The History of a Crime Part 15

Tamisier, appointed Chief of the Staff some instants before the invasion of the hall, placed himself at the disposal of the a.s.sembly. He was standing on a table. He spoke with a resonant and hearty voice. The most downcast became rea.s.sured by this modest, honest, devoted att.i.tude.

Suddenly he drew himself up, and looking all that Royalist majority in the face, exclaimed, "Yes, I accept the charge you offer me. I accept the charge of defending the Republic! Nothing but the Republic! Do you perfectly understand?"

A unanimous shout answered him. "Long live the Republic!"

"Ah!" said Beslay, "the voice comes back to you as on the Fourth of May."

"Long live the Republic! Nothing but the Republic!" repeated the men of the Right, Oudinot louder than the others. All arms were stretched towards Tamisier, every hand pressed his. Oh Danger! irresistible converter! In his last hour the Atheist invokes G.o.d, and the Royalist the Republic. They cling to that which they have repudiated.

The official historians of the _coup d'etat_ have stated that at the beginning of the sitting two Representatives had been sent by the a.s.sembly to the Ministry of the Interior to "negotiate." What is certain is that these two Representatives had no authority. They presented themselves, not on behalf of the a.s.sembly, but in their own name. They offered themselves as intermediaries to procure a peaceable termination of the catastrophe which had begun. With an honesty which bordered on simplicity they summoned Morny to yield himself a prisoner, and to return within the law, declaring that in case of refusal the a.s.sembly would do its duty, and call the people to the defence of the Const.i.tution and of the Republic. Marny answered them with a smile, accompanied by these plain words, "If you appeal to arms, and if I find any Representatives on the barricades, I will have them all shot to the last man."

The meeting in the Tenth Arrondiss.e.m.e.nt yielded to force. President Vitet insisted that they should forcibly arrest him. A police agent who seized him turned pale and trembled. In certain circ.u.mstances, to lay violent hands upon a man is to lay them upon Right, and those who dare to do so are made to tremble by outraged Law. The exodus from the Mairie was long and beset with obstructions. Half-an-hour elapsed while the soldiers were forming a line, and while the Commissaries of Police, all the time appearing solely occupied with the care of driving back the crowd in the street, sent for orders to the Ministry of the Interior. During that time some of the Representatives, seated round a table in the great Hall, wrote to their families, to their wives, to their friends. They s.n.a.t.c.hed up the last leaves of paper; the pens failed; M. de Luynes wrote to his wife a letter in pencil. There were no wafers; they were forced to send the letters unsealed; some soldiers offered to post them. M. Chambolle's son, who had accompanied his father thus far, undertook to take the letters addressed to Mesdames de Luynes, de Lasteyrie, and Duvergier de Hauranne. General Forey--the same who had refused a battalion to the President of the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly, Marrast, who had promoted him from a colonel to a general--General Forey, in the centre of the courtyard of the Mairie, his face inflamed, half drunk, coming out, they said, from breakfast at the Elysee, superintended the outrage. A member, whose name we regret we do not know, dipped his boot into the gutter and wiped it along the gold stripe of the regimental trousers of General Forey.

Representative Lherbette came up to General Forey, and said to him, "General, you are a coward." Then turning to his colleagues, he exclaimed, "Do you hear? I tell this general that he is a coward."

General Forey did not stir. He kept the mud on his uniform and the epithet on his cheek.

The meeting did not call the people to arms. We have just explained that it was not strong enough to do so; nevertheless, at the last moment, a member of the Left, Latrade, made a fresh effort. He took M. Berryer aside, and said to him, "Our official measures of resistance have come to an end; let us not allow ourselves now to be arrested. Let us disperse throughout the streets crying, 'To arms!'" M. Berryer consulted a few seconds on the matter with the Vice-President, M. Benoist d'Azy, who refused.

The Deputy Mayor, hat in hand, reconducted the members of the a.s.sembly as far as the gate of the Mairie. As soon as they appeared in the courtyard ready to go out between two lines of soldiers, the post of National Guards presented arms, acid shouted, "Long live the a.s.sembly! Long live the Representatives of the People!" The National Guards were at once disarmed, almost forcibly, by the Cha.s.seurs de Vincennes.

There was a wine-shop opposite the Mairie. As soon as the great folding gates of the Mairie opened, and the a.s.sembly appeared in the street, led by General Forey on horseback, and having at its head the Vice-President Vitet, grasped by the necktie by a police agent, a few men in white blouses, gathered at the windows of this wine-shop, clapped their hands and shouted, "Well done! down with the 'twenty-five francs!'"[7]

They set forth.

