, to administer, to
exile, to banish, to transport, to ruin, to assassinate, to reign, with such
complicities that the law atast resembles a foul bed of corruption. What! All these
enormities were to be committed! And by whom? By a Colossus? No, by a dwarf.
People laughed at the notion. They no longer said "What a crime!" but "What a
farce!" For after all they reflected; heinous crimes require stature. Certain crimes
are too lofty for certain hands. A man who would achieve an 18th Brumaire must
have Arcola in his past and Austerlitz in his future. The art of becoming a great
scoundrel is not accorded to the first comer. People said to themselves, Who is
this son of Hortense? He has Strasbourg behind him instead of Arcola, and
Boulogne in place of Austerlitz. He is a Frenchman, born a Dutchman, and
naturalized a Swiss; he is a Bonaparte crossed with a Verhuell; he is only
celebrated for the ludicrousness of his imperial attitude, and he who would pluck
a feather from his eagle would risk finding a goose's quill in his hand. This
Bonaparte does not pass currency in the array, he is a counterfeit image less of
gold than of lead, and assuredly French soldiers will not give us the change for
this false Napoleon in rebellion, in atrocities, in massacres, in outrages, in treason.
If he should attempt roguery it would miscarry. Not a regiment would stir.
Besides, why should he make such an attempt? Doubtless he has his suspicious
side, but why suppose him an absolute villain? Such extreme outrages are beyond
him; he is incapable of them physically, why judge him capable of them morally?
Has he not pledged honor? Has he not said, "No one in Europe doubts my word?"
Let us fear nothing. To this could be answered, Crimes are committed either on a
grand or on a mean scale. In the first category there is Caesar; in the second there
is Mandrin. Caesar passes the Rubicon, Mandrin bestrides the gutter. But wise
men interposed, "Are we not prejudiced by offensive conjectures? This man has
been exiled and unfortunate. Exile enlightens, misfortune corrects." For his part
Louis Bonaparte protested energetically. Facts abounded in his favor. Why should
he not act in good faith? He had made remarkable promises. Towards the end of
October 1848, then a candidate for the Presidency, he was calling at No. 37, Rue
de la Tour d'Auvergne, on a certain personage, to whom he remarked, "I wish to
have an explanation with you.
They slander me. Do I give you the impression of a madman? They think that I
wish to revivify Napoleon. There are two men whom a great ambition can take
for its models, Napoleon and Washington. The one is a man of Genius, the other
is a man of Virtue. It is ridiculous to say, 'I will be a man of Genius;' it is honest
to say, 'I will be a man of Virtue.' Which of these depends upon ourselves?
Which can we accomplish by our will? To be Genius? No. To be Probity? Yes.
The attainment of Genius is not possible; the attainment of Probity is a
possibility. And what could I revive of Napoleon? One sole thing—a crime.
Truly a worthy ambition! Why should I be considered man? The Republic being
established, I am not a great man, I shall not copy Napoleon; but I am an honest
man. I shall imitate Washington. My name, the name of Bonaparte, will be
inscribed on two pages of the history of France: on the first there will be crime
and glory, on the second probity and honor. And the second will perhaps be
worth the first. Why? Because if Napoleon is the greater, Washington is the
better man.
Between the guilty hero and the good citizen I choose the good citizen. Such is
my ambition." From 1848 to 1851 three years elapsed. People had long suspected
Louis Bonaparte; but long continued suspicion blunts the intellect and wears itself
out by fruitless alarms. Louis Bonaparte had had dissimulating ministers such as
Magne and Rouher; but he had also had straightforward ministers such as Léon
Faucher and Odilon Barrot; and these last had affirmed that he was upright and
sincere. He had been seen to beat his breast before the doors of Ham; his foster
sister, Madame Hortense Cornu, wrote to Mieroslawsky, "I am a good
Republican, and I can answer for him." His friend of Ham, Peauger, a loyal man,
declared, "Louis Bonaparte is incapable of treason." Had not Louis Bonaparte
written the work entitled "Pauperism"? In the intimate circles of the Elysée Count
Potocki was a Republican and Count d'Orsay was a Liberal; Louis Bonaparte said
to Potocki, "I am a man of the Democracy," and to D'Orsay, "I am a man of
Liberty." The Marquis du Hallays opposed the coup d'état, while the Marquise du
Hallays was in its favor. Louis Bonaparte said to the Marquis, "Fear nothing" (it
is true that he whispered to the Marquise, "Make your mind easy"). The
Assembly, after having shown here and there some symptoms of uneasiness, had
grown calm. There was General Neumayer, "who was to be depended upon," and
who from his position at Lyons would at need march upon Paris. Changarnier
exclaimed, "Representatives of the people, deliberate in peace." Even
Louis Bonaparte himself had pronounced these famous words, "I should see an
enemy of my country in any one who would change by force that which
has been established by law," and, moreover, the Army was "force," and the
Army possessed leaders, leaders who were beloved and victorious. Lamoricière,
Changarnier, Cavaignac, Leflô, Bedeau, Charras; how could any one imagine
the Army of Africa arresting the Generals of Africa? On Friday, November 28,
1851, Louis Bonaparte said to Michel de Bourges, "If I wanted to do wrong, I
could not. Yesterday, Thursday, I invited to my table five Colonels of the garrison
of Paris, and the whim seized me to question each one by himself. All five
declared to me that the Army would never lend itself to a coup de force, nor attack
the inviolability of the Assembly. You can tell your friends this."—"He smiled,"
said Michel de Bourges, reassured, "and I also smiled." After this, Michel de
Bourges declared in the Tribune, "this is the man for me." In that same month of
November a satirical journal, charged with calumniating the President of the
Republic, was sentenced to fine and imprisonment for a caricature depicting a
shooting-gallery and Louis Bonaparte using the Constitution as a target. Morigny,
Minister of the Interior, declared in the Council before the President "that a
Guardian of Public Power ought never to violate the law as otherwise he would be
—" "a dishonest man," interposed the President. All these words and all these
facts were notorious. The material and moral impossibility of the coup d'état was
manifest to all. To outrage the National Assembly! To arrest the Representatives!
What madness! As we have seen, Charras, who had long remained on his guard,
unloaded his pistols. The feeling of security was complete and unanimous.
Nevertheless there were some of us in the Assembly who still retained a few
doubts, and who occasionally shook our heads, but we were looked upon as fools.

CHAPTER II. PARIS SLEEPS—THE BELL RINGS On the 2d

December, 1851, Representative Versigny, of the Haute-Saône, who resided at
Paris, at No. 4, Rue Léonie, was asleep. He slept soundly; he had been working
till late at night. Versigny was a young man of thirty-two, soft-featured and fair
complexioned, of a courageous spirit, and a mind tending towards social and
economical studies. He had passed the first hours of the night in the perusal of a
book by Bastiat, in which he was making marginal notes, and, leaving the book
open on the table, he had fallen asleep. Suddenly he awoke with a start at the
sound of a sharp ring at the bell. He sprang up in surprise. It was dawn. It was
about seven o'clock in the morning. Never dreaming what could be the motive
for so early a visit, and thinking that someone had mistaken the door, he again
lay down, and was about to resume his slumber, when a second ring at the bell,
still louder than the first, completely aroused him. He got up in his night-shirt
and opened the door. Michel de Bourges and Théodore Bac entered. Michel de
Bourges was the neighbor of Versigny; he lived at No. 16, Rue de Milan.
Théodore Bac and Michel were pale, and appeared greatly agitated. "Versigny,"
said Michel, "dress yourself at once—Baune has just been arrested." "Bah!"
exclaimed Versigny. "Is the Mauguin business beginning again?" "It is more
than that," replied Michel. "Baune's wife and daughter came to me half-an hour
ago. They awoke me. Baune was arrested in bed at six o'clock this morning."
"What does that mean?" asked Versigny. The bell rang again. "This will
probably tell us," answered Michel de Bourges. Versigny opened the door. It was
the Representative Pierre Lefranc. He brought, in truth, the solution of the
enigma.
"Do you know what is happening?" said he. "Yes," answered Michel. "Baune is
in prison." "It is the Republic who is a prisoner," said Pierre Lefranc. "Have you
read the placards?" "No." Pierre Lefranc explained to them that the walls at that
moment were covered with placards which the curious crowd were thronging to
read, that he had glanced over one of them at the corner of his street, and that
the blow had fallen. "The blow!" exclaimed Michel. "Say rather the crime."
Pierre Lefranc added that there were three placards—one decree and two
proclamations—all three on white paper, and pasted close together. The decree
was printed in large letters. The exConstituent Laissac, who lodged, like Michel
de Bourges, in the neighborhood (No. 4, Cité Gaillard), then came in. He
brought the same news, and announced further arrests which had been made
during the night. There was not a minute to lose. They went to impart the news
to Yvan, the Secretary of the Assembly, who had been appointed by the Left,
and who lived in the Rue de Boursault. An immediate meeting was necessary.
Those Republican Representatives who were still at liberty must be warned and
brought together without delay.
Versigny said, "I will go and find Victor Hugo." It was eight o'clock in the
morning. I was awake and was working in bed. My servant entered and said, with
an air of alarm, — "A Representative of the people is outside who wishes to speak
to you, sir." "Who is it?" "Monsieur Versigny:" "Show him in." Versigny entered,
and told me the state of affairs. I sprang out of bed. He told me of the
"rendezvous" at the rooms of the exConstituent Laissac. "Go at once and inform
the other Representatives," said I. He left me.

