The History of a Crime Part 39

For a long time the train sped on in the most profound silence.

Meanwhile it was freezing, in the second of the two police-vans, the _sergents de ville_, cramped and chilled, opened their cells, and in order to warm and stretch themselves walked up and down the narrow gangway which runs from end to end of the police-vans. Day had broken, the four _sergents de ville_ inhaled the outside air and gazed at the pa.s.sing country through a species of port-hole which borders each side of the ceiling of the pa.s.sage. Suddenly a loud voice issued from one of the cells which had remained closed, and cried out, "Hey! there! it is very cold, cannot I relight my cigar here?"

Another voice immediately issued from a second cell, and said, "What! it is you? Good-morning, Lamoriciere!"

"Good-morning, Cavaignac!" replied the first voice.

General Cavaignac and General Lamoriciere had just recognized each other.

A third voice was raised from a third cell. "Ah! you are there, gentlemen. Good-morning and a pleasant journey."

He who spoke then was General Changarnier.

"Generals?" cried out a fourth voice. "I am one of you!"

The three generals recognized M. Baze. A burst of laughter came from the four cells simultaneously.

This police-van in truth contained, and was carrying away from Paris, the Questor Baze, and the Generals Lamoriciere, Cavaignac, and Changarnier. In the other vehicle, which was placed foremost on the trucks, there were Colonel Charras, Generals Bedeau and Le Flo, and Count Roger (du Nord).

At midnight these eight Representative prisoners were sleeping in their cells at Mazas, when they heard a sudden knocking at their doors, and a voice cried out to them, "Dress, they are coming to fetch you." "Is it to shoot us?" cried Charras from the other side of the door. They did not answer him. It is worth remarking that this idea came simultaneously to all. And in truth, if we can believe what has since transpired through the quarrels of accomplices, it appears that in the event of a sudden attack being made by us upon Mazas to deliver them, a fusillade had been resolved upon, and that St. Arnaud had in his pocket the written order, signed "Louis Bonaparte."

The prisoners got up. Already on the preceding night a similar notice had been given to them. They had pa.s.sed the night on their feet, and at six o'clock in the morning the jailer said to them, "You can go to bed."

The hours pa.s.sed by; they ended by thinking it would be the same as the preceding night, and many of them, hearing five o'clock strike from the clock tower inside the prison, were going to get back into bed, when the doors of their cells were opened. All the eight were taken downstairs one by one into the clerk's office in the Rotunda, and were then ushered into the police-van without having met or seen each other during the pa.s.sage. A man dressed in black, with an impertinent bearing, seated at a table with pen in hand, stopped them on their way, and asked their names. "I am no more disposed to tell you my name than I am curious to learn yours," answered General Lamoriciere, and he pa.s.sed outside.

The aide-de-camp Fleury, concealing his uniform under his hooded cloak, stationed himself in the clerk's office. He was charged, to use his own words, to "embark" them, and to go and report their "embarkation" at the Elysee. The aide-de-camp Fleury had pa.s.sed nearly the whole of his military career in Africa in General Lamoriciere's division; and it was General Lamoriciere who in 1848, then being Minister of War, had promoted him to the rank of major. While pa.s.sing through the clerk's office, General Lamoriciere looked fixedly at him.

When they entered the police-vans the generals were smoking cigars. They took them from them. General Lamoriciere had kept his. A voice from outside cried three separate times, "Stop his smoking!" A _sergent de ville_ who was standing by the door of the cell hesitated for some time, but however ended by saying to the general, "Throw away your cigar."

Thence later on ensued the exclamation which caused General Cavaignac to recognize General Lamoriciere. The vehicles having been loaded they set off.

They did not know either with whom they were or where they were going.

Each observed for himself in his box the turnings of the streets, and tried to speculate. Some believed that they were being taken to the Northern Railway Station; others thought to the Havre Railway Station.

They heard the trot of the escort on the paving-stones.

On the railway the discomfort of the cells greatly increased. General Lamoriciere, enc.u.mbered with a parcel and a cloak, was still more jammed in than the others. He could not move, the cold seized him, and he ended by the exclamation which put all four of them in communication with each other.

