The History of a Crime Part 35

"The Committee of Resistance:

"Jules Favre, De Flotte, Carnot, Madier de Montjau, Mathieu (de la Drome), Michel de Bourges, Victor Hugo."

Baudin had fallen heroically. It was necessary to let the People know of his death, and to honor his memory. The decree below was voted on the proposition of Michel de Bourges:--

"DECREE.

"The Representatives of the People remaining at liberty considering that the Representative Baudin has died on the barricade of the Faubourg St. Antoine for the Republic and for the laws, and that he has deserved well of his country, decree:

"That the honors of the Pantheon are adjudged to Representative Baudin.

"Given in Permanent Session, 3d December, 1851."

After honor to the dead and the needs of the conflict it was necessary in my opinion to enunciate immediately and dictatorially some great popular benefit. I proposed the abolition of the _octroi_ duties and of the duty on liquors. This objection was raised, "No caresses to the people! After victory, we will see. In the meantime let them fight! If they do not fight, if they do not rise, if they do not understand that it is for them, for their rights that we the Representatives, that we risk our heads at this moment--if they leave us alone at the breach, in the presence of the _coup d'etat_--it is because they are not worthy of Liberty!"

Bancel remarked that the abolition of the _octroi_ duties and the duty on liquors were not caresses to the People, but succor to the poor, a great economical and reparatory measure, a satisfaction to the public demand--a satisfaction which the Right had always obstinately refused, and that the Left, master of the situation, ought hasten to accord. They voted, with the reservation that it should not be published until after victory, the two decrees in one; in this form:--

"DECREE.

"The Representatives remaining at liberty decree:

"The _Octroi_ Duties are abolished throughout the extent of the territory of the Republic.

"Given in permanent Session, 3d December, 1851."

Versigny, with a copy of the Proclamations and of the Decree, left in search of Hetzel. Labrousse also left with the same object. They settled to meet at eight o'clock in the evening at the house of the former member of the Provisional Government Marie, Rue Neuve des Pet.i.ts Champs.

As the members of the Committee and the Representatives withdrew I was told that some one had asked to speak to me. I went into a sort of little room attached to the large meeting-room, and I found there a man in a blouse, with an intelligent and sympathetic air. This man had a roll of paper in his hand.

"Citizen Victor Hugo," said he to me, "you have no printing office. Here are the means which will enable you to dispense with one."

He unfolded on the mantel-piece the roll which he had in his hand. It was a species of blotting-book made of very thin blue paper, and which seemed to be slightly oiled. Between each leaf of blue paper there was a sheet of white paper. He took out of his pocket a sort of blunt bodkin, saying, "The first thing to hand will serve your purpose, a nail or a match," and he traced with his bodkin on the first leaf of the book the word "Republic." Then turning over the leaves, he said, "Look at this."

The word "Republic" was reproduced upon the fifteen or twenty white leaves which the book contained.

He added, "This paper is usually used to trace the designs of manufactured fabrics. I thought that it might be useful at a moment like this. I have at home a hundred books like this on which I can make a hundred copies of what you want--a Proclamation, for instance--in the same s.p.a.ce of time that it takes to write four or five. Write something, whatever you may think useful at the present moment, and to-morrow morning five hundred copies shall be posted throughout Paris."

I had none of the doc.u.ments with me which we had just drawn up. Versigny had gone away with the copies. I took a sheet of paper, and, leaning on the corner of the chimney-piece, I wrote the following Proclamation:--

"TO THE ARMY.

"Soldiers!

"A man has just broken the Const.i.tution. He tears up the oath which he has sworn to the people; he suppresses the law, stifles Right, stains Paris with blood, chokes France, betrays the Republic!

"Soldiers, this man involves you in his crime.

"There are two things holy; the flag which represents military honor and the law which represents the National Right. Soldiers, the greatest of outrages is the flag raised against the Law! Follow no longer the wretched man who misleads you. Of such a crime French soldiers should be the avengers, not the accomplices.

"This man says he is named Bonaparte. He lies, for Bonaparte is a word which means glory. This man says that he is named Napoleon. He lies, for Napoleon is a word which means genius. As for him, he is obscure and insignificant. Give this wretch up to the law. Soldiers, he is a false Napoleon. A true Napoleon would once more give you a Marengo; he will once more give you a Transnonain.

"Look towards the true function of the French army; to protect the country, to propagate the Revolution, to free the people, to sustain the nationalities, to emanc.i.p.ate the Continent, to break chains everywhere, to protect Right everywhere, this is your part amongst the armies of Europe. You are worthy of great battle-fields.

