The Memoirs of Victor Hugo

“I should have protested and spoken without finding any echo to my words; I preferred to say nothing.”

“Ah! the Rhine! To have the Rhine! Yes, that is a fine idea. Poetry! poetry!”

“Poetry that our fathers made with cannon and that we shall make again with ideas!”

“My dear colleague,” went on M. Decazes, “we must wait. I, too, want the Rhine. Thirty years ago I said to Louis XVIII.: ‘Sire, I should be inconsolable if I thought I should die without seeing France mistress of the left bank of the Rhine. But before we can talk about that, before we can think of it even, we must beget children.’”

“Well,” I replied, “that was thirty years ago. We have begotten the children.”

April 23, 1847

The Chamber of Peers is discussing a pretty bad bill on substitutions for army service. To-day the principal article of the measure was before the House.

M. de Nemours was present. There are eighty lieutenant-generals in the Chamber. The majority considered the article to be a bad one. Under the eye of the Duke de Nemours, who seemed to be counting them, all rose to vote in favour of it.

The magistrates, the members of the Institute and the ambassadors voted against it.

I remarked to President Franck-Carré, who was seated next to me: “It is a struggle between civil courage and military poltroonery.”

The article was adopted.

June 22, 1847

The Girardin[9 - Emile de Girardin had been prosecuted for publishing an article in a newspaper violently attacking the government.] affair was before the Chamber of Peers to-day. Acquittal. The vote was taken by means of balls, white ones for condemnation, black ones for acquittal. There were 199 votes cast, 65 white, 134 black. In placing my black ball in the urn I remarked: “In blackening him we whiten him.”

I said to Mme. D – : “Why do not the Minister and Girardin provoke a trial in the Assize Court?”

She replied: “Because Girardin does not feel himself strong enough, and the Minister does not feel himself pure enough.”

MM. de Montalivet and Mole and the peers of the Château voted, queerly enough, for Girardin against the Government. M. Guizot learned the result in the Chamber of Deputies and looked exceedingly wrath.

June 28, 1847

On arriving at the Chamber I found Franck-Carre greatly scandalised

In his hand was a prospectus for champagne signed by the Count de Mareuil, and stamped with a peer’s mantle and a count’s coronet with the de Mareuil arms. He had shown it to the Chancellor, who had replied: “I can do nothing!”

“I could do something, though, if a mere councillor were to do a thing like that in my court,” said Franck-Carré to me. “I would call the Chambers together and have him admonished in a disciplinary manner.”

1848

Discussion by the committees of the Chamber of Peers of the address in reply to the speech from the throne.

I was a member of the fourth committee. Among other changes I demanded this. There was: “Our princes, your well-beloved children, are doing in Africa the duties of servants of the State.” I proposed: “The princes, your well-beloved children, are doing,” etc., “their duty as servants of the State.” This fooling produced the effect of a fierce opposition.

January 14, 1848

The Chamber of Peers prevented Alton-Shée from pronouncing in the tribune even the name of the Convention. There was a terrific knocking upon desks with paper-knives and shouts of “Order! Order!” and he was compelled almost by force to descend from the tribune.

I was on the point of shouting to them: “You are imitating a session of the Convention, but only with wooden knives!”

I was restrained by the thought that this mot, uttered during their anger, would never be forgiven. For myself I care little, but it might affect the calm truths which I may have to tell them and get them to accept later on.

THE REVOLUTION OF 1848

I. THE DAYS OF FEBRUARY

THE TWENTY-THIRD

As I arrived at the Chamber of Peers – it was 3 o’clock precisely – General Rapatel came out of the cloak-room and said: “The session is over.”

I went to the Chamber of Deputies. As my cab turned into the Rue de Lille a serried and interminable column of men in shirt-sleeves, in blouses and wearing caps, and marching arm-in-arm, three by three, debouched from the Rue Bellechasse and headed for the Chamber. The other extremity of the street, I could see, was blocked by deep rows of infantry of the line, with their rifles on their arms. I drove on ahead of the men in blouses, with whom many women had mingled, and who were shouting: “Hurrah for reform!” “Hurrah for the line!” “Down with Guizot!” They stopped when they arrived within rifle-shot of the infantry. The soldiers opened their ranks to let me through. They were talking and laughing. A very young man was shrugging his shoulders.