CHAPTER III. WHAT HAD HAPPENED DURING THE NIGHT

Previous to the fatal days of June, 1848, the esplanade of the Invalides was
divided into eight huge grass plots, surrounded by wooden railings and enclosed
between two groves of trees, separated by a street running perpendicularly to the
front of the Invalides. This street was traversed by three streets running parallel to
the Seine. There were large lawns upon which children were wont to play. The
centre of the eight grass plots was marred by a pedestal which under the Empire
had borne the bronze lion of St. Mark, which had been brought from Venice;
under the Restoration a white marble statue of Louis XVIII.; and under Louis
Philippe a plaster bust of Lafayette.
Owing to the Palace of the Constituent Assembly having been nearly seized by a
crowd of insurgents on the 22d of June, 1848, and there being no barracks in the
neighborhood, General Cavaignac had constructed at three hundred paces from
the Legislative Palace, on the grass plots of the Invalides, several rows of long
huts, under which the grass was hidden. These huts, where three or four thousand
men could be accommodated, lodged the troops specially appointed to keep watch
over the National Assembly. On the 1st December, 1851, the two regiments
hutted on the Esplanade were the 6th and the 42d Regiments of the Line, the 6th
commanded by Colonel Garderens de Boisse, who was famous before the Second
of December, the 42d by Colonel Espinasse, who became famous since that date.
The ordinary night-guard of the Palace of the Assembly was composed of a
battalion of Infantry and of thirty artillerymen, with a captain. The Minister of
War, in addition, sent several troopers for orderly service. Two mortars and six
pieces of cannon, with their ammunition wagons, were ranged in a little square
courtyard situated on the right of the Cour d'Honneur, and which was called the
Cour des Canons. The Major, the military commandant of the Palace, was placed
under the immediate control of the Questors. At nightfall the gratings and the
doors were secured, sentinels were posted, instructions were issued to the sentries,
and the Palace was closed like a fortress. The password was the same as in the
Place de Paris. The special instructions drawn up by the Questors prohibited the
entrance of any armed force other than the regiment on duty. On the night of the
1st and 2d of December the Legislative Palace was guarded by a battalion of the
42d. The sitting of the 1st of December, which was exceedingly peaceable, and
had been devoted to a discussion on the municipal law, had finished late, and was
terminated by a Tribunal vote. At the moment when M. Baze, one of the
Questors, ascended the Tribune to deposit his vote, a Representative, belonging to
what was called "Les Bancs Elyséens" approached him, and said in a low tone,
"To-night you will be carried off." Such warnings as these were received every
day, and, as we have already explained, people had ended by paying no heed to
them. Nevertheless, immediately after the sitting the Questors sent for the Special
Commissary of Police of the Assembly, President Dupin being present. When
interrogated, the Commissary declared that the reports of his agents indicated
"dead calm"—such was his expression—and that assuredly there was no danger
to be apprehended for that night. When the Questors pressed him further,
President Dupin, exclaiming "Bah!" left the room. On that same day, the 1st
December, about three o'clock in the afternoon, as General Leflô's father-in-law
crossed the boulevard in front of Tortoni's, some one rapidly passed by him and
whispered in his ear these significant words, "Eleven o'clock— midnight."
This incident excited but little attention at the Questure, and several even
laughed at it. It had become customary with them.
Nevertheless General Leflô would not go to bed until the hour mentioned had
passed by, and remained in the Offices of the Questure until nearly one o'clock in
the morning. The shorthand department of the Assembly was done out of doors by
four messengers attached to the Moniteur, who were employed to carry the copy
of the shorthand writers to the printing-office, and to bring back the proof-sheets
to the Palace of the Assembly, where M. Hippolyte Prévost corrected them.
M. Hippolyte Prévost was chief of the stenographic staff, and in that capacity had
apartments in the Legislative Palace. He was at the same time editor of the
musical feuilleton of the Moniteur. On the 1st December he had gone to the Opéra
Comique for the first representation of a new piece, and did not return till after
midnight. The fourth messenger from the Moniteur was waiting for him with a
proof of the last slip of the sitting; M. Prévost corrected the proof, and the
messenger was sent off. It was then a little after one o'clock, profound quiet
reigned around, and, with the exception of the guard, all in the isolated from
each other as much as possible. At five o'clock a bell was sounded in the Prefect's
cabinet. The Prefect Maupas called the Commissaries of Police one after another
into his cabinet, revealed the plot to them, and allotted to each his portion of the
crime. None refused; many thanked him. It was a question of arresting at their
own homes seventy-eight Democrats who were influential in their districts, and
dreaded by the Elysée as possible chieftains of barricades. It was necessary, a still
more daring outrage, to arrest at their houses sixteen Representatives of the
People. For this last task were chosen among the Commissaries of Police such of
those magistrates who seemed the most likely to become ruffians. Amongst these
were divided the Representatives. Each had his man. Sieur Courtille had Charras,
Sieur Desgranges had Nadaud, Sieur Hubaut the elder had M. Thiers, and Sieur
Hubaut the younger General Bedeau, General Changarnier was allotted to Lerat,
and General Cavaignac to Colin. Sieur Dourlens took Representative Valentin,
Sieur Benoist Representative Miot, Sieur Allard Representative Cholat, Sieur
Barlet took Roger (Du Nord), General Lamoricière fell to Commissary Blanchet,
Commissary Gronfier had Representative Greppo, and Commissary Boudrot
Representative Lagrange. The Questors were similarly allotted, Monsieur Baze to
the Sieur Primorin, and General Leflô to Sieur Bertoglio. Warrants with the name
of the Representatives had been drawn up in the Prefect's private Cabinet. Blanks
had been only left for the names of the Commissaries. These were filled in at the
moment of leaving. In addition to the armed force which was appointed to assist
them, it had been decided that each Commissary should be accompanied by two
escorts, one composed of sergents de ville, the other of police agents in plain
clothes. As Prefect Maupas had told M. Bonaparte, the Captain of the Republican
Guard, Baudinet, was associated with Commissary Lerat in the arrest of General
Changarnier. Towards half-past five the fiacres which were in waiting were called
up, and all started, each with his instructions. During this time, in another corner
of Paris— the old Rue du Temple—in that ancient Soubise Mansion which had
been transformed into a Royal Printing Office, and is to day a National Printing
Office, another section of the Crime was being organized. Towards one in the
morning a passer-by who had reached the old Rue du Temple by the Rue de
Vieilles-Haudriettes, noticed at the junction of these two streets several long and
high windows brilliantly lighted up, These were the windows of the work rooms
of the National Printing Office. He turned to the right and entered the old Rue du
Temple, and a moment afterwards paused before the crescent-shaped entrance of
the front of the printing-office. The principal door was shut, two sentinels guarded
the side door. Through this little door, which was ajar, he glanced into the
courtyard of the printing-office, and saw it filled with soldiers. The soldiers were
silent, no sound could be heard, but the glistening of their bayonets could be seen.
The passer-by surprised, drew nearer. One of the sentinels thrust him rudely back,
crying out, "Be off." Like the sergents de ville at the Prefecture of Police, the
workmen had been retained at the National Printing Office under plea of night-
work. At the same time that M. Hippolyte Prévost returned to the Legislative
Palace, the manager of the National Printing Office re-entered his office, also
returning from the Opéra Comique, where he had been to see the new piece, which
was by his brother, M. de St. Georges. Immediately on his return the manager, to
whom had come an order from the Elysée during the day, took up a pair of pocket
pistols, and went down into the vestibule, which communicates by means of a few
steps with the courtyard.
Shortly afterwards the door leading to the street opened, a fiacre entered, a man
who carried a large portfolio alighted. The manager went up to the man, and said
to him, "Is that you, Monsieur de Béville?" "Yes," answered the man. The fiacre
was put up, the horses placed in a stable, and the coachman shut up in a parlor,
where they gave him drink, and placed a purse in his hand. Bottles of wine and
louis d'or form the groundwork of this hind of politics. The coachman drank and
then went to sleep. The door of the parlor was bolted. The large door of the
courtyard of the printing-office was hardly shut than it reopened, gave passage to
armed men, who entered in silence, and then reclosed. The arrivals were a
company of the Gendarmerie Mobile, the fourth of the first battalion,
commanded by a captain named La Roche d'Oisy. As may be remarked by the
result, for all delicate expeditions the men of the coup d'état took care to employ
the Gendarmerie Mobile and the Republican Guard, that it is to say the two corps
almost entirely composed of former Municipal Guards, bearing at heart a
revengeful remembrance of the events of February. Captain La Roche d'Oisy
brought a letter from the Minister of War, which placed himself and his soldiers
at the disposition of the manager of the National Printing Office. The muskets
were loaded without a word being spoken. Sentinels were placed in the
workrooms, in the corridors, at the doors, at the windows, in fact, everywhere,
two being stationed at the door leading into the street. The captain asked what
instructions he should give to the sentries. "Nothing more simple," said the man
who had come in the fiacre. "Whoever attempts to leave or to open a window,
shoot him." This man, who, in fact, was De Béville, orderly officer to M.
Bonaparte, withdrew with the manager into the large cabinet on the first story, a
solitary room which looked out on the garden. There he communicated to the
manager what he had brought with him, the decree of the dissolution of the
Assembly, the appeal to the Army, the appeal to the People, the decree
convoking the electors, and in addition, the proclamation of the Prefect Maupas
and his letter to the Commissaries of Police. The four first documents were
entirely in the handwriting of the President, and here and there some erasures
might be noticed. The compositors were in waiting. Each man was placed
between two gendarmes, and was forbidden to utter a single word, and then the
documents which had to be printed were distributed throughout the room, being
cut up in very small pieces, so that an entire sentence could not be read by one
workman. The manager announced that he would give them an hour to compose
the whole. The different fragments were finally brought to Colonel Béville, who
put them together and corrected the proof sheets. The machining was conducted
with the same precautions, each press being between two soldiers.
Notwithstanding all possible diligence the work lasted two hours. The
gendarmes watched over the workmen. Béville watched over St. Georges. When
the work was finished a suspicious incident occurred, which greatly resembled a
treason within a treason. To a traitor a greater traitor. This species of crime is
subject to such accidents. Béville and St. Georges, the two trusty confidants in
whose hands lay the secret of the coup d'état, that is to say the head of the
President;—that secret, which ought at no price to be allowed to transpire before
the appointed hour, under risk of causing everything to miscarry, took it into
their heads to confide it at once to two hundred men, in order "to test the effect,"
as the ex-Colonel Béville said later on, rather naïvely. They read the mysterious
document which had just been printed to the Gendarmes Mobiles, who were
drawn up in the courtyard.
These ex-municipal guards applauded. If they had hooted, it might be asked
what the two experimentalists in the coup d'état would have done. Perhaps M.
Bonaparte would have waked up from his dream at Vincennes. The coachman
was then liberated, the fiacre was horsed, and at four o'clock in the morning the
orderly officer and the manager of the National Printing Office, henceforward
two criminals, arrived at the Prefecture of Police with the parcels of the
decrees. Then began for them the brand of shame. Prefect Maupas took them
by the hand. Bands of bill-stickers, bribed for the occasion, started in every
direction, carrying with them the decrees and proclamations. This was precisely
the hour at which the Palace of the National Assembly was invested. In the Rue
de l'Université there is a door of the Palace which is the old entrance to the
Palais Bourbon, and which opened into the avenue which leads to the house of
the President of the Assembly. This door, termed the Presidency door, was
according to custom guarded by a sentry. For some time past the Adjutant-
Major, who had been twice sent for during the night by Colonel Espinasse, had
remained motionless and silent, close by the sentinel. Five minutes after,
having left the huts of the Invalides, the 42d Regiment of the line, followed at
some distance by the 6th Regiment, which had marched by the Rue de
Bourgogne, emerged from the Rue de l'Université. "The regiment," says an
eye-witness, "marched as one steps in a sickroom." It arrived with a stealthy
step before the Presidency door. This ambuscade came to surprise the law. The
sentry, seeing these soldiers arrive, halted, but at the moment when he was
going to challenge them with a qui-vive, the Adjutant-Major seized his arm,
and, in his capacity as the officer empowered to countermand all instructions,
ordered him to give free passage to the 42d, and at the same time commanded
the amazed porter to open the door. The door turned upon its hinges, the
soldiers spread themselves through the avenue. Persigny entered and said, "It is
done." The National Assembly was invaded. At the noise of the footsteps the
Commandant Mennier ran up. "Commandant," Colonel Espinasse cried out to
him, "I come to relieve your battalion." The Commandant turned pale for a
moment, and his eyes remained fixed on the ground. Then suddenly he put his
hands to his shoulders, and tore off his epaulets, he drew his sword, broke it
across his knee, threw the two fragments on the pavement, and, trembling with
rage, exclaimed with a solemn voice, "Colonel, you disgrace the number of
your regiment."
"All right, all right," said Espinasse. The Presidency door was left open, but all
the other entrances remained closed. All the guards were relieved, all the
sentinels changed, and the battalion of the night guard was sent back to the
camp of the Invalides, the soldiers piled their arms in the avenue, and in the
Cour d'Honneur. The 42d, in profound silence, occupied the doors outside and
inside, the courtyard, the reception-rooms, the galleries, the corridors, the
passages, while every one slept in the Palace. Shortly afterwards arrived two of
those little chariots which are called "forty sons," and two fiacres, escorted by
two detachments of the Republican Guard and of the Chasseurs de Vincennes,
and by several squads of police. The Commissaries Bertoglio and Primorin
alighted from the two chariots. As these carriages drove up a personage, bald,
but still young, was seen to appear at the grated door of the Place de
Bourgogne. This personage had all the air of a man about town, who had just
come from the opera, and, in fact, he had come from thence, after having
passed through a den. He came from the Elysée. It was De Morny. For an
instant he watched the soldiers piling their arms, and then went on to the
Presidency door. There he exchanged a few words with M. de Persigny. A
quarter of an hour afterwards, accompanied by 250 Chasseurs de Vincennes, he
took possession of the ministry of the Interior, startled M. de Thorigny in his
bed, and handed him brusquely a letter of thanks from Monsieur Bonaparte.
Some days previously honest M. De Thorigny, whose ingenuous remarks we
have already cited, said to a group of men near whom M. de Morny was
passing, "How these men of the Mountain calumniate the President! The man
who would break his oath, who would achieve a coup d'état must necessarily be
a worthless wretch." Awakened rudely in the middle of the night, and relieved
of his post as Minister like the sentinels of the Assembly, the worthy man,
astounded, and rubbing his eyes, muttered, "Eh! then the President is a ——."
"Yes," said Morny, with a burst of laughter. He who writes these lines knew
Morny. Morny and Walewsky held in the quasi reigning family the positions,
one of Royal bastard, the other of Imperial bastard. Who was Morny? We will
say, "A noted wit, an intriguer, but in no way austere, a friend of Romieu, and a
supporter of Guizot possessing the manners of the world, and the habits of the
roulette table, selfsatisfied, 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, welldressed, intrepid, willingly leaving a brother prisoner
under bolts and bars, and ready to risk his head for a brother Emperor, having
the same mother as Louis Bonaparte, and like Louis Bonaparte, having some
father or other, being able to call himself Beauharnais, being able to call
himself Flahaut, and yet calling himself Morny, pursuing literature as far as
light comedy, and politics, as far as tragedy, a deadly free liver, possessing all
the frivolity consistent with assassination, capable of being sketched by
Marivaux and treated of by Tacitus, without conscience, irreproachably
elegant, infamous, and amiable, at need a perfect duke. Such was this
malefactor." It was not yet six o'clock in the morning. Troops began to mass
themselves on the Place de la Concorde, where LeroySaintArnaud on
horseback held a review. The Commissaries of Police, Bertoglio and Primorin
ranged two companies in order under the vault of the great staircase of the
Questure, but did not ascend that way. They were accompanied by agents of
police, who knew the most secret recesses of the Palais Bourbon, and who
conducted them through various passages. General Leflô was lodged in the
Pavilion inhabited in the time of the Duc de Bourbon by Monsieur Feuchères.
That night General Leflô had staying with him his sister and her husband, who
were visiting Paris, and who slept in a room, the door of which led into one of
the corridors of the Palace. Commissary Bertoglio knocked at the door, opened
it, and together with his agents abruptly burst into the room, where a woman
was in bed. The general's brother-in-out sprang out of bed, and cried out to the
Questor, who slept in an adjoining room, "Adolphe, the doors are being forced,
the Palace is full of soldiers. Get up!" The General opened his eyes, he saw
Commissary Bertoglio standing beside his bed. He sprang up. "General," said
the Commissary, "I have come to fulfil a duty." "I understand," said General
Leflô, "you are a traitor." The Commissary stammering out the words, "Plot
against the safety of the State," displayed a warrant. The General, without
pronouncing a word, struck this infamous paper with the back of his hand.
Then dressing himself, he put on his full uniform of Constantine and of Médéah,
thinking in his imaginative, soldier-like loyalty that there were still generals of
Africa for the soldiers whom he would find on his way. All the generals now
remaining were brigands. His wife embraced him; his son, a child of seven years,
in his nightshirt, and in tears, said to the Commissary of Police, "Mercy, Monsieur
Bonaparte." The General, while clasping his wife in his arms, whispered in her
ear, "There is artillery in the courtyard, try and fire a cannon." The Commissary
and his men led him away. He regarded these policemen with contempt, and did
not speak to them, but when he recognized Colonel Espinasse, his military and
Breton heart swelled with indignation. "Colonel Espinasse," said he, "you are a
villain, and I hope to live long enough to tear the buttons from your uniform."
Colonel Espinasse hung his head, and stammered, "I do not know you." A major
waved his sword, and cried, "We have had enough of lawyer generals." Some
soldiers crossed their bayonets before the unarmed prisoner, three sergents de ville
pushed him into a fiacre, and a sub-lieutenant approaching the carriage, and
looking in the face of the man who, if he were a citizen, was his Representative,
and if he were a soldier was his general, flung this abominable word at him,
"Canaille!" Meanwhile Commissary Primorin had gone by a more roundabout
way in order the more surely to surprise the other Questor, M. Baze. Out of M.
Baze's apartment a door led to the lobby communicating with the chamber of the
Assembly. Sieur Primorin knocked at the door. "Who is there?" asked a servant,
who was dressing. "The Commissary of Police," replied Primorin. The servant,
thinking that he was the Commissary of Police of the Assembly, opened the door.
At this moment M. Baze, who had heard the noise, and had just awakened, put on
a dressing-gown, and cried, "Do not open the door." He had scarcely spoken these
words when a man in plain clothes and three sergents de ville in uniform rushed
into his chamber. The man, opening his coat, displayed his scarf of office, asking
M. Baze, "Do you recognize this?" "You are a worthless wretch," answered the
Questor. The police agents laid their hands on M. Baze. "You will not take me
away," he said. "You, a Commissary of Police, you, who are a magistrate, and
know what you are doing, you outrage the National Assembly, you violate the
law, you are a criminal!" A hand-to-hand struggle ensued—four against one.
Madame Baze and her two little girls giving vent to screams, the servant being
thrust back with blows by the sergents de ville. "You are ruffians," cried out
Monsieur Baze. They carried him away by main force in their arms, still
struggling, naked, his dressing-gown being torn to shreds, his body being covered
with blows, his wrist torn and bleeding. The stairs, the landing, the courtyard,
were full of soldiers with fixed bayonets and grounded arms. The Questor spoke
to them. "Your Representatives are being arrested, you have not received your
arms to break the laws!" A sergeant was wearing a brand new cross. "Have you
been given the cross for this?" The sergeant answered, "We only know one
master." "I note your number," continued M. Baze. "You are a dishonored
regiment." The soldiers listened with a stolid air, and seemed still asleep.
Commissary Primorin said to them, "Do not answer, this has nothing to do with
you." They led the Questor across the courtyard to the guard-house at the Porte
Noire. This was the name which was given to a little door contrived under the
vault opposite the treasury of the Assembly, and which opened upon the Rue de
Bourgogne, facing the Rue de Lille. Several sentries were placed at the door of the
guard-house, and at the top of the flight of steps which led thither, M. Baze being
left there in charge of three sergents de ville. Several soldiers, without their
weapons, and in their shirt-sleeves, came in and out. The Questor appealed to
them in the name of military honor. "Do not answer," said the sergent de ville to
the soldiers. M. Baze's two little girls had followed him with terrified eyes, and
when they lost sight of him the youngest burst into tears. "Sister," said the elder,
who was seven years old, "let us say our prayers," and the two children, clasping
their hands, knelt down. Commissary Primorin, with his swarm of agents, burst
into the Questor's study, and laid hands on everything. The first papers which he
perceived on the middle of the table, and which he seized,