The Cha.s.seurs de Vincennes, who marched in a double line on each side of the prisoners, cast at them looks of hatred. General Oudinot said in a whisper, "These little infantry soldiers are terrible fellows. At the siege of Rome they flung themselves at the a.s.sault like madmen. These lads are very devils." The officers avoided the gaze of the Representatives. On leaving the Mairie, M. de Coislin pa.s.sed by an officer and exclaimed, "What a disgrace for the uniform!" the officer retaliated with angry words, and incensed M. de Coislin. Shortly afterwards, during the march, he came up to M. de Coislin and said to him, "Sir, I have reflected; it is I who am wrong."

They proceeded on the way slowly. At a few steps from the Mairie the precession met M. Chegaray. The Representatives called out to him, "Come!" He answered, while making an expressive gesture with his hands and his shoulders, "Oh! I dare say! As they have not arrested me...." and he feigned as though he would pa.s.s on. He was ashamed, however, and went with them. His name is found in the list of the roll-call at the barracks.

A little further on M. de Lesperut pa.s.sed them. They cried out to him.

"Lesperut! Lesperut!" "I am with you," answered he. The soldiers pushed him back. He seized the b.u.t.t-ends of the muskets, and forced his way into the column.

In one of the streets through which they went a window was opened.

Suddenly a woman appeared with a child; the child, recognizing its father amongst the prisoners, held out its arms and called to him, the mother wept in the background.

It was at first intended to take the a.s.sembly in a body straight to Mazas, but this was counter-ordered by the Ministry of the Interior. It was feared that this long walk, in broad daylight, through populous and easily aroused streets, might prove dangerous; the D'Orsay barracks were close at hand. They selected these as a temporary prison.

One of the commanders insolently pointed out with his sword the arrested Representatives to the pa.s.sers-by, and said in a fond voice, "These are the Whites, we have orders to spare them. Now it is the turn of the Red Representatives, let them look out for themselves!"

Wherever the procession pa.s.sed, the populace shouted from the pavements, at the doors, at the windows, "Long live the National a.s.sembly!" When they perceived a few Representatives of the Left sprinkled in the column they cried, "Vive la Republique!" "Vive la Const.i.tution!" and "Vive la Loi!" The shops were not shut, and pa.s.sers-by went to and fro. Some people said, "Wait until the evening; this is not the end of it."

A staff-officer on horseback, in full uniform, met the procession, recognized M. de Vatimesnil, and came up to greet him. In the Rue de Beaune, as they pa.s.sed the house of the _Democratic Pacifique_ a group shouted, "Down with the Traitor of the Elysee!"

On the Quai d'Orsay, the shouting was redoubled. There was a great crowd there. On either side of the quay a file of soldiers of the Line, elbow to elbow, kept back the spectators. In the middle of the s.p.a.ce left vacant, the members of the a.s.sembly slowly advanced between a double file of soldiers, the one stationary, which threatened the people, the other on the march, which threatened tire Representatives.

Serious reflections arise in the presence of all the details of the great crime which this book is designed to relate. Every honest man who sets himself face to face with the _coup d'etat_ of Louis Bonaparte hears nothing but a tumult of indignant thoughts in his conscience. Whoever reads our work to the end will a.s.suredly not credit us with the intention of extenuating this monstrous deed. Nevertheless, as the deep logic of actions ought always to be italicized by the historian, it is necessary here to call to mind and to repeat, even to satiety, that apart from the members of the Left, of whom a very small number were present, and whom we have mentioned by name, the three hundred Representatives who thus defiled before the eyes of the crowd, const.i.tuted the old Royalists and reactionary majority of the a.s.sembly. If it were possible to forget, that--whatever were their errors, whatever were their faults, and, we venture to add, whatever were their illusions--these persons thus treated were the Representatives of the leading civilized nation, were sovereign Legislators, senators of the people, inviolable Deputies, and sacred by the great law of Democracy, and that in the same manner as each man bears in himself something of the mind of G.o.d, so each of these nominees of universal suffrage bore something of the soul of France; if it were possible to forget this for a moment, it a.s.suredly would be a spectacle perhaps more laughable than sad, and certainly more philosophical than lamentable to see, on this December morning, after so many laws of repression, after so many exceptional measures, after so many votes of censure and of the state of siege, after so many refusals of amnesty, after so many affronts to equity, to justice, to the human conscience, to the public good faith, to right, after so many favors to the police, after so many smiles bestowed on absolution, the entire Party of Order arrested in a body and taken to prison by the _sergents de ville_!

One day, or rather, one night, the moment having come to save society, the _coup d'etat_ abruptly seizes the Demagogues, and finds that it holds by the collar, Whom? the Royalists.

They arrived at the barracks, formerly the barracks of the Royal Guard, and on the pediment of which is a carved escutcheon, whereon are still visible the traces of the three _fleurs de lis_ effaced in 1830. They halted. The door was opened. "Why!" said M. de Broglie, "here we are."