I did not go any further than the lobby. It was filled with busy and uneasy groups. In one corner were M. Thiers, M. de Rémusat, M. Vivien and M. Merruau (of the “Constitutionnel”); in another M. Emile de Girardin, M. d’Alton-Shée and M. de Boissy, M. Franck-Carré, M. d’Houdetot, M. de Lagrenée. M. Armand Marrast was talking aside with M. d’Alton. M. de Girardin stopped me; then MM. d’Houdetot and Lagrenée. MM. Franck-Carré and Vignier joined us. We talked. I said to them:

“The Cabinet is gravely culpable. It forgot that in times like ours there are precipices right and left and that it does not do to govern too near to the edge. It says to itself: ‘It is only a riot,’ and it almost rejoices at the outbreak. It believes it has been strengthened by it; yesterday it fell, to-day it is up again! But, in the first place, who can tell what the end of a riot will be? Riots, it is true, strengthen the hands of Cabinets, but revolutions overthrow dynasties. And what an imprudent game in which the dynasty is risked to save the ministry! The tension of the situation draws the knot tighter, and now it is impossible to undo it. The hawser may break and then everything will go adrift. The Left has manoeuvred imprudently and the Cabinet wildly. Both sides are responsible. But what madness possesses the Cabinet to mix a police question with a question of liberty and oppose the spirit of chicanery to the spirit of revolution? It is like sending process-servers with stamped paper to serve upon a lion. The quibbles of M. Hébert in presence of a riot! What do they amount to!”

As I was saying this a deputy passed us and said:

“The Ministry of Marine has been taken.”

“Let us go and see!” said Franc d’Houdetot to me.

We went out. We passed through a regiment of infantry that was guarding the head of the Pont de la Concorde. Another regiment barred the other end of it. On the Place Louis XV. cavalry was charging sombre and immobile groups, which at the approach of the soldiers fled like swarms of bees. Nobody was on the bridge except a general in uniform and on horseback, with the cross of a commander (of the Legion of Honour) hung round his neck – General Prévot. As he galloped past us he shouted: “They are attacking!”

As we reached the troops at the other end of the bridge a battalion chief, mounted, in a bernouse with gold stripes on it, a stout man with a kind and brave face, saluted M. d’Houdetot.

“Has anything happened?” Franc asked.

“It happened that I got here just in time!” replied the major.

It was this battalion chief who cleared the Palace of the Chamber, which the rioters had invaded at six o’clock in the morning.

We walked on to the Place. Charging cavalry was whirling around us. At the angle of the bridge a dragoon raised his sword against a man in a blouse. I do not think he struck him. Besides, the Ministry of Marine had not been “taken.” A crowd had thrown a stone at one of the windows, smashing it, and hurting a man who was peeping out. Nothing more.

We could see a number of vehicles lined up like a barricade in the broad avenue of the Champs-Elysées, at the rond-point.

“They are firing, yonder,” said d’Houdetot. “Can you see the smoke?”

“Pooh!” I replied. “It is the mist of the fountain. That fire is water.”

And we burst into a laugh.

An engagement was going on there, however. The people had constructed three barricades with chairs. The guard at the main square of the Champs-Elysées had turned out to pull the barricades down. The people had driven the soldiers back to the guard-house with volleys of stones. General Prévot had sent a squad of Municipal Guards to the relief of the soldiers. The squad had been surrounded and compelled to seek refuge in the guard-house with the others. The crowd had hemmed in the guard-house. A man had procured a ladder, mounted to the roof, pulled down the flag, torn it up and thrown it to the people. A battalion had to be sent to deliver the guard.

“Whew!” said Franc d’Houdetot to General Prévot, who had recounted this to us. “A flag taken!”

“Taken, no! Stolen, yes!” answered the general quickly.