were the famous decrees which had been prepared in the event of the Assembly
having voted the proposal of the Questors. All the drawers were opened and
searched. This overhauling of M. Baze's papers, which the Commissary of Police
termed a domiciliary visit, lasted more than an hour. M. Baze's clothes had been
taken to him, and he had dressed. When the "domiciliary visit" was over, he was
taken out of the guard-house. There was a fiacre in the courtyard, into which he
entered, together with the three sergents de ville. The vehicle, in order to reach the
Presidency door, passed by the Cour d'Honneur and then by the Courde Canonis.
Day was breaking. M. Baze looked into the courtyard to see if the cannon were
still there. He saw the ammunition wagons ranged in order with their shafts
raised, but the places. of the six cannon and the two mortars were vacant. In the
avenue of the Presidency the fiacre stopped for a moment. Two lines of soldiers,
standing at ease, lined the footpaths of the avenue. At the foot of a tree were
grouped three men: Colonel Espinasse, whom M. Baze knew and recognized, a
species of Lieutenant-Colonel, who wore a black and orange ribbon round his
neck, and a Major of Lancers, all three sword in hand, consulting together. The
windows of the fiacre were closed; M. Baze wished to lower them to appeal to
these men; the sergents de ville seized his arms. The Commissary Primorin then
came up, and was about to re enter the little chariot for two persons which had
brought him. "Monsieur Baze," said he, with that villainous kind of courtesy
which the agents of the coup d'état willingly blended with their crime, "you must
be uncomfortable with those three men in the fiacre. You are cramped; come in
with me." "Let me alone," said the prisoner. "With these three men I am cramped;
with you I should be contaminated." An escort of infantry was ranged on both
sides of the fiacre. Colonel Espinasse called to the coachman, "Drive slowly by
the Quai d'Orsay until you meet a cavalry escort. When the cavalry shall have
assumed the charge, the infantry can come back." They set out. As the fiacre
turned into the Quai d'Orsay a picket of the 7th Lancers arrived at full speed. It
was the escort: the troopers surrounded the fiacre, and the whole galloped off. No
incident occurred during the journey. Here and there, at the noise of the horses'
hoofs, windows were opened and heads put forth; and the prisoner, who had at
length succeeded in lowering a window heard startled voices saying, "What is the
matter?" The fiacre stopped. "Where are we?" asked M. Baze. "At Mazas," said a
sergent de ville. The Questor was taken to the office of the prison. Just as he
entered he saw Baune and Nadaud being brought out. There was a table in the
centre, at which Commissary Primorin, who had followed the fiacre in his chariot,
had just seated himself. While the Commissary was writing, M. Baze noticed on
the table a paper which was evidently a jail register, on which were these names,
written in the following order: Lamoricière, Charras, Cavaignac, Changarnier,
Leflô, Thiers, Bedeau, Roger (du Nord), Chambolle. This was probably the order
in which the Representatives

