Napoleon the Little

Of marble! Tu es Pietri et super hanc pietram aedificabo effigiem meam.[33 - We read in the Bonapartist correspondence: – "The committee appointed by the clerks of the prefecture of police, considers that bronze is not worthy to represent the image of the Prince; it will therefore be executed in marble; and it will be placed on a marble pedestal. The following inscription will be cut in the costly and superb stone: 'Souvenir of the oath of fidelity to the Prince-President, taken by the clerks of the prefecture of police, the 29th of May, 1862, before M. Pietri, Prefect of Police.'"The subscriptions of the clerks, whose zeal it was necessary to moderate, will be apportioned as follows: – Chief of division 10fr., chief of a bureau 6fr., clerks at a salary of 1,800fr., 3fr.; at 1,500fr., 2fr. 50c.; and finally, at 1,200fr., 2fr. It is calculated that this subscription will amount to upwards of 6,000 francs."]

That which he attacks, that which he persecutes, that which they all persecute with him, upon which they pounce, which they wish to crush, to burn, to suppress, to destroy, to annihilate, is it this poor obscure man who is called primary instructor? Is it this sheet of paper that is called a journal? Is it this bundle of sheets which is called a book? Is it this machine of wood and iron which is called a press? No, it is thou, thought, it is thou, human reason, it is thou, nineteenth century, it is thou, Providence, it is thou, God!

We who combat them are "the eternal enemies of order." We are – for they can as yet find nothing but this worn-out word – we are demagogues.

In the language of the Duke of Alva, to believe in the sacredness of the human conscience, to resist the Inquisition, to brave the state for one's faith, to draw the sword for one's country, to defend one's worship, one's city, one's home, one's house, one's family, and one's God, was called vagabondism; in the language of Louis Bonaparte, to struggle for freedom, for justice, for the right, to fight in the cause of progress, of civilisation, of France, of mankind, to wish for the abolition of war, and of the penalty of death, to take au sérieux the fraternity of men, to believe in a plighted oath, to take up arms for the constitution of one's country, to defend the laws, – this is called demagogy.

The man is a demagogue in the nineteenth century, who in the sixteenth would have been a vagabond.

This much being granted, that the dictionary of the Academy no longer exists, that it is night at noonday, that a cat is no longer called cat, and that Baroche is no longer called a knave; that justice is a chimera, that history is a dream, that the Prince of Orange was a vagabond, and the Duke of Alva a just man; that Louis Bonaparte is identical with Napoleon the Great, that they who have violated the Constitution are saviours, and that they who defended it are brigands, – in a word that human probity is dead: very good! in that case I admire this government It works well. It is a model of its species. It compresses, it represses, it oppresses, it imprisons, it exiles, it shoots down with grape-shot, it exterminates, and it even "pardons!" It exercises authority with cannon-balls, and clemency with the flat of the sabre.

"At your pleasure," repeat some worthy incorrigibles of the former party of order, "be indignant, rail, stigmatize, disavow, – 'tis all the same to us; long live stability! All these things put together constitute, after all, a stable government."

Stable! We have already expressed ourselves on the subject of this stability.

Stability! I admire such stability. If it rained newspapers in France for two days only, on the morning of the third nobody would know what had become of M. Louis Bonaparte.

No matter; this man is a burden upon the whole age, he disfigures the nineteenth century, and there will be in this century, perhaps, two or three years upon which it will be recognised, by some shameful mark or other, that Louis Bonaparte sat down upon them.

This person, we grieve to say it, is now the question that occupies all mankind.

At certain epochs in history, the whole human race, from all points of the earth, fix their eyes upon some mysterious spot whence it seems that universal destiny is about to issue. There have been hours when the world has looked towards the Vatican: Gregory VII and Leo X occupied the pontifical throne; other hours, when it has contemplated the Louvre; Philip Augustus, Louis IX, François I, and Henri IV were there; the Escorial, Saint-Just: Charles V dreamed there; Windsor: Elizabeth the Great reigned there; Versailles: Louis XIV shone there surrounded by stars; the Kremlin: one caught a glimpse there of Peter the Great; Potsdam: Frederick II was closeted there with Voltaire. At present, history, bow thy head, the whole universe is looking at the Élysée!

That species of bastard door, guarded by two sentry-boxes painted on canvas, at the extremity of Faubourg Saint-Honoré, that is the spot towards which the eyes of the civilized world are now turned with a sort of profound anxiety! Ah! what sort of place is that, whence no idea has issued that has not been a plot, no action that has not been a crime? What sort of place is that wherein reside all kinds of cynicism and all kinds of hypocrisy? What sort of place is that where bishops elbow Jeanne Poisson on the staircase, and, as a hundred years ago, bow to the ground before her; where Samuel Bernard laughs in a corner with Laubardemont; which Escobar enters, arm-in-arm with Guzman d'Alfarache; where (frightful rumour), in a thicket in the garden, they despatch, it is said, with the bayonet men whom they dare not bring to trial; where one hears a man say to a woman who is weeping and interceding: "I overlook your love-affairs, you must overlook my hatreds!" What sort of place is that where the orgies of 1852 intrude upon and dishonour the mourning of 1815! where Cæsarion, with his arms crossed, or his hands behind his back, walks under those very trees, and in those very avenues still haunted by the indignant phantom of Cæsar?

That place is the blot upon Paris; that place is the pollution of the age; that door, whence issue all sorts of joyous sounds, flourishes of trumpets, music, laughter, and the jingling of glasses; that door, saluted during the day by the passing battalions; illuminated at night; thrown wide open with insolent confidence, – is a sort of public insult always present. There is the centre of the world's shame.

