The History of a Crime Part 3

"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 a.s.sembly, carried off by violence from my residence in the Palace of the National a.s.sembly, and conducted to this prison by an armed force which it was impossible for me to resist, protest in the name of the National a.s.sembly 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 a.s.sembly. 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 a.s.sembly; 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 pa.s.sive obedience.

[2] The Questors were officers elected by the a.s.sembly, whose special duties were to keep and audit the accounts, and who controlled all matters affecting the social economy of the House.

CHAPTER IV.

OTHER DOINGS OF THE NIGHT

During the same night in all parts of Paris acts of brigandage took place. Unknown men leading armed troops, and themselves armed with hatchets, mallets, pincers, crow-bars, life-preservers, swords hidden under their coats, pistols, of which the b.u.t.ts could be distinguished under the folds of their cloaks, arrived in silence before a house, occupied the street, encircled the approaches, picked the lock of the door, tied up the porter, invaded the stairs, and burst through the doors upon a sleeping man, and when that man, awakening with a start, asked of these bandits, "Who are you?" their leader answered, "A Commissary of Police." So it happened to Lamoriciere who was seized by Blanchet, who threatened him with the gag; to Greppo, who was brutally treated and thrown down by Gronfier, a.s.sisted 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 a.s.sailed in his bed by Dourlens, taken by the feet and shoulders, and thrust into a padlocked police van; to Miot, destined to the tortures of African casemates; to Roger (du Nord), who with courageous and witty irony offered sherry to the bandits. Charras and Changarnier were taken unawares.

They lived in the Rue St. Honore, nearly opposite to each other, Changarnier at No. 3, Charras at No. 14. Ever since the 9th of September Changarnier had dismissed the fifteen men armed to the teeth by whom he had hitherto been guarded during the night, and on the 1st December, as we have said, Charras had unloaded his pistols. These empty pistols were lying on the table when they came to arrest him. The Commissary of Police threw himself upon them. "Idiot," said Charras to him, "if they had been loaded, you would have been a dead man." These pistols, we may note, had been given to Charras upon the taking of Mascara by General Renaud, who at the moment of Charras' arrest was on horseback in the street helping to carry out the _coup d'etat_. If these pistols had remained loaded, and if General Renaud had had the task of arresting Charras, it would have been curious if Renaud's pistols had killed Renaud. Charras a.s.suredly 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 Const.i.tution.

There was no lack of impudence in the perpetration of these outrages. The police agents made merry. Some of these droll fellows jested. At Mazas the under-jailors jeered at Thiers, Nadaud reprimanded them severely. The Sieur Hubaut (the younger) awoke General Bedeau. "General, you are a prisoner."--"My person is inviolable."--"Unless you are caught red-handed, in the very act."--"Well," said Bedeau, "I am caught in the act, the heinous act of being asleep." They took him by the collar and dragged him to a _fiacre_.

On meeting together at Mazas, Nadaud grasped the hand of Greppo, and Lagrange grasped the hand of Lamoriciere. This made the police gentry laugh. A colonel, named Thirion, wearing a commander's cross round his neck, helped to put the Generals and the Representatives into jail. "Look me in the face," said Charras to him. Thirion moved away.

Thus, without counting other arrests which took place later on, there were imprisoned during the night of the 2d of December, sixteen Representatives and seventy-eight citizens. The two agents of the crime furnished a report of it to Louis Bonaparte. Morny wrote "Boxed up;"

Maupas wrote "Quadded." The one in drawing-room slang, the other in the slang of the galleys. Subtle gradations of language.

CHAPTER V.

THE DARKNESS OF THE CRIME

Versigny had just left me.

While I dressed hastily there came in a man in whom I had every confidence. He was a poor cabinet-maker out of work, named Girard, to whom I had given shelter in a room of my house, a carver of wood, and not illiterate. He came in from the street; he was trembling.

"Well," I asked, "what do the people say?"

Girard answered me,--

"People are dazed. The blow has been struck in such a manner that it is not realized. Workmen read the placards, say nothing, and go to their work. Only one in a hundred speaks. It is to say, 'Good!' This is how it appears to them. The law of the 31st May is abrogated--'Well done!' Universal suffrage is re-established--'Also well done!' The reactionary majority has been driven away--'Admirable!' Thiers is arrested--'Capital!' Changarnier is seized--'Bravo!' Round each placard there are _claqueurs_. Ratapoil explains his _coup d'etat_ to Jacques Bonhomme, Jacques Bonhomme takes it all in. Briefly, it is my impression that the people give their consent."

"Let it be so," said I.

"But," asked Girard of me, "what will you do, Monsieur Victor Hugo?"

I took my scarf of office from a cupboard, and showed it to him.

He understood.

We shook hands.

As he went out Carini entered.

Colonel Carini is an intrepid man. He had commanded the cavalry under Mieroslawsky in the Sicilian insurrection. He has, in a few moving and enthusiastic pages, told the story of that n.o.ble 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 G.o.d," said Carini to me, "you are still free," and he added, "The blow has been struck in a formidable manner. The a.s.sembly is invested. I have come from thence. The Place de la Revolution, the Quays, the Tuileries, the boulevards, are crowded with troops. The soldiers have their knapsacks. The batteries are harnessed. If fighting takes place it will be desperate work."

I answered him, "There will be fighting."

And I added, laughing, "You have proved that the colonels write like poets; now it is the turn of the poets to fight like colonels."

I entered my wife's room; she knew nothing, and was quietly reading her paper in bed.

I had taken about me five hundred francs in gold. I put on my wife's bed a box containing nine hundred francs, all the money which remained to me, and I told her what had happened.

She turned pale, and said to me, "What are you going to do?"

"My duty."

She embraced me, and only said two words:--

"Do it."

My breakfast was ready. I ate a cutlet in two mouthfuls. As I finished, my daughter came in. She was startled by the manner in which I kissed her, and asked me, "What is the matter?"

"Your mother will explain to you."

And I left them.

The Rue de la Tour d'Auvergne was as quiet and deserted as usual. Four workmen were, however, chatting near my door; they wished me "Good morning."

I cried out to them, "You know what is going on?"