had arrived at the prison. When Sieur Primorin had finished writing, M. Baze
said, "Now, you will be good enough to receive my protest, and add it to your
official report." "It is not an official report," objected the Commissary, "it is
simply an order for committal." "I intend to write my protest at once," replied M.
Baze. "You will have plenty of time in your cell," remarked a man who stood by
the table. M. Baze turned round. "Who are you?" "I am the governor of the
prison," said the man. "In that case," replied M. Baze, "I pity you, for you are
aware of the crime you are committing." The man turned pale, and stammered a
few unintelligible words.
The Commissary rose from his seat; M. Baze briskly took possession of his
chair, seated himself at the table, and said to Sieur Primorin, "You are a public
officer; I request you to add my protest to your official report." "Very well," said
the Commissary, "let it be so." Baze wrote the protest as follows:— "I, the
undersigned, Jean-Didier Baze, Representative of the People, and Questor of the
National Assembly, carried off by violence from my residence in the Palace of
the National Assembly, and conducted to this prison by an armed force which it
was impossible for me to resist, protest in the name of the National Assembly
and in my own name against the outrage on national representation committed
upon my colleagues and upon myself. "Given at Mazas on the 2d December
1851, at eight o'clock in the morning. "BAZE." While this was taking place at
Mazas, the soldiers were laughing and drinking in the courtyard of the Assembly.
They made their coffee in the saucepans. They had lighted enormous fires in the
courtyard; the flames, fanned by the wind, at times reached the walls of the
Chamber. A superior official of the Questure, an officer of the National Guard,
Ramond de la Croisette, ventured to say to them, "You will set the Palace on
fire;" whereupon a soldier struck him a blow with his fist. Four of the pieces
taken from the Cour de Canons were ranged in battery order against the
Assembly; two on the Place de Bourgogne were pointed towards the grating, and
two on the Pont de la Concorde were pointed towards the grand staircase. As
side-note to this instructive tale let us mention a curious fact. The 42d Regiment
of the line was the same which had arrested Louis Bonaparte at Boulogne. In
1840 this regiment lent its aid to the law against the conspirator. In 1851 it lent
its aid to the conspirator against the law: such is the beauty of passive obedience.

CHAPTER IV. OTHER DOINGS OF THE NIGHT

During the same night in all parts of Paris acts of brigandage took place.
Unknown men leading armed troops, and themselves armed with hatchets,
mallets, pincers, crow bars, life-preservers, swords hidden under their coats,
pistols, of which the butts could be distinguished under the

folds of their cloaks, arrived in silence before a house, occupied the street,
encircled the approaches, picked the lock of the door, tied up the porter, invaded
the stairs, and burst through the doors upon a sleeping man, and when that man,
awakening with a start, asked of these bandits, "Who are you?" their leader
answered, "A Commissary of Police." So it happened to Lamoricière who was
seized by Blanchet, who threatened him with the gag; to Greppo, who was
brutally treated and thrown down by Gronfier, assisted by six men carrying a
dark lantern and a pole-axe; to Cavaignac, who was secured by Colin, a smooth-
tongued villain, who affected to be shocked on hearing him curse and swear; to
M. Thiers, who was arrested by Hubaut (the elder); who professed that he had
seen him "tremble and weep," thus adding falsehood to crime; to Valentin, who
was assailed in his bed by Dourlens, taken by the feet and shoulders, and thrust
into a padlocked police van; to Miot, destined to the tortures of African
casemates; to Roger (du Nord), who with courageous and witty irony offered
sherry to the bandits. Charras and Changarnier were taken unawares. They lived
in the Rue St. Honoré, nearly opposite to each other, Changarnier at No. 3,
Charras at No. 14. Ever since the 9th of September Changarnier had dismissed
the fifteen men armed to the teeth by whom he had hitherto been guarded during
the night, and on the 1st December, as we have said, Charras had unloaded his
pistols.
These empty pistols were lying on the table when they came to arrest him. The
Commissary of Police threw himself upon them. "Idiot," said Charras to him, "if
they had been loaded, you would have been a dead man." These pistols, we may
note, had been given to Charras upon the taking of Mascara by General Renaud,
who at the moment of Charras' arrest was on horseback in the street helping to
carry out the coup d'état. If these pistols had remained loaded, and if General
Renaud had had the task of arresting Charras, it would have been curious if
Renaud's pistols had killed Renaud. Charras assuredly would not have hesitated.
We have already mentioned the names of these police rascals. It is useless to
repeat them. It was Courtille who arrested Charras, Lerat who arrested
Changarnier, Desgranges who arrested Nadaud. The men thus seized in their own
houses were Representatives of the people; they were inviolable, so that to the
crime of the violation of their persons was added this high treason, the violation
of the Constitution.
There was no lack of impudence in the perpetration of these outrages. The police
agents made merry. Some of these droll fellows jested. At Mazas the under-jailors
jeered at Thiers, Nadaud reprimanded them severely. The Sieur Hubaut (the
younger) awoke General Bedeau. "General, you are a prisoner."—"My person is
inviolable."— "Unless you are caught red-handed, in the very act."—"Well," said
Bedeau, "I am caught in the act, the heinous act of being asleep." They took him
by the collar and dragged him to a fiacre. On meeting together at Mazas, Nadaud
grasped the hand of Greppo, and Lagrange grasped the hand of Lamoricière. This
made the police gentry laugh. A colonel, named Thirion, wearing a commander's
cross round his neck, helped to put the Generals and the Representatives into jail.
"Look me in the face," said Charras to him. Thirion moved away. Thus, without
counting other arrests which took place later on, there were imprisoned during the
night of the 2d of December, sixteen Representatives and seventy-eight citizens.
The two agents of the crime furnished a report of it to Louis Bonaparte. Morny
wrote "Boxed up;" Maupas wrote "Quadded." The one in drawing-room slang, the
other in the slang of the galleys. Subtle gradations of language.

CHAPTER V. THE DARKNESS OF THE CRIME Versigny had just left me.
While I dressed hastily there came in a man in whom I had every confidence. He
was a poor cabinet-maker out of work, named Girard, to whom I had given shelter
in a room of my house, a carver of wood, and not illiterate. He came in from the
street; he was trembling. "Well," I asked, "what do the people say?" Girard
answered me,— "People are dazed. The blow has been struck in such a manner
that it is not realized.
Workmen read the placards, say nothing, and go to their work. Only one in a
hundred speaks. It is to say, 'Good!' This is how it appears to them. The law of the
31st May is abrogated—'Well done!' Universal suffrage is re-established—'Also
well done!' The reactionary majority has been driven away—'Admirable!' Thiers
is arrested—'Capital!' Changarnier is seized—'Bravo!' Round each placard there
are claqueurs. Ratapoil explains his coup d'état to Jacques Bonhomme, Jacques
Bonhomme takes it all in. Briefly, it is my impression that the people give their
consent." "Let it be so," said I. "But," asked Girard of me, "what will you do,
Monsieur Victor Hugo?" I took my scarf of office from a cupboard, and showed it
to him. He understood. We shook hands. As he went out Carini entered. Colonel
Carini is an intrepid man. He had commanded the cavalry under Mieroslawsky in
the Sicilian insurrection. He has, in a few moving and enthusiastic pages, told the
story of that noble revolt. Carini is one of those Italians who love France as we
Frenchmen love Italy. Every warm-hearted man in this century has two
fatherlands— the Rome of yesterday and the Paris of to-day. "Thank God," said
Carini to me, "you are still free," and he added, "The blow has been struck in a
formidable manner.
The Assembly is invested. I have come from thence. The Place de la Révolution,
the Quays, the Tuileries, the boulevards, are crowded with troops. The soldiers
have their knapsacks. The batteries are harnessed. If fighting takes place it will be
desperate work." I answered him, "There will be fighting." And I added, laughing,
"You have proved that the colonels write like poets; now it is the turn of the poets
to fight like colonels." I entered my wife's room; she knew nothing, and was
quietly reading her paper in bed. I had taken about me five hundred francs in
gold. I put on my wife's bed a box containing nine hundred francs, all the money
which remained to me, and I told her what had happened. She turned pale, and
said to me, "What are you going to do?" "My duty." She embraced me, and only
said two words:— "Do it." My breakfast was ready. I ate a cutlet in two
mouthfuls. As I finished, my daughter came in. She was startled by the manner in
which I kissed her, and asked me, "What is the matter?" "Your mother will
explain to you." And I left them. The Rue de la Tour d'Auvergne was as quiet and
deserted as usual. Four workmen were, however, chatting near my door; they
wished me "Good morning." I cried out to them, "You know what is going on?"
"Yes," said they. "Well. It is treason! Louis Bonaparte is strangling the Republic.
The people are attacked. The people must defend themselves." "They will defend
themselves." "You promise me that?" "Yes," they answered. One of them added,
"We swear it." They kept their word. Barricades were constructed in my street
(Rue de la Tour d'Auvergne), in the Rue des Martyrs, in the Cité Rodier, in the
Rue Coquenard, and at Notre-Dame de Lorette.

CHAPTER VI. "PLACARDS" On leaving these brave men I could read at the
corner of the Rue de la Tour d'Auvergne and the Rue des Martyrs, the three
infamous placards which had been posted on the walls of Paris during the night.
Here they are. "PROCLAMATION OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE
REPUBLIC.
"Appeal to the People. "FRENCHMEN! The present situation can last no longer.
Every day which passes enhances the dangers of the country. The Assembly,
which ought to be the firmest support of order, has become a focus of
conspiracies. The patriotism of three hundred of its members has been unable to
check its fatal tendencies. Instead of making laws in the public

interest it forges arms for civil war; it attacks the power which I hold directly
from the People, it encourages all bad passions, it compromises the
tranquillity of France; I have dissolved it, and I constitute the whole People a
judge between it and me. "The Constitution, as you know, was constructed
with the object of weakening beforehand the power which you were about to
confide to me. Six millions of votes formed an emphatic protest against it,
and yet I have faithfully respected it. Provocations, calumnies, outrages, have
found me unmoved. Now, however, that the fundamental compact is no
longer respected by those very men who incessantly invoke it, and that the
men who have ruined two monarchies wish to tie my hands in order to
overthrow the Republic, my duty is to frustrate their treacherous schemes, to
maintain the Republic, and to save the Country by appealing to the solemn
judgment of the only Sovereign whom I recognize in France—the People. "I
therefore make a loyal appeal to the whole nation, and I say to you: If you
wish to continue this condition of uneasiness which degrades us and
compromises our future, choose another in my place, for I will no longer
retain a power which is impotent to do good, which renders me responsible
for actions which I cannot prevent, and which binds me to the helm when I
see the vessel driving towards the abyss. "If on the other hand you still place
confidence in me, give me the means of accomplishing the great mission
which I hold from you. "This mission consists in closing the era of
revolutions, by satisfying the legitimate needs of the People, and by
protecting them from subversive passions. It consists, above all, in creating
institutions which survive men, and which shall in fact form the foundations
on which something durable may be established. "Persuaded that the
instability of power, that the preponderance of a single Assembly, are the
permanent causes of trouble and discord, I submit to your suffrage the
following fundamental bases of a Constitution which will be developed by the
Assemblies later on:— "1. A responsible Chief appointed for ten years. "2
Ministers dependent upon the Executive Power alone. "3. A Council of State
composed of the most distinguished men, who shall prepare laws and shall
support them in debate before the Legislative Body. "4. A Legislative Body
which shall discuss and vote the laws, and which shall be elected by universal
suffrage, without scrutin de liste, which falsifies the elections. "5. A Second
Assembly composed of the most illustrious men of the country, a power of
equipoise the guardian of the fundamental compact, and of the public
liberties. "This system, created by the first Consul at the beginning of the
century, has already given repose and prosperity to France; it would still
insure them to her. "Such is my firm conviction. If you share it, declare it by
your votes. If, on the contrary, you prefer a government without strength,
Monarchical or Republican, borrowed I know not from what past, or from
what