At that moment a great placard posted on the barrack wall by the side of the door bore in big letters--

"REVISION OF THE CONSt.i.tUTION."

It was the advertis.e.m.e.nt of a pamphlet, published two or three days previous to the _coup d'etat_, without any author's name, demanding the Empire, and was attributed to the President of the Republic.

The Representatives entered and the doors were closed upon them. The shouts ceased; the crowd, which occasionally has its meditative moments, remained for some time on the quay, dumb, motionless, gazing alternately at the closed gate of the Barracks, and at the silent front of the Palace of the a.s.sembly, dimly visible in the misty December twilight, two hundred paces distant.

The two Commissaries of Police went to report their "success" to M. de Morny. M. de Morny said, "Now the struggle has begun. Excellent! These are the last Representatives who will be made prisoners."

[5] The Gerontes, or Gerontia, were the Elders of Sparta, who const.i.tuted the Senate.

[6] The "bureau" of the a.s.sembly consists of the President, for the time being of the a.s.sembly, a.s.sisted by six secretaries, whose duties mainly lie in deciding in what sense the Deputies have voted. The "bureau" of the a.s.sembly should not be confounded with the fifteen "bureaux" of the Deputies, which answer to our Select Committees of the House of Commons, and are presided over by self-chosen Presidents.

[7] An allusion to the twenty-five francs a day officially payable to the members of the a.s.sembly.

CHAPTER XIII.

LOUIS BONAPARTE'S SIDE-FACE

The minds of all these men, we repeat, were very differently affected.

The extreme Legitimist party, which represents the White of the flag, was not, it must be said, highly exasperated at the _coup d'etat_. Upon many faces might be read the saying of M. de Falloux: "I am so satisfied that I have considerable difficulty in affecting to be only resigned." The ingenuous spirits cast down their eyes--that is becoming to purity; more daring spirits raised their heads. They felt an impartial indignation which permitted a little admiration. How cleverly these generals have been ensnared! The Country a.s.sa.s.sinated,--it is a horrible crime; but they were enraptured at the jugglery blended with the parricide. One of the leaders said, with a sigh of envy and regret, "We do not possess a man of such talent." Another muttered, "It is Order." And he added, "Alas!" Another exclaimed, "It is a frightful crime, but well carried out." Some wavered, attracted on one side by the lawful power which rested in the a.s.sembly, and on the other by the abomination which was in Bonaparte; honest souls poised between duty and infamy. There was a M.

Thomines Desmazures who went as far as the door of the Great Hall of the Mairie, halted, looked inside, looked outside, and did not enter. It would be unjust not to record that others amongst the pure Royalists, and above all M. de Vatimesnil, had the sincere intonation and the upright wrath of justice.

Be it as it may, the Legitimist party, taken as a whole, entertained no horror of the _coup d'etat_. It feared nothing. In truth, should the Royalists fear Louis Bonaparte? Why?

Indifference does not inspire fear. Louis Bonaparte was indifferent. He only recognized one thing, his object. To break through the road in order to reach it, that was quite plain; the rest might be left alone. There lay the whole of his policy, to crush the Republicans, to disdain the Royalists.

Louis Bonaparte had no pa.s.sion. He who writes these lines, talking one day about Louis Bonaparte with the ex-king of Westphalia, remarked, "In him the Dutchman tones down the Corsican."--"If there be any Corsican,"

answered Jerome.

Louis Bonaparte has never been other than a man who has lain wait for fortune, a spy trying to dupe G.o.d. He had that livid dreaminess of the gambler who cheats. Cheating admits audacity, but excludes anger. In his prison at Ham he only read one book, "The Prince." He belonged to no family, as he could hesitate between Bonaparte and Verhuell; he had no country, as he could hesitate between France and Holland.

This Napoleon had taken St. Helena in good part. He admired England.

Resentment! To what purpose? For him on earth there only existed his interests. He pardoned, because he speculated; he forgot everything, because he calculated upon everything. What did his uncle matter to him?

He did not serve him; he made use of him. He rested his shabby enterprise upon Austerlitz. He stuffed the eagle.

Malice is an unproductive outlay. Louis Bonaparte only possessed as much memory as is useful. Hudson Lowe did not prevent him from smiling upon Englishmen; the Marquis of Montchenu did not prevent him from smiling upon the Royalists.

He was a man of earnest politics, of good company, wrapped in his own scheming, not impulsive, doing nothing beyond that which he intended, without abruptness, without hard words, discreet, accurate, learned, talking smoothly of a necessary ma.s.sacre, a slaughterer, because it served his purpose.

All this, we repeat, without pa.s.sion, and without anger. Louis Bonaparte was one of those men who had been influenced by the profound iciness of Machiavelli.

It was through being a man of that nature that he succeeded in submerging the name of Napoleon by superadding December upon Brumaire.