On hearing the names of the prisoners their keepers, who up to that time had been rough, became respectful. "I say there," said General Changarnier, "open our cells, and let us walk up and down the pa.s.sage like yourselves." "General," said a _sergent de ville_, "we are forbidden to do so. The Commissary of Police is behind the carriage in a barouche, whence he sees everything that is taking place here." Nevertheless, a few moments afterwards, the keepers, under pretext of cold, pulled up the ground-gla.s.s window which closed the vehicle on the side of the Commissary, and having thus "blocked the police," as one of them remarked, they opened the cells of the prisoners.

It was with great delight that the four Representatives met again and shook hands. Each of these three generals at this demonstrative moment maintained the character of his temperament. Lamoriciere, impetuous and witty, throwing himself with all his military energy upon "the Bonaparte;"

Cavaignac, calm and cold; Changarnier, silent and looking out through the port-hole at the landscape. The _sergents de ville_ ventured to put in a word here and there. One of them related to the prisoners that the ex-Prefect Carlier had spent the night of the First and Second at the Prefecture of Police. "As for me," said he, "I left the Prefecture at midnight, but I saw him up to that hour, and I can affirm that at midnight he was there still."

They reached Creil, and then Noyon. At Noyon they gave them some breakfast, without letting them get out, a hurried morsel and a gla.s.s of wine. The Commissaries of Police did not open their lips to them. Then the carriages were reclosed, and they felt they were being taken off the trucks and being replaced on the wheels. Post horses arrived, and the vehicles set out, but slowly; they were now escorted by a company of infantry _Gendarmerie Mobile_.

When they left Noyon they had been ten hours in the police-van. Meanwhile the infantry halted. They asked permission to get out for a moment "We consent," said one of the Commissaries of the Police, "but only for a minute, and on condition that you will give your word of honor not to escape." "We will give our word of honor," replied the prisoners.

"Gentlemen," continued the Commissary, "give it to me only for one minute, the time to drink a gla.s.s of water." "No," said General Lamoriciere, "but the time to do the contrary," and he added, "To Louis Bonaparte's health." They allowed them to get out, one by one, and they were, able to inhale for a moment the fresh air in the open country by the side of the road.

Then the convoy resumed its march.

As the day waned they saw through their port-hole a ma.s.s of high walls, somewhat overtopped by a great round tower. A moment afterwards the carriages entered beneath a low archway, and then stopped in the centre of a long courtyard, steeply embanked, surrounded by high walls, and commanded by two buildings, of which one had the appearance of a barrack, and the other, with bars at all the windows, had the appearance of a prison. The doors of the carriages were opened. An officer who wore a captain's epaulets was standing by the steps. General Changarnier came down first. "Where are we?" said he. The officer answered, "You are at Ham."

This officer was the Commandant of the Fort. He had been appointed to this post by General Cavaignac.

The journey from Noyon to Ham had lasted three hours and a half. They had spent thirteen hours in the police van, of which ten were on the railway.

They led them separately into the prison, each to the room that was allotted to him. However, General Lamoriciere having been taken by mistake into Cavaignac's room, the two generals could again exchange a shake of the hand. General Lamoriciere wished to write to his wife; the only letter which the Commissaries of Police consented to take charge of was a note containing this line: "I am well."

The princ.i.p.al building of the prison of Ham is composed of a story above the ground floor. The ground floor is traversed by a dark and low archway, which leads from the princ.i.p.al courtyard into a back yard, and contains three rooms separated by a pa.s.sage; the first floor contains five rooms. One of the three rooms on the ground floor is only a little ante-room, almost uninhabitable; there they lodged M. Baze. In the remaining lower chambers they installed General Lamoriciere and General Changarnier. The five other prisoners were distributed in the five rooms of the first floor.

The room allotted to General Lamoriciere had been occupied in the time of the captivity of the Ministers of Charles X. by the ex-Minister of Marine, M. d'Haussez. It was a low, damp room, long uninhabited, and which had served as a chapel, adjoining the dreary archway which led from one courtyard to the other, floored with great planks slimy and mouldy, to which the foot adhered, papered with a gray paper which had turned green, and which hung in rags, exuding saltpetre from the floor to the ceiling, lighted by two barred windows looking on to the courtyard, which had always to be left open on account of the smoky chimney. At the bottom of the room was the bed, and between the windows a table and two straw-bottomed chairs. The damp ran down the walls. When General Lamoriciere left this room he carried away rheumatism with him; M. de Haussez went out crippled.