chimerical future, answer in the negative. "Thus for the first time since 1804, you
will vote with a full knowledge of the circumstances, knowing exactly for whom
and for what. "If I do not obtain the majority of your suffrages I shall call together
a New Assembly and shall place in its hands the commission which I have
received from you. "But if you believe that the cause of which my name is the
symbol,— that is to say, France regenerated by the Revolution of '89, and
organized by the Emperor, is to be still your own, proclaim it by sanctioning the
powers which I ask from you. "Then France and Europe will be preserved from
anarchy, obstacles will be removed, rivalries will have disappeared, for all will
respect, in the decision of the People, the decree of Providence. "Given at the
Palace of the Elysée, 2d December, 1851. "LOUIS NAPOLEON BONAPARTE."
PROCLAMATION OF THE PRESIDENT
OF THE REPUBLIC TO THE ARMY. "Soldiers! Be proud of your mission,
you will save the country, for I count upon you not to violate the laws, but to
enforce respect for the first law of the country, the national Sovereignty, of
which I am the Legitimate Representative. "For a long time past, like myself,
you have suffered from obstacles which have opposed themselves both to the
good that I wished to do and to the demonstrations of your sympathies in my
favor. These obstacles have been broken down. "The Assembly has tried to
attack the authority which hold from the whole Nation. It has ceased to exist. "I
make a loyal appeal to the People and to the Army, and I say to them: Either give
me the means of insuring your prosperity, or choose another in my place. "In
1830, as in 1848, you were treated as vanquished men. After having branded
your heroic disinterestedness, they disdained to consult your sympathies and
your wishes, and yet you are the flower of the Nation.
Today, at this solemn moment, I am resolved that the voice of the Army shall be
heard. "Vote, therefore, freely as citizens; but, as soldiers do not forget that
passive obedience to the orders of the Chief of the State is the rigorous duty of the
Army, from the general to the private soldier. "It is for me, responsible for my
actions both to the People and to posterity, to take those measures which may
seem to me indispensable for the public welfare. "As for you, remain immovable
within the rules of discipline and of honor. By your imposing attitude help the
country to manifest its will with calmness and reflection. "Be ready to repress
every attack upon the free exercise of the sovereignty of the People. "Soldiers, I
do not speak to you of the memories which my name recalls. They are engraven in
your hearts. We are united by indissoluble ties. Your history is mine. There is
between us, in the past, a community of glory and of misfortune. "There will be in
the future community of sentiment and of resolutions for the repose and the
greatness of France. "Given at the Palace of the Elysée, December 2d, 1851.
"(Signed) L.N. BONAPARTE." "IN THE NAME OF THE FRENCH PEOPLE.
"The President of the Republic decrees:— "ARTICLE I. The National Assembly
is dissolved. "ARTICLE II. Universal suffrage is re-established. The law of May
31 is abrogated. "ARTICLE III. The French People are convoked in their electoral
districts from the 14th December to the 21st December following. "ARTICLE IV.
The State of Siege is decreed in the district of the first Military Division.
"ARTICLE V. The Council of State is dissolved. "ARTICLE VI. The Minister of
the Interior is charged with the execution of this decree. "Given at the Palace of
the Elysée, 2d December, 1851. "LOUIS NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. "DE
MORNY, Minister of the Interior." CHAPTER VII. NO. 70, RUE
BLANCHE The Cité Gaillard is somewhat difficult to find. It is a
deserted alley in that new quarter which separates the Rue des Martyrs from the
Rue Blanche. I found it, however. As I reached No. 4, Yvan came out of the
gateway and said, "I am here to warn you. The police have an eye upon this
house, Michel is waiting for you at No.
70, Rue Blanche, a few steps from here." I knew No. 70, Rue Blanche. Manin, the
celebrated President of the Venetian Republic, lived there. It was not in his rooms,
however, that the meeting was to take place. The porter of No. 70 told me to go
up to the first floor. The door was opened, and a handsome, gray-haired woman of
some forty summers, the Baroness Coppens, whom I recognized as having seen in
society and at my own house, ushered me into a drawing room. Michel de
Bourges and Alexander Rey were there, the latter an exConstituent, an eloquent
writer, a brave man. At that time Alexander Rey edited the National. We shook
hands. Michel said to me,— "Hugo, what will you do?" I answered him,—
"Everything." "That also is my opinion," said he. Numerous representatives
arrived, and amongst others Pierre Lefranc, Labrousse, Théodore Bac, Noël
Parfait, Arnauld (de l'Ariége), Demosthenes Ollivier, an ex-Constituent, and
Charamaule. There was deep and unutterable indignation, but no useless words
were spoken. All were imbued with that manly anger whence issue great
resolutions. They talked. They set forth the situation. Each brought forward the
news which he had learnt. Théodore Bac came from Léon Faucher, who lived in
the Rue Blanche. It was he who had awakened Léon Faucher, and had announced
the news to him. The first words of Léon Faucher were, "It is an infamous deed."
From the first moment Charamaule displayed a courage which, during the four
days of the struggle, never flagged for a single instant. Charamaule is a very tall
man, possessed of vigorous features and convincing eloquence; he voted with the
Left, but sat with the Right. In the Assembly he was the neighbor of
Montalembert and of Riancey. He sometimes had warm disputes with them,
which we watched from afar off, and which amused us. Charamaule had come to
the meeting at No. 70 dressed in a sort of blue cloth military cloak, and armed, as
we found out later on. The situation was grave; sixteen Representatives arrested,
all the generals of the Assembly, and he who was more than a general, Charras.
All the journals

suppressed, all the printing offices occupied by soldiers. On the side of Bonaparte
an army of 80,000 men which could be doubled in a few hours; on our side
nothing. The people deceived, and moreover disarmed. The telegraph at their
command. All the walls covered with their placards, and at our disposal not a
single printing case, not one sheet of paper. No means of raising the protest, no
means of beginning the combat. The coup d'état was clad with mail, the Republic
was naked; the coup d'état had a speaking trumpet, the Republic wore a gag.
What was to be done? The raid against the Republic, against the Assembly,
against Right, against Law, against Progress, against Civilization, was
commanded by African generals. These heroes had just proved that they were
cowards. They had taken their precautions well. Fear alone can engender so much
skill. They had arrested all the men of war of the Assembly, and all the men of
action of the
Left, Baune, Charles Lagrange, Miot, Valentin, Nadaud, Cholat. Add to this that
all the possible chiefs of the barricades were in prison. The organizers of the
ambuscade had carefully left at liberty Jules Favre, Michel de Bourges, and
myself, judging us to be less men of action than of the Tribune; wishing to leave
the Left men capable of resistance, but incapable of victory, hoping to dishonor
us if we did not fight, and to shoot us if we did fight. Nevertheless, no one
hesitated. The deliberation began.
Other representatives arrived every minute, Edgar Quinet, Doutre, Pelletier,
Cassal, Bruckner, Baudin, Chauffour. The room was full, some were seated,
most were standing, in confusion, but without tumult. I was the first to speak. I
said that the struggle ought to be begun at once. Blow for blow. That it was my
opinion that the hundred and fifty Representatives of the Left should put on their
scarves of office, should march in procession through the streets and the
boulevards as far as the Madeleine, and crying "Vive la République! Vive la
Constitution!" should appear before the troops, and alone, calm and unarmed,
should summon Might to obey Right. If the soldiers yielded, they should go to
the Assembly and make an end of Louis Bonaparte. If the soldiers fired upon
their legislators, they should disperse throughout Paris, cry "To Arms," and
resort to barricades. Resistance should be begun constitutionally, and if that
failed, should be continued revolutionarily. There was no time to be lost. "High
treason," said I, "should be seized red-handed, is a great mistake to suffer such
an outrage to be accepted by the hours as they elapse. Each minute which passes
is an accomplice, and endorses the crime. Beware of that calamity called an
'Accomplished fact.' To arms!" Many warmly supported this advice, among
others Edgar Quinet, Pelletier, and Doutre.
Michel de Bourges seriously objected. My instinct was to begin at once, his
advice was to wait and see. According to him there was danger in hastening the
catastrophe. The coup d'état was

