The History of a Crime Part 30

"There is an instruction above all other instructions," continued Schoelcher, "obligatory upon the Soldier as upon the Citizen--the Law."

He turned again towards the soldiers to harangue them, but the captain cried out to him,--

"Not another word! You shall not go on! If you add one word, I shall give the order to fire."

"What does that matter to us?" said Schoelcher.

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

"Gentlemen! Representatives!" continued the captain, waving his sword, "withdraw, or I shall fire."

"Fire!" shouted De Flotte.

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

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

"Fix bayonets," said the captain. And turning towards the squads, "Charge!"

"Vive la Republique!" cried out the Representatives.

The bayonets were lowered, the companies moved forward, the soldiers came on at the double upon the motionless Representatives.

It was a terrible and superb moment.

The seven Representatives saw the bayonets at their b.r.e.a.s.t.s without a word, without a gesture, without one step backwards. But the hesitation which was not in their soul was in the heart of the soldiers.

The soldiers felt distinctly that this was a double stain upon their uniform--the outrage upon the Representatives of the People--which was treason, and the slaughter of unarmed men, which was cowardice. Now treason and cowardice are two epaulets to which a general sometimes becomes reconciled, the soldier--never.

When the bayonets were so close to the Representatives that they touched their b.r.e.a.s.t.s, they turned aside of their own accord, and the soldier's by an unanimous movement pa.s.sed between the Representatives without doing them any harm. Schoelcher alone had his coat pierced in two places, and in his opinion this was awkwardness instead of intention.

One of the soldiers who faced him wished to push him away from the captain, and touched him with his bayonet. The point encountered the book of the addresses of the Representatives, which Schoelcher had in his pocket, and only pierced his clothing.

A soldier said to De Flotte, "Citizen, we do not wish to hurt you."

Nevertheless a soldier came up to Bruckner and pointed his gun at him.

"Well," said Bruckner, "fire."

The soldier, touched, lowered his arm, and shook Bruckner's hand.

It was singular that, notwithstanding the order given by the officers, the two companies successively came up to the Representatives, charged with the bayonet, and turned aside. Instructions may order, but instinct prevails; instructions may be crime, but instinct is honor. Major P---- said afterwards, "They had told us that we should have to deal with brigands, we had to deal with heroes."

Meanwhile those on the barricade were growing uneasy, and seeing their colleagues surrounded, and wis.h.i.+ng to succor them, they fired a musket shot. This unfortunate shot killed a soldier between De Flotte and Schoelcher.

The officer who commanded the second attacking squad pa.s.sed close to Schoelcher as the poor soldier fell. Schoelcher pointed out the fallen man to the officer, and said to him, "Lieutenant, look!"

The officer answered by a gesture of despair,--

"What would you have us do?"

The two companies replied to the shot by a general volley, and rushed to the a.s.sault of the barricade, leaving behind them the seven Representatives astounded at being still alive.

The barricade replied by a volley, but it could not hold out. It was carried.

Baudin was killed.

He had remained standing in his position on the omnibus. Three b.a.l.l.s reached him. One struck him in the right eye and penetrated into the brain. He fell. He never regained consciousness. Half-an-hour afterwards he was dead. His body was taken to the Ste. Marguerite Hospital.

Bourzat, who was close to Baudin, with Aubry (du Nord), had his coat pierced by a ball.

We must again remark a curious incident,--the soldiers made no prisoner on this barricade. Those who defended it dispersed through the streets of the Faubourg, or took refuge in the neighboring houses. Representative Maigne, pushed by some affrighted women behind a door, was shut in with one of the soldiers who had just taken the barricade. A moment afterwards the soldier and the Representative went out together. The Representatives could freely leave this first field of battle.

At this solemn moment of the struggle a last glimmer of Justice and of Right still flickered, and military honesty recoiled with a sort of dread anxiety before the outrage upon which they were entering. There is the intoxication of good, and there is an intoxication of evil: this intoxication later on drowned the conscience of the Army.

The French Army is not made to commit crimes. When the struggle became prolonged, and ferocious orders of the day had to be executed, the soldiers must have been maddened. They obeyed not coldly, which would have been monstrous, but with anger, and this History will invoke as their excuse; and with many, perhaps, despair was at the root of their anger.

The fallen soldier had remained on the ground. It was Schoelcher who raised him. A few women, weeping, but brave, came out of a house. Some soldiers came up. They carried him, Schoelcher holding his head, first to a fruiterer's shop, then to the Ste. Marguerite Hospital, where they had already taken Baudin.

He was a conscript. The ball had entered his side. Through his gray overcoat b.u.t.toned to the collar, could be seen a hole stained with blood. His head had sunk on his shoulder, his pale countenance, encircled by the chinstrap of his shako, had no longer any expression, the blood oozed out of his mouth. He seemed barely eighteen years old.

Already a soldier and still a boy. He was dead.

This poor soldier was the first victim of the _coup d'etat_. Baudin was the second.

Before being a Republican Baudin had been a tutor. He came from that intelligent and brave race of schoolmasters ever persecuted, who have fallen from the Guizot Law into the Falloux Law, and from the Falloux Law into the Dupanloup Law. The crime of the schoolmaster is to hold a book open; that suffices, the Church condemns him. There is now, in France, in each village, a lighted torch--the schoolmaster--and a mouth which blows upon it--the cure. The schoolmasters of France, who knew how to die of hunger for Truth and for Science, were worthy that one of their race should be killed for Liberty.

The first time that I saw Baudin was at the a.s.sembly on January 13, 1850. I wished to speak against the Law of Instruction. I had not put my name down; Baudin's name stood second. He offered me his turn. I accepted, and I was able to speak two days afterwards, on the 15th.

Baudin was one of the targets of Sieur Dupin, for calls to order and official annoyances. He shared this honor with the Representatives Miot and Valentin.

Baudin ascended the Tribune several times. His mode of speaking, outwardly hesitating, was energetic in the main. He sat on the crest of the Mountain. He had a firm spirit and timid manners. Thence there was in his const.i.tution an indescribable embarra.s.sment, mingled with decision.

He was a man of middle height. His face ruddy and full, his broad chest, his wide shoulders announced the robust man, the laborer-schoolmaster, the peasant-thinker. In this he resembled Bourzat. Baudin leaned his head on his shoulder, listened with intelligence, and spoke with a gentle and grave voice. He had the melancholy air and the bitter smile of the doomed.

On the evening of the Second of December I had asked him, "How old are you?" He had answered me, "Not quite thirty-three years."

"And you?" said he.

"Forty-nine."

And he replied,--

"To-day we are of the same age."

He thought in truth of that to-morrow which awaited us, and in which was hidden that "perhaps" which is the great leveller.

The first shots had been fired, a Representative had fallen, and the people did not rise! What bandage had they on their eyes, what weight had they on their hearts? Alas! the gloom which Louis Bonaparte had known how to cast over his crime, far from lifting, grew denser. For the first time in the sixty years, that the Providential era of Revolutions had been open, Paris, the city of intelligence, seemed not to understand!

On leaving the barricade of the Rue Ste. Marguerite, De Flotte went to the Faubourg St. Marceau, Madier de Montjau went to Belleville, Charamaule and Maigne proceeded to the Boulevards. Schoelcher, Dulac, Malardier, and Brillier again went up the Faubourg St. Antoine by the side streets which the soldiers had not yet occupied. They shouted, "Vive la Republique!" They harangued the people on the doorsteps: "Is it the Empire that you want?" exclaimed Schoelcher. They even went as far as to sing the "Ma.r.s.eillaise." People took off their hats as they pa.s.sed and shouted "Long live the Representatives!" But that was all.