When the eight prisoners had entered their rooms, the doors were shut upon them; they heard the bolts shot from outside, and they were told: "You are in close confinement."

General Cavaignac occupied on the first floor the former room of M. Louis Bonaparte, the best in the prison. The first thing which struck the eye of the General was an inscription traced on the well, and stating the day when Louis Bonaparte had entered this fortress, and the day when he had left it, as is well known, disguised as a mason, and with a plank on his shoulder. Moreover, the choice of this building was an attention on the part of M. Louis Bonaparte, who having in 1848 taken the place of General Cavaignac in power; wished that in 1851 General Cavaignac should take his place in prison.

"Turn and turn about!" Morny had said, smiling.

The prisoners were guarded by the 48th of the Line, who formed the garrison at Ham. The old Bastilles are quite impartial. They obey those who make _coups d'etat_ until the day when they clutch them. What do these words matter to them, Equity, Truth, Conscience, which moreover in certain circles do not move men any more than stones? They are the cold and gloomy servants of the just and of the unjust. They take whatever is given them. All is good to them. Are they guilty? Good! Are they innocent? Excellent! This man is the organizer of an ambush. To prison!

This man is the victim of an ambus.h.!.+ Enter him in the prison register!

In the same room. To the dungeon with all the vanquished!

These hideous Bastilles resemble that old human justice which possessed precisely as much conscience as they have, which condemned Socrates and Jesus, and which also takes and leaves, seizes and releases, absolves and condemns, liberates and incarcerates, opens and shuts, at the will of whatever hand manipulates the bolt from outside.

CHAPTER XI.

THE END OF THE SECOND DAY

We left Marie's house just in time. The regiment charged to track us and to arrest us was approaching. We heard the measured steps of soldiers in the gloom. The streets were dark. We dispersed. I will not speak of a refuge which was refused to us.

Less than ten minutes after our departure M. Marie's house was invested.

A swarm of guns and swords poured in, and overran it from cellar to attic. "Everywhere! everywhere!" cried the chiefs. The soldiers sought us with considerable energy. Without taking the trouble to lean down and look, they ransacked under the beds with bayonet thrusts. Sometimes they had difficulty in withdrawing the bayonets which they had driven into the wall. Unfortunately for this zeal, we were not there.

This zeal came frown higher sources. The poor soldiers obeyed. "Kill the Representatives," such were their instructions. It was at that moment when Morny sent this despatch to Maupas: "If you take Victor Hugo, do what you like with him." These were their politest phrases.

Later on the _coup d'etat_ in its decree of banishment, called us "those individuals," which caused Schoelcher to say these haughty words: "These people do not even know how to exile politely."

Dr. Veron who publishes in his "Memoires" the Morny-Maupas despatch, adds: "M. du Maupas sent to look for Victor Hugo at the house of his brother-in-law, M. Victor Foucher, Councillor to the Court of Ca.s.sation.

He did not find him."

An old friend, a man of heart and of talent, M. Henry d'E----, had offered me a refuge in rooms which he occupied in the Rue Richelieu; these rooms adjoining the Theatre Francais, were on the first floor of a house which, like M. Grevy's residence, had an exit into the Rue Fontaine Moliere.

I went there. M. Henry d'E---- being from home, his porter was awaiting me, and handed me the key.

A candle lighted the room which I entered. There was a table near the fire, a blotting-book, and some paper. It was past midnight, and I was somewhat tired; but before going to bed, foreseeing that if I should survive this adventure I should write its history, I resolved immediately to note down some details of the state of affairs in Paris at the end of this day, the second of the _coup d'etat_. I wrote this page, which I reproduce here, because it is a life-like portrayal--a sort of direct photograph:--

"Louis Bonaparte has invented something which he calls a 'Consultative Committee,' and which he commissions to draw up the postscript of his crimes.

"Leon Foucher refuses to be in it; Montalember hesitates; Baroche accepts.