organized, and the People were not. They had been taken unawares. We must not
indulge in illusion. The masses could not stir yet. Perfect calm reigned in the
faubourgs; Surprise existed, yes; Anger, no. The people of Paris, although so
intelligent, did not understand. Michel added, "We are not in 1830. Charles X., in
turning out the 221, exposed himself to this blow, the re-election of the 221. We
are not in the same situation. The 221 were popular. The present Assembly is not:
a Chamber which has been insultingly dissolved is always sure to conquer, if the
People support it. Thus the People rose in 1830. To-day they wait. They are dupes
until they shall be victims." Michel de Bourges concluded, "The People must be
given time to understand, to grow angry, to rise. As for us, Representative, we
should be rash to precipitate the situation. If we were to march immediately
straight upon the troops, we should only be shot to no purpose, and the glorious
insurrection for Right would thus be beforehand deprived of its natural leaders—
the Representatives of the People. We should decapitate the popular army.
Temporary delay, on the contrary, would be beneficial. Too much zeal must be
guarded against, selfrestraint is necessary, to give way would be to lose the battle
before having begun it. Thus, for example, we must not attend the meeting
announced by the Right for noon, all those who went there would be arrested. We
must remain free, we must remain in readiness, we must remain calm, and must
act waiting the advent of the People. Four days of this agitation without fighting
would weary the army." Michel, however, advised a beginning, but simply by
placarding Article 68 of the Constitution. But where should a printer be found?
Michel de Bourges spoke with an experience of revolutionary procedure which
was wanting in me. For many years past he had acquired a certain practical
knowledge of the masses. His council was wise. It must be added that all the
information which came to us seconded him, and appeared conclusive against me.
Paris was dejected. The army of the coup d'état invaded her peaceably. Even the
placards were not torn down. Nearly all the Representatives present, even the
most daring, agreed with Michel's counsel, to wait and see what would happen.
"At night," said they, "the agitation will begin," and they concluded, like Michel
de Bourges, that the people must be given time to understand. There would be a
risk of being alone in too hasty a beginning. We should not carry the people with
us in the first moment. Let us leave the indignation to increase little by little in
their hearts. If it were begun prematurely our manifestation would miscarry.
These were the sentiments of all. For myself, while listening to them, I felt
shaken. Perhaps they were right. It would be a mistake to give the signal for the
combat in vain. What good is the lightning which is not followed by the
thunderbolt? To raise a voice, to give vent to a cry, to find a printer, there was the
first question. But was there still a free Press? The brave old ex-chief of the 6th
Legion, Colonel Forestier, came in. He took Michel de Bourges and myself aside.
"Listen," said he to us. "I come to you. I have been dismissed. I no longer
command my legion, but appoint me in the name of the Left, Colonel of the 6th.
Sign me an order and I will go at once and call them to arms. In an hour the
regiment will be on foot." "Colonel," answered I, "I will do more than sign an
order, I will accompany you." And I turned towards Charamaule, who had a
carriage in waiting. "Come with us," said I. Forestier was sure of two majors of
the 6th. We decided to drive to them at once, while Michel and the other
Representatives should await us at Bonvalet's, in the Boulevard du Temple, near
the Café Turc. There they could consult together.
We started. We traversed Paris, where people were already beginning to swarm in
a threatening manner. The boulevards were thronged with an uneasy crowd.
People walked to and fro, passers-by accosted each other without any previous
acquaintance, a noteworthy sign of public anxiety; and groups talked in loud
voices at the corners of the streets. The shops were being shut. "Come, this looks
better," cried Charamaule. He had been wandering about the town since the
morning, and he had noticed with sadness the apathy of the masses. We found the
two majors at home upon whom Colonel Forestier counted.
They were two rich linendrapers, who received us with some embarrassment. The
shopmen had gathered together at the windows, and watched us pass by. It was
mere curiosity. In the meanwhile one of the two majors countermanded a journey
which he was going to undertake on that day, and promised us his co-operation.
"But," added he, "do not deceive yourselves, one can foresee that we shall be cut
to pieces. Few men will march out." Colonel Forestier said to us, "Watrin, the
present colonel of the 6th, does not care for fighting; perhaps he will resign me
the command amicably. I will go and find him alone, so as to startle him the less,
and will join you at Bonvalet's." Near the Porte St. Martin we left our carriage,
and Charamaule and myself proceeded along the boulevard on foot, in order to
observe the groups more closely, and more easily to judge the aspect of the
crowd. The recent levelling of the road had converted the boulevard of the Porte
St. Martin into a deep cutting, commanded by two embankments. On the summits
of
these embankments were the footways, furnished with railings. The carriages
drove along the cutting, the foot passengers walked along the footways. Just as
we reached the boulevard, a long column of infantry filed into this ravine with
drummers at their head. The thick waves of bayonets filled the square of St.
Martin, and lost themselves in the depths of the Boulevard Bonne Nouvelle. An
enormous and compact crowd covered the two pavements of the Boulevard St.
Martin. Large numbers of workmen, in their blouses, were there, leaning upon the
railings. At the moment when the head of the column entered the defile before the
Theatre of the Porte St. Martin a tremendous shout of "Vive la République!" came
forth from every mouth as though shouted by one man. The soldiers continued to
advance in silence, but it might have been said that their pace slackened, and
many of them regarded the crowd with an air of indecision. What did this cry of
"Vive la République!" mean? Was it a token of applause? Was it a shout of
defiance? It seemed to me at that moment that the Republic raised its brow, and
that the coup d'état hung its head. Meanwhile Charamaule said to me, "You
are recognized." In fact, near the Château d'Eau the crowd surrounded me. Some
young men cried out, "Vive Victor Hugo!" One of them asked me, "Citizen Victor
Hugo, what ought we to do?" I answered, "Tear down the seditious placards of the
coup d'état, and cry 'Vive
la Constitution!'" "And suppose they fire on us?" said a young workman. "You
will hasten to arms." "Bravo!" shouted the crowd. I added, "Louis Bonaparte is a
rebel, he has steeped himself to-day in every crime. We, Representatives of the
People, declare him an outlaw, but there is no need for our declaration, since he is
an outlaw by the mere fact of his treason. Citizens, you have two hands; take in
one your Right, and in the other your gun and fall upon Bonaparte." "Bravo!
Bravo!" again shouted the people. A tradesman who was shutting up his shop said
to me, "Don't speak so loud, if they heard you talking like that, they would shoot
you." "Well, then," I replied, "you would parade my body, and my death would be
a boon if the justice of God could result from it." All shouted "Long live Victor
Hugo!" "Shout 'Long live the Constitution,'" said I. A great cry of "Vive la
Constitution! Vive la République;" came forth from every breast. Enthusiasm,
indignation, anger flashed in the faces of all. I thought then, and I still think, that
this, perhaps, was the supreme moment. I was tempted to carry off all that crowd,
and to begin the battle. Charamaule restrained me. He whispered to me,— "You
will bring about a useless fusillade. Every one is unarmed. The infantry is only
two paces from us, and see, here comes the artillery." I looked round; in truth
several pieces of cannon emerged at a quick trot from the Rue de Bondy, behind
the Château d'Eau. The advice to abstain, given by Charamaule, made a deep
impression on me. Coming from such a man, and one so dauntless, it was certainly
not to be distrusted. Besides, I felt myself bound by the deliberation which had
just taken place at the meeting in the Rue Blanche. I shrank before the
responsibility which I should have incurred. To have taken advantage of such a
moment might have been victory, it might also have been a massacre. Was I right?
Was I wrong? The crowd thickened around us, and it became difficult to go
forward. We were anxious, however, to reach the rendezvous at Bonvalet's.
Suddenly some one touched me on the arm. It was Léopold Duras, of the National.
"Go no further," he whispered, "the Restaurant Bonvalet is surrounded. Michel de
Bourges has attempted to harangue the People, but the soldiers came up. He
barely succeeded in making his escape. Numerous Representatives who came to
the meeting have been arrested. Retrace your steps. We are returning to the old
rendezvous in the Rue Blanche. I have been looking for you to tell you this." A
cab was passing; Charamaule hailed the driver. We jumped in, followed by the
crowd, shouting, "Vive la République! Vive Victor Hugo!" It appears that just at
that moment a squadron of sergents de ville arrived on the Boulevard to arrest me.
The coachman drove off at full speed. A quarter of an hour afterwards we reached
the Rue Blanche.

CHAPTER VIII. "VIOLATION OF THE CHAMBER"

At seven o'clock in the morning the Pont de la Concorde was still free. The large
grated gate of the Palace of the Assembly was closed; through the bars might be
seen the flight of steps, that flight of steps whence the Republic had been
proclaimed on the 4th May, 1848, covered with soldiers; and their piled arms
might be distinguished upon the platform behind those high columns, which,
during the time of the Constituent Assembly, after the 15th of May and the 23d
June, masked small mountain mortars, loaded and pointed. A porter with a red
collar, wearing the livery of the Assembly, stood by the little door of the grated
gate. From time to time Representatives arrived. The porter said, "Gentlemen, are
you Representatives?" and opened the door. Sometimes he asked their names. M.
Dupin's quarters could be entered without hindrance. In the great gallery, in the
dining-room, in the salon d'honneur of the Presidency, liveried attendants silently
opened the doors as usual. Before daylight, immediately after the arrest of the
Questors MM. Baze and Leflô, M. de Panat, the only Questor who remained free,
having been spared or disdained as a Legitimist, awoke M. Dupin and begged
him to summon immediately the Representatives from their own homes. M.
Dupin returned this unprecedented answer, "I do not see any urgency." Almost at
the same time as M. Panat, the Representative Jerôme Bonaparte had hastened
thither. He had summoned M. Dupin to place himself at the head of the
Assembly. M. Dupin had answered, "I cannot, I am guarded." Jerôme Bonaparte
burst out laughing. In fact, no one had deigned to place a sentinel at M. Dupin's
door; they knew that it was guarded by his meanness. It was only later on,
towards noon, that they took pity on him. They felt that the contempt was too
great, and allotted him two sentinels. At halfpast seven, fifteen or twenty
Representatives, among whom were MM. Eugène Sue, Joret, de Rességuier, and
de Talhouet, met together in M. Dupin's room. They also had vainly argued with
M. Dupin. In the recess of a window a clever member of the Majority, M.
Desmousseaux de Givré, who was a little deaf and exceedingly exasperated,
almost quarrelled with a Representative of the Right like himself whom he
wrongly supposed to be favorable to the coup d'état. M. Dupin, apart from the
group of Representatives, alone dressed in black, his hands behind his back, his
head sunk on his breast, walked up and down before the fire place, where a large
fire was burning. In his own room, and in his very presence, they were talking
loudly about himself, yet he seemed not to hear.
Two members of the Left came in, Benoît (du Rhône), and Crestin. Crestin
entered the room, went straight up to M. Dupin, and said to him, "President, you
know what is going on?
How is it that the Assembly has not yet been convened?" M. Dupin halted, and
answered, with a shrug which was habitual with him,— "There is nothing to be
done." And he resumed his walk. "It is enough," said M. de Rességuier. "It is too
much," said Eugène Sue. All the Representatives left the room. In the meantime
the Pont de la Concorde became covered with troops. Among them General Vast-
Vimeux, lean, old, and little; his lank white hair plastered over his temples, in full
uniform, with his laced hat on his head. He was laden with two huge epaulets,
and displayed his scarf, not that of a Representative, but of a general, which scarf,
being too long, trailed on the ground. He crossed the bridge on foot, shouting to
the soldiers inarticulate cries of enthusiasm for the Empire and the coup d'état.
Such figures as these were seen in 1814. Only instead of wearing a large tri-
colored, cockade, they wore a large white cockade. In the main the same
phenomenon; old men crying, "Long live the Past!" Almost at the same moment
M. de Larochejaquelein crossed the Place de la Concorde, surrounded by a
hundred men in blouses, who followed him in silence, and with an air of
curiosity. Numerous regiments of cavalry were drawn up in the grand avenue of
the Champs Elysées. At eight o'clock a formidable force invested the Legislative
Palace. All the approaches were guarded, all the doors were shut. Some
Representatives nevertheless succeeded in penetrating into the interior of the
Palace, not, as has been wrongly stated, by the passage of the President's house
on the side of the Esplanade of the Invalides, but by the little door of the Rue de
Bourgogne, called the Black Door. This door, by what omission or what
connivance I do not know, remained open till noon on the 2d December. The Rue
de Bourgogne was nevertheless full of troops. Squads of soldiers scattered here
and there in the Rue de l'Université allowed passers-by, who were few and far
between, to use it as a thoroughfare. The Representatives who entered by the door
in Rue de Bourgogne, penetrated as far as the Salle des Conférences, where they
met their colleagues coming out from M. Dupin. A numerous group of men,
representing every shade of opinion in the Assembly, was speedily assembled in
this hall, amongst whom were MM. Eugène Sue, Richardet, Fayolle, Joret, Marc
Dufraisse, Benoît (du Rhône), Canet, Gambon, d'Adelsward, Créqu, Répellin,
Teillard-Latérisse, Rantion, General Leydet, Paulin Durrieu, Chanay, Brilliez,
Collas (de la Gironde), Monet, Gaston, Favreau, and Albert de Rességuier. Each
new-comer accosted M. de Panat. "Where are the vice-Presidents?" "In prison."
"And the two other Questors?" "Also in prison. And I beg you to believe,
gentlemen," added M. de Panat, "that I have had nothing to do with the insult
which has been offered me, in not arresting me." Indignation was at its height;
every political shade was blended in the same sentiment of contempt and anger,
and M. de Rességuier was no less energetic than Eugène Sue. For the first time
the Assembly seemed only to have one heart and one voice. Each at length said
what he thought of the man of the Elysée, and it was then seen

