The History of a Crime Part 51

"They are about to fight. In a few minutes the barricade will be attacked. Your comrades will fall, dead or wounded. You are a young officer--you have not yet been much under fire."

"At all events," warmly interrupted Ossian Dumas, "I shall not have fought against the Republic; they will not say I am a traitor."

"No, but they will say that you are a coward."

Ossian made no reply.

A moment afterwards the command was given to attack.

The regiment started at the double. The barricade fired.

Ossian Dumas was the first who fell.

He had not been able to bear that word "coward," and he had remained in his place in the first rank.

They took him to the ambulance, and from thence to the hospital.

Let us at once state the conclusion of this touching incident.

Both of his legs were broken. The doctors thought that it would be necessary to amputate them both.

General Saint-Arnaud sent him the Cross of Honor.

As is known, Louis Bonaparte hastened to discharge his debt to his praetorian accomplices. After having ma.s.sacred, the sword voted.

The combat was still smoking when the army was brought to the ballot-box.

The garrison of Paris voted "Yes." It absolved itself.

With the rest of the army it was otherwise. Military honor was indignant, and roused the civic virtue. Notwithstanding the pressure which was exercised, although the regiments deposited their votes in the shakos of their colonels, the army voted "No" in many districts of France and Algeria.

The Polytechnic School voted "No" in a body. Nearly everywhere the artillery, of which the Polytechnic School is the cradle, voted to the same effect as the school.

Scipio Dumas, it may be remembered, was at Metz.

By some curious chance it happened that the feeling of the artillery, which everywhere else had p.r.o.nounced against the _coup d'etat_, hesitated at Metz, and seemed to lean towards Bonaparte.

Scipio Dumas, in presence of this indecision set an example. He voted in a loud voice, and with an open voting paper, "No."

Then he sent in his resignation. At the same time that the Minister at Paris received the resignation of Scipio Dumas, Scipio Dumas at Metz, received his dismissal, signed by the Minister.

After Scipio Dumas' vote, the same thought had come at the same time to both the Government and to the officer, to the Government that the officer was a dangerous man, and that they could no longer employ him, to the officer that the Government was an infamous one, and that he ought no longer to serve it.

The resignation and the dismissal crossed on the way. By this word "dismissal" must be understood the withdrawal of employment.

According to our existing military laws it is in this manner that they now "break" an officer. Withdrawal of employment, that is to say, no more service, no more pay; poverty.

Simultaneously with his dismissal, Scipio Dumas learnt the news of the attack on the barricade of the Rue Aumaire, and that his brother had both his legs broken. In the fever of events he had been a week without news of Ossian. Scipio had confined himself to writing to his brother to inform him of his vote and of his dismissal, and to induce him to do likewise.

His brother wounded! His brother at the Val-de. Grace! He left immediately for Paris.

He hastened to the hospital. They took him to Ossian's bedside. The poor young fellow had had both his legs amputated on the preceding day.

At the moment when Scipio, stunned, appeared at his bedside, Ossian held in his hand the cross which General Saint-Arnaud had just sent him.

The wounded man turned towards the aide-de-camp who had brought it, and said to him,--

"I will not have this cross. On my breast it would be stained with the blood of the Republic."

And perceiving his brother, who had just entered, he held out the cross to him, exclaiming,--

"You take it. You have voted "No," and you have broken your sword! It is you who have deserved it!"

[20] Died in exile in Guernsey. See the "Pendant l'Exil," under the heading _Actes et Paroles_, vol. ii.

[21] Died in exile at Termonde.

[22] Pro Hugonotorum strage. Medal struck at Rome in 1572.

CHAPTER XV.

THE QUESTION PRESENTS ITSELF

It was one o'clock in the afternoon.

Bonaparte had again become gloomy.

The gleams of suns.h.i.+ne on such countenances as these last very short time.

He had gone back to his private room, had seated himself before the fire, with his feet on the hobs, motionless, and no one any longer approached him except Roquet.

What was he thinking of?

The twistings of the viper cannot be foreseen.

What this man achieved on this infamous day I have told at length in another book. See "Napoleon the Little."

From time to time Roquet entered and informed him of what was going on.

Bonaparte listened in silence, deep in thought, marble in which a torrent of lava boiled.

He received at the Elysee the same news that we received in the Rue Richelieu; bad for him, good for us. In one of the regiments which had just voted, there were 170 "Noes:" This regiment has since been dissolved, and scattered abroad in the African army.

They had counted on the 14th of the line which had fired on the people in February. The Colonel of the 14th of the line had refused to recommence; he had just broken his sword.