"Soldiers, the French Army is the advanced guard of humanity.

"Become yourselves again, reflect; acknowledge your faults; rise up!

Think of your Generals arrested, taken by the collar by galley sergeants and thrown handcuffed into robbers' cells! The malefactor, who is at the Elysee, thinks that the Army of France is a band of mercenaries; that if they are paid and intoxicated they will obey.

He sets you an infamous task, he causes you to strangle, in this nineteenth century, and in Paris itself, Liberty, Progress, and Civilization. He makes you--you, the children of France--destroy all that France has so gloriously and laboriously built up during the three centuries of light and in sixty years of Revolution! Soldiers!

you are the 'Grand Army!' respect the 'Grand Nation!'

"We, citizens; we, Representatives of the People and of yourselves; we, your friends, your brothers; we, who are Law and Right; we, who rise up before you, holding out our arms to you, and whom you strike blindly with your swords--do you know what drives us to despair? It is not to see our blood which flows; it is to see your honor which vanishes.

"Soldiers! one step more in the outrage, one day more with Louis Bonaparte, and you are lost before universal conscience. The men who command you are outlaws. They are not generals--they are criminals.

The garb of the galley slave awaits them; see it already on their shoulders. Soldiers! there is yet time--Stop! Come back to the country! Come back to the Republic! If you continue, do you know what History will say of you? It will say, They have trampled under the feet of their horses and crushed beneath the wheels of their cannon all the laws of their country; they, French soldiers, they have dishonored the anniversary of Austerlitz, and by their fault, by their crime, the name of Napoleon sprinkles as much shame to-day upon France as in other times it has showered glory!

"French soldiers! cease to render a.s.sistance to crime!"

My colleagues of the Committee having left, I could not consult them--time pressed--I signed:

"For the Representatives of the People remaining at liberty, the Representative member of the Committee of Resistance,

"VICTOR HUGO."

The man in the blouse took away the Proclamation saying, "You will see it again to-morrow morning." He kept his word. I found it the nest day placarded in the Rue Rambuteau, at the corner of the Rue de l'Homme-Arme and the Chapelle-Saint-Denis. To those who were not in the secret of the process it seemed to be written by hand in blue ink.

I thought of going home. When I reached the Rue de la Tour d'Auvergne, opposite my door, it happened curiously and by some chance to be half open. I pushed it, and entered. I crossed the courtyard, and went upstairs without meeting any one.

My wife and my daughter were in the drawing-room round the fire with Madame Paul Meurice. I entered noiselessly; they were conversing in a low tone. They were talking of Pierre Dupont, the popular song-writer, who had come to me to ask for arms. Isidore, who had been a soldier, had some pistols by him, and had lent three to Pierre Dupont for the conflict.

Suddenly these ladies turned their heads and saw me close to them. My daughter screamed. "Oh, go away," cried my wife, throwing her arms round my neck, "you are lost if you remain here a moment. You will be arrested here!" Madame Paul Meurice added, "They are looking for you. The police were here a quarter of an hour ago." I could not succeed in rea.s.suring them. They gave me a packet of letters offering me places of refuge for the night, some of them signed with names unknown to me. After some moments, seeing them more and more frightened, I went away. My wife said to me, "What you are doing, you are doing for justice. Go, continue!" I embraced my wife and my daughter; five months have elapsed at the time when I am writing these lines. When I went into exile they remained near my son Victor in prison; I have not seen them since that day.

I left as I had entered. In the porter's lodge there were only two or three little children seated round a lamp, laughing and looking at pictures in a book.

[11] This list, which belongs to History, having served as the base of the proscription list, will be found complete in the sequel to this book to be published hereafter.

CHAPTER VII.

THE ARCHBISHOP

On this gloomy and tragical day an idea struck one of the people.

He was a workman belonging to the honest but almost imperceptible minority of Catholic Democrats. The double exaltation of his mind, revolutionary on one side, mystical on the other, caused him to be somewhat distrusted by the people, even by his comrades and his friends.

Sufficiently devout to be called a Jesuit by the Socialists, sufficiently Republican to be called a Red by the Reactionists, he formed an exception in the workshops of the Faubourg. Now, what is needed in these supreme crises to seize and govern the ma.s.ses are men of exceptional genius, not men of exceptional opinion. There is no revolutionary originality. In order to be something, in the time of regeneration and in the days of social combat, one must bathe fully in those powerful h.o.m.ogeneous mediums which are called parties. Great currents of men follow great currents of ideas, and the true revolutionary leader is he who knows how best to drive the former in accordance with the latter.