that for a long time past Louis Bonaparte had imperceptibly created a profound
unanimity in the Assembly—the unanimity of contempt. M. Collas (of the
Gironde) gesticulated and told his story. He came from the Ministry of the
Interior. He had seen M. de Morny, he had spoken to him; and he, M. Collas, was
incensed beyond measure at M. Bonaparte's crime. Since then, that Crime has
made him Councillor of State. M. de Panat went hither and thither among the
groups, announcing to the Representatives that he had convened the Assembly for
one o'clock. But it was impossible to wait until that hour. Time pressed. At the
Palais Bourbon, as in the Rue Blanche, it was the universal feeling that each hour
which passed by helped to accomplish the coup d'état. Every one felt as a
reproach the weight of his silence or of his inaction; the circle of iron was closing
in, the tide of soldiers rose unceasingly, and silently invaded the Palace; at each
instant a sentinel the more was found at a door, which a moment before had been
free. Still, the group of Representatives assembled together in the Salle des
Conférences was as yet respected. It was necessary to act, to speak, to deliberate,
to struggle, and not to lose a minute.
Gambon said, "Let us try Dupin once more; he is our official man, we have need
of him." They went to look for him. They could not find him. He was no longer
there, he had disappeared, he was away, hidden, crouching, cowering, concealed,
he had vanished, he was buried. Where? No one knew. Cowardice has unknown
holes. Suddenly a man entered the hall. A man who was a stranger to the
Assembly, in uniform, wearing the epaulet of a superior officer and a sword by
his side. He was a major of the 42d, who came to summon the Representatives to
quit their own House. All, Royalists and Republicans alike, rushed upon him.
Such was the expression of an indignant eye-witness. General Leydet addressed
him in language such as leaves an impression on the cheek rather than on the ear.
"I do my duty, I fulfil my instructions," stammered the officer. "You are an idiot,
if you think you are doing your duty," cried Leydet to him, "and you are a
scoundrel if you know that you are committing a crime. Your name? What do you
call yourself? Give me your name." The officer refused to give his name, and
replied, "So, gentlemen, you will not withdraw?" "No." "I shall go and obtain
force." "Do so." He left the room, and in actual fact went to obtain orders from the
Ministry of the Interior. The Representatives waited in that kind of indescribable
agitation which might be called the Strangling of Right by Violence. In a short
time one of them who had gone out came back hastily, and warned them that two
companies of the Gendarmerie Mobile were coming with their guns in their
hands. Marc Dufraisse cried out, "Let the outrage be thorough. Let the coup d'état
find us on our seats. Let us go to the Salle des Séances," he added. "Since things
have come to such a pass, let us afford the genuine and living spectacle of an 18th
Brumaire." They all repaired to the Hall of Assembly. The passage was free. The
Salle Casimir-Périer was not yet occupied by the soldiers. They numbered about
sixty. Several were girded with their scarves of office. They entered the Hall
meditatively. There, M. de Rességuier, undoubtedly with a good purpose, and in
order to form a more compact group, urged that they should all install themselves
on the Right side. "No," said Marc Dufraisse, "every one to his bench." They
scattered themselves about the Hall, each in his usual place. M.
Monet, who sat on one of the lower benches of the Left Centre, held in his hand a
copy of the Constitution. Several minutes elapsed. No one spoke. It was the
silence of expectation which precedes decisive deeds and final crises, and during
which every one seems respectfully to listen to the last instructions of his
conscience. Suddenly the soldiers of the Gendarmerie Mobile, headed by a
captain with his sword drawn, appeared on the threshold. The Hall of Assembly
was violated. The Representatives rose from their seats simultaneously, shouting
"Vive la République!" The Representative Monet alone remained standing, and in
a loud and indignant voice, which resounded through the empty hall like a
trumpet, ordered the soldiers to halt. The soldiers halted, looking at the
Representatives with a bewildered air. The soldiers as yet only blocked up the
lobby of the Left, and had not passed beyond the Tribune. Then the
Representative Monet read the Articles 36, 37, and 68 of the Constitution.
Articles 36 and 37 established the inviolability of the Representatives. Article 68
deposed the President in the event of treason. That moment was a solemn one.
The soldiers listened in silence. The Articles having been read, Representative
d'Adelsward, who sat on the first lower bench of the Left, and who was nearest to
the soldiers, turned towards them and said,— "Soldiers, you see that the President
of the Republic is a traitor, and would make traitors of you. You violate the
sacred precinct of rational Representation. In the name of the Constitution, in the
name of the Law, we order you to withdraw." While Adelsward was speaking, the
major commanding the Gendarmerie Mobile had Representatives rose from their
seats simultaneously, shouting "Vive la République!" The Representative Monet
alone remained standing, and in a loud and indignant voice, which resounded
through the empty hall like a trumpet, ordered the soldiers to halt. The soldiers
halted, looking at the Representatives with a bewildered air. The soldiers as yet
only blocked up the lobby of the Left, and had not passed beyond the Tribune.
Then the Representative Monet read the Articles 36, 37, and 68 of the
Constitution. Articles 36 and 37 established the inviolability of the
Representatives. Article 68 deposed the President in the event of treason. That
moment was a solemn one. The soldiers listened in silence. The Articles having
been read, Representative d'Adelsward, who sat on the first lower bench of the
Left, and who was nearest to the soldiers, turned towards them and said,—
"Soldiers, you see that the President of the Republic is a traitor, and would make
traitors of you. You violate the sacred precinct of rational Representation. In the
name of the Constitution, in the name of the Law, we order you to withdraw."
While Adelsward was speaking, the major commanding the Gendarmerie Mobile
had 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 apartments of the President of
the Assembly. As soon as they had reached this crossway room which adjoins the
little rotunda, where the side door of exit to the Palace is situated, the soldiers set
the Representatives free. There, in a few moments, a group was formed, in which
the Representatives Canet and Favreau began to speak. One universal cry was
raised, "Let us search for Dupin, let us drag him here if it is necessary." They
opened the glass door and rushed into the gallery. This time M. Dupin was at
home. M. Dupin, having learnt that the gendarmes had cleared out the Hall, had
come out of his hiding-place. The Assembly being thrown prostrate, Dupin stood
erect. The law being made prisoner, this man felt himself set free. The group of
Representatives, led by MM. Canet and Favreau, found him in his study. There a
dialogue ensued. The Representatives summoned the President to put himself at
their head, and to re-enter the Hall, he, the man of the Assembly, with them, the
men of the Nation. M. Dupin refused point-blank, maintained his ground, was
very firm, and clung bravely to his nonentity. "What do you want me to do?" said
he, mingling with his alarmed protests many law maxims and Latin quotations, an
instinct of chattering jays, who pour forth all their vocabulary when they are
frightened. "What do you want me to do? Who am I? What can I do? I am
nothing. No one is any longer anything. Ubi nihil, nihil. Might is there. Where
there is Might the people lose their Rights. Novus nascitur ordo. Shape your
course accordingly. I am obliged to submit. Dura lex, sed lex. A law of necessity
we admit, but not a law of right. But what is to be done? I ask to be let alone. I
can do nothing. I do what I can.
I am not wanting in good will. If I had a corporal and four men, I would have
them killed." "This man only recognizes force," said the Representatives. "Very
well, let us employ force." They used violence towards him, they girded him with
a scarf like a cord round his neck, and, as they had said, they dragged him
towards the Hall, begging for his "liberty," moaning, kicking—I would say
wrestling, if the word were not too exalted. Some minutes after the clearance, this
Salle des Pas Perdus, which had just witnessed Representatives pass by in the
clutch of gendarmes, saw M. Dupin in the clutch of the Representatives. They did
not get far. Soldiers barred the great green foldingdoors. Colonel Espinasse
hurried thither, the commander of the gendarmerie came up. The butt-ends of a
pair of pistols were seen peeping out of the commander's pocket. The colonel was
pale, the commander was pale, M. Dupin was livid. Both sides were afraid. M.
Dupin was afraid of the colonel; the colonel assuredly was not afraid of M.
Dupin, but behind this laughable and miserable figure he saw a terrible phantom
rise up—his crime, and he trembled. In Homer there is a scene where Nemesis
appears behind Thersites. M. Dupin remained for some moments stupefied,
bewildered and speechless. The Representative Gambon exclaimed to him,—
"Now then, speak, M. Dupin, the Left does not interrupt you." Then, with the
words of the Representatives at his back, and the bayonets of the soldiers at his
breast, the unhappy man spoke. What his mouth uttered at this moment, what the
President of the Sovereign Assembly of France stammered to the gendarmes at
this intensely critical moment, no one could gather. Those who heard the last
gasps of this moribund cowardice, hastened to purify their ears. It appears,
however, that he stuttered forth something like this:— "You are Might, you have
bayonets; I invoke Right and I leave you. I have the honor to wish you good day."
He went away. They let him go. At the moment of leaving he turned round and
let fall a few more words. We will not gather them up. History has no rag-picker's
basket.
CHAPTER IX. AN END WORSE THAN DEATH.

We should have been glad to have put aside, never to have spoken of him again,
this man who had borne for three years this most honorable title, President of the
National Assembly of France, and who had only known how to be lacquey to the
majority. He contrived in his last hour to sink even lower than could have been
believed possible even for him. His career in the Assembly had been that of a
valet, his end was that of a scullion. The unprecedented attitude that M. Dupin
assumed before the gendarmes when uttering with a grimace his mockery of a
protest, even engendered suspicion. Gambion exclaimed, "He resists like an
accomplice. He knew all." We believe these suspicions to be unjust. M. Dupin
knew nothing. Who indeed amongst the organizers of the coup d'état would have
taken the trouble to make sure of his joining them? Corrupt M. Dupin? was it
possible? and, further, to what purpose? To pay him? Why? It would be money
wasted when fear alone was enough. Some connivances are secured before they
are sought for. Cowardice is the old fawner upon felony. The blood of the law is
quickly wiped up. Behind the assassin who holds the poniard comes the trembling
wretch who holds the sponge.
Dupin took refuge in his study. They followed him. "My God!" he cried, "can't
they understand that I want to be left in peace." In truth they had tortured him
ever since the morning, in order to extract from him an impossible scrap of
courage. "You illtreat me worse than the gendarmes," said he. The
Representatives installed themselves in his study, seated themselves at his table,
and, while he groaned and scolded in an arm-chair, they drew up a formal report
of what had just taken place, as they wished to leave an official record of the
outrage in the archives. When the official report was ended Representative Canet
read it to the President, and offered him a pen. "What do you want me to do with
this?" he asked. "You are the President," answered Canet. "This is our last sitting.
It is your duty to sign the official report." This man refused.

CHAPTER X. THE BLACK DOOR M.

Dupin is a matchless disgrace. Later on he had his reward. It appears that he

became some sort of an Attorney-General at the Court of Appeal. M. Dupin
renders to Louis Bonaparte the service of being in his place the meanest of men.
To continue this dismal history. The Representatives of the Right, in their first
bewilderment caused by the coup d'état, hastened in large numbers to M. Daru,
who was Vice-President of the Assembly, and at the same time one of the
Presidents of the Pyramid Club. This Association had always supported the policy
of the Elysée, but without believing that a coup d'état was premeditated. M. Daru
lived at No. 75, Rue de Lille. Towards ten o'clock in the morning about a hundred
of these Representatives had assembled at M. Daru's home. They resolved to
attempt to penetrate into the Hall where the Assembly held its sittings. The Rue de
Lille opens out into the Rue de Bourgogne, almost opposite the little door by
which the Palace is entered, and which is called the Black Door. They turned their
steps towards this door, with M. Daru at their head. They marched arm in arm and
three abreast. Some of them had put on their scarves of office. They took them off
later on. The Black Door, half-open as usual, was only guarded by two sentries.
Some of the most indignant, and amongst them M. de Kerdrel, rushed towards this
door and tried to pass. The door, however, was violently shut, and there ensued
between the Representatives and the sergents de ville who hastened up, a species
of struggle, in which a Representative had his wrist sprained. At the same time a
battalion which was drawn up on the Place de Bourgogne moved on, and came at
the double towards the group of Representatives. M. Daru, stately and firm, signed
to the commander to stop; the battalion halted, and M. Daru, in the name of the
Constitution, and in his capacity as Vice-President of the Assembly, summoned
the soldiers to lay down their arms, and to give free passage to the Representatives
of the Sovereign People. The commander of the battalion replied by an order to
clear the street immediately, declaring that there was no longer an Assembly; that
as for himself, he did not know what the Representatives of the People were, and
that if those persons before him did not retire of their own accord, he would drive
them back by force. "We will only yield to violence," said M. Daru. "You
commit high treason," added M. de Kerdrel. The officer gave the order to
charge. The soldiers advanced in close order. There was a moment of confusion;
almost a collision. The Representatives, forcibly driven back, ebbed into the Rue
de Lille. Some of them fell down. Several members of the Right were rolled
in the mud by the soldiers. One of them, M. Etienne, received a blow on
the shoulder from the butt-end of a musket. We may here add that a week
afterwards M. Etienne was a member of that concern which they styled the
Consultative Committee. He found the coup d'état to his taste, the blow with the
butt end of a musket included. They went back to M. Daru's house, and on the
way the scattered group reunited, and was even strengthened by some new-
comers. "Gentlemen," said M. Daru, "the President has failed us, the Hall is closed
against us. I am the Vice-President; my house is the Palace of the Assembly." He
opened a large room, and there the Representatives of the Right installed
themselves. At first the discussions were somewhat noisy. M. Daru, however,
observed that the moments were precious, and silence was restored. The first
measure to be taken was evidently the deposition of the President of the Republic
by virtue of Article 68 of the Constitution. Some Representatives of the party
which was called Burgraves sat round a table and prepared the deed of deposition.
As they were about to read it aloud a Representative who came in from out of
doors appeared at the door of the room, and announced to the Assembly that the
Rue de Lille was becoming filled with troops, and that the house was being
surrounded. There was not a moment to lose. M. Benoist-d'Azy said, "Gentlemen,
let us go to the Mairie of the tenth arrondissement; there we shall be able to
deliberate under the protection of the tenth legion, of which our colleague, General
Lauriston, is the colonel." M. Daru's house had a back entrance by a little door
which was at the bottom of the garden. Most of the Representatives went out that
way. M. Daru was about to follow them. Only himself, M. Odilon Barrot, and two
or three others remained in the room, when the door opened. A captain entered,
and said to M. Daru,— "Sir, you are my prisoner." "Where am I to follow you?"
asked M. Daru. "I have orders to watch over you in your own house." The house,
in truth, was militarily occupied, and it was thus that M. Daru was prevented from
taking part in the sitting at the Mairie of the tenth arrondissement. The officer
allowed M. Odilon Barrot to go out.

CHAPTER XI. THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE

While all this was taking place on the left bank of the river, towards noon a man
was noticed walking up and down the great Salles des Pas Perdus of the Palace of
Justice. This man, carefully buttoned up in an overcoat, appeared to be attended at
a distance by several possible supporters—for certain police enterprises employ
assistants whose dubious appearance renders the passers-by uneasy, so much so
that they wonder whether they are magistrates or thieves. The man in the
buttoned-up overcoat loitered from door to door, from lobby to lobby, exchanging
signs of intelligence with the myrmidons who followed him; then came back to
the great Hall, stopping on the way the barristers, solicitors, ushers, clerks, and
attendants, and repeating to all in a low voice, so as not to be heard by the
passers-by, the same question. To this question some answered "Yes," others
replied "No." And the man set to work again, prowling about the Palace of Justice
with the appearance of a bloodhound seeking the trail. He was a Commissary of
the Arsenal Police. What was he looking for? The High Court of Justice. What
was the High Court of Justice doing? It was hiding. Why? To sit in Judgment?
Yes and no. The Commissary of the
Arsenal Police had that morning received from the Prefect Maupas the order to
search everywhere for the place where the High Court of Justice might be sitting,
if perchance it thought it its duty to meet. Confusing the High Court with the
Council of State, the Commissary of Police had first gone to the Quai d'Orsay.
Having found nothing, not even the Council of State, he had come away empty
handed, at all events had turned his steps towards the Palace of Justice, thinking
that as he had to search for justice he would perhaps find it there. Not finding it,
he went away. The High Court, however, had nevertheless met together. Where,
and how? We shall see. At the period whose annals we are now chronicling,
before the present reconstruction of the old buildings of Paris, when the Palace of
Justice was reached by the Cour de Harlay, a staircase the reverse of majestic led
thither by turning out into a long corridor called the Gallerie Mercière. Towards
the middle of this corridor there were two doors; one on the right, which led to
the Court of Appeal, the other on the left, which led to the Court of Cassation.
The folding-doors to the left opened upon an old gallery called St. Louis, recently
restored, and which serves at the present time for a Salle des Pas Perdus to the
barristers of the Court of Cassation. A wooden statue of St. Louis stood opposite
the entrance door. An entrance contrived in a niche to the right of this statue led
into a winding lobby ending in a sort of blind passage, which apparently was
closed by two double doors. On the door to the right might be read "First
President's Room;" on the door to the left, "Council Chamber." Between these
two doors, for the convenience of the barristers going from the Hall to the Civil
Chamber, which formerly was the Great Chamber of Parliament, had been
formed a narrow and dark passage, in which, as one of them remarked, "every
crime could be committed with impunity." Leaving on one side the First
President's Room and opening the door which bore the inscription "Council
Chamber," a large room was crossed, furnished with a huge horse shoe table,
surrounded by green chairs. At the end of this room, which in 1793 had served as
a deliberating hall for the juries of the Revolutionary Tribunal, there was a door
placed in the wainscoting, which led into a little lobby where were two doors, on
the right the door of the room appertaining to the President of the Criminal
Chamber, on the left the door of the Refreshment Room. "Sentenced to death!—
Now let us go and dine!" These two ideas, Death and Dinner, have jostled against
each other for centuries. A third door closed the extremity of this lobby. This
door was, so to speak, the last of the Palace of Justice, the farthest off, the least
known, the most hidden; it opened into what was called the Library of the Court
of Cassation, a large square room lighted by two windows overlooking the great
inner yard of the Concièrgerie, furnished with a few leather chairs, a large table
covered with green cloth, and with law books lining the walls from the floor to
the ceiling. This room, as may be seen, is the most secluded and the best hidden
of any in the Palace. It was here,—in this room, that there arrived successively
on the 2d December, towards eleven o'clock in the morning, numerous men
dressed in black, without robes, without badges of office, affrighted, bewildered,
shaking their heads, and whispering together. These trembling men were the
High Court of Justice. The High Court of Justice, according to the terms of the
Constitution, was composed of seven magistrates; a President, four Judges, and
two Assistants, chosen by the Court of Cassation from among its own members
and renewed every year. In December, 1851, these seven judges were named
Hardouin, Pataille, Moreau, Delapalme, Cauchy, Grandet, and Quesnault, the two
last-named being Assistants. These men, almost unknown, had nevertheless
some antecedents. M. Cauchy, a few years previously President of the Chamber
of the Royal Court of Paris, an amiable man and easily frightened, was the
brother of the mathematician, member of the Institute, to whom we owe the
computation of waves of sound, and of the ex-Registrar Archivist of the Chamber
of Peers. M. Delapalme had been Advocate-General, and had taken a prominent
part in the Press trials under the Restoration; M. Pataille had been Deputy of the
Centre under the Monarchy of July; M. Moreau (de la Seine) was noteworthy,
inasmuch he had been nicknamed "de la Seine" to distinguish him from M.
Moreau (de la Meurthe), who on his side was noteworthy, inasmuch as he had
been nicknamed "de la Meurthe" to distinguish him from M. Moreau (de la
Seine). The first Assistant, M. Grandet, had been President of the Chamber at
Paris. I have read this panegyric of him: "He is known to possess no individuality
or opinion of his own whatsoever." The second Assistant, M. Quesnault, a
Liberal, a Deputy, a Public Functionary, Advocate General, a Conservative,
learned, obedient, had attained by making a stepping-stone of each of these
attributes, to the Criminal Chamber of the Court of Cassation, where he was
known as one of the most severe members. 1848 had shocked his notion of
Right, he had resigned after the 24th of February; he did not resign after the 2d
December. M. Hardouin, who presided over the High Court, was an ex-President
of Assizes, a religious man, a rigid Jansenist, noted amongst his colleagues as a
"scrupulous magistrate," living in Port Royal, a diligent reader of Nicolle,
belonging to the race of the old Parliamentarians of the Marais, who used to go to
the Palais de Justice mounted on a mule; the mule had now gone out of fashion,
and whoever visited President Hardouin would have found no more obstinacy in
his stable than in his conscience. On the morning of the 2d December, at nine
o'clock, two men mounted the stairs of M. Hardouin's house, No. 10, Rue de
Condé, and met together at his door. One was M. Pataille; the other, one of the
most prominent members of the bar of the Court of Cassation, was the ex-
Constituent Martin (of Strasbourg). M. Pataille had just placed himself at M.
Hardouin's disposal. Martin's first thought, while reading the placards of the coup
d'état, had been for the High Court. M. Hardouin ushered M. Pataille into a room
adjoining his study, and received Martin (of Strasbourg) as a man to whom he
did not wish to speak before witnesses. Being formally requested by Martin (of
Strasbourg) to convene the High Court, he begged that he would leave him alone,
declared that the High Court would "do its duty," but that first he must "confer
with his colleagues," concluding with this expression, "It shall be done to-day or
to-morrow." "To-day or to-morrow!" exclaimed Martin (of Strasbourg); "Mr.
President, the safety of the Republic, the safety of the country, perhaps, depends
on what the High Court will or will not do. Your responsibility is great; bear that
in mind. The High Court of Justice does not do its duty to-day or to-morrow; it
does it at once, at the moment, without losing a minute, without an instant's
hesitation." Martin (of Strasbourg) was right, Justice always belongs to Today.
Martin (of Strasbourg) added, "If you want a man for active work, I am at your
service." M. Hardouin declined the offer; declared that he would not lose a
moment, and begged Martin (of Strasbourg) to leave him to "confer" with his
colleague, M. Pataille. In fact, he called together the High Court for eleven
o'clock, and it was settled that the meeting should take place in the Hall of the
Library. The Judges were punctual. At a quarterpast eleven they were all
assembled. M. Pataille arrived the last.
They sat at the end of the great green table.