Alas! of what is France thinking? Of a surety, we must awake this slumbering nation, we must take it by the arm, we must shake it, we must speak to it; we must scour the fields, enter the villages, go into the barracks, speak to the soldier who no longer knows what he is doing, speak to the labourer who has in his cabin an engraving of the Emperor, and who, for that reason, votes for everything they ask; we must remove the radiant phantom that dazzles their eyes; this whole situation is nothing but a huge and deadly joke. We must expose this joke, probe it to the bottom, disabuse the people, – the country people above all, – excite them, agitate them, stir them up, show them the empty houses, the yawning graves, and make them touch with their finger the horror of this régime. The people are good and honest; they will comprehend. Yes, peasant, there are two, the great and the little, the illustrious and the infamous, – Napoleon and Naboleon!

Let us sum up this government! Who is at the Élysée and the Tuileries? Crime. Who is established at the Luxembourg? Baseness. Who at the Palais Bourbon? Imbecility. Who at the Palais d'Orsay? Corruption. Who at the Palais de Justice? Prevarication. And who are in the prisons, in the fortresses, in the dungeons, in the casemates, in the hulks, at Lambessa, at Cayenne, in exile? Law, honour, intelligence, liberty, and the right.

Oh! ye proscribed, of what do you complain? You have the better part.

We read in the Bonapartist correspondence: – "The committee appointed by the clerks of the prefecture of police, considers that bronze is not worthy to represent the image of the Prince; it will therefore be executed in marble; and it will be placed on a marble pedestal. The following inscription will be cut in the costly and superb stone: 'Souvenir of the oath of fidelity to the Prince-President, taken by the clerks of the prefecture of police, the 29th of May, 1862, before M. Pietri, Prefect of Police.'

BOOK III

THE CRIME

But this government, this horrible, hypocritical, and stupid government, – this government which causes us to hesitate between a laugh and a sob, this gibbet-constitution on which all our liberties are hung, this great universal suffrage and this little universal suffrage, the first naming the President, and the other the legislators; the little one saying to the great one: "Monseigneur, accept these millions," and the great one saying to the little one: "Be assured of my consideration;" this Senate, – this Council of State – whence do they all come? Great Heaven! have we already reached the point that it is necessary to remind the reader of their source?

Whence comes this government? Look! It is still flowing, it is still smoking, – it is blood!

The dead are far away, the dead are dead.

Ah! it is horrible to think and to say, but is it possible that we no longer think of it?

Is it possible that, because we still eat and drink, because the coachmakers' trade is flourishing, because you, labourer, have work in the Bois de Boulogne, because you, mason, earn forty sous a day at the Louvre, because you, banker, have made money in the mining shares of Vienna, or in the obligations of Hope and Co., because the titles of nobility are restored, because one can now be called Monsieur le Comte or Madame la Duchesse, because religious processions traverse the streets on the Fête-Dieu, because people enjoy themselves, because they laugh, because the walls of Paris are covered with bills of fêtes and theatres, – is it possible that, because these things are so, men forgot that there are corpses lying beneath?

Is it possible, that, because one has been to the ball at the École Militaire, because one has returned home with dazzled eyes, aching head, torn dress and faded bouquet, because one has thrown one's self on one's couch, and fallen asleep, thinking of some handsome officer, – is it possible that one no longer remembers that under the turf, in an obscure grave, in a deep pit, in the inexorable gloom of death, there lies a motionless, ice-cold, terrible multitude, – a multitude of human beings already become a shapeless mass, devoured by worms, consumed by corruption, and beginning to blend with the earth around them – who existed, worked, thought, and loved, who had the right to live, and who were murdered?

Ah! if men recollect this no longer, let us recall it to the minds of those who forget! Awake, you who sleep! The dead are about to pass before your eyes.

EXTRACT FROM AN UNPUBLISHED BOOK

ENTITLED THE CRIME OF THE SECOND OF DECEMBER[34 - By Victor Hugo. This book will shortly be published. It will be a complete narrative of the infamous performance of 1851. A large part of it is already written; the author is at this moment collecting materials for the rest.He deems it apropos to enter somewhat at length into the details of this work, which he has imposed upon himself as a duty.The author does himself the justice to believe that in writing this narrative, – the serious occupation of his exile, – he has had constantly present to his mind the exalted responsibility of the historian.When it shall appear, this narrative will surely arouse numerous and violent outcries; the author expects no less; one does not with impunity cut to the quick of a contemporaneous crime, at the moment when that crime is omnipotent. However that may be, and however violent the outcries, more or less interested, and to the end that we may judge beforehand of its merit, the author feels called upon to explain in what way and with what scrupulous devotion to the truth this narrative will have been written, or, to speak more accurately, this report of the crime will have been drawn. This history of the 2nd of December will contain, in addition to the general facts, which everybody knows, a very large number of unknown facts which are brought to light for the first time therein. Several of these facts the author himself saw and touched and passed through; of them he can say: Quœque ipse vidi et quorum pars fui. The members of the Republican Left, whose conduct was so fearless, saw these facts as he did, and he will not lack their testimony. For all the rest, the author has resorted to a veritable judicial investigation; he has constituted himself, so to speak, the examining magistrate of the performance; every actor in the drama, every combatant, every victim, every witness has deposed before him; for all the doubtful facts, he has brought the opposing declarations, and at need the witnesses, face to face. As a general rule historians deal with dead facts; they touch them in the tomb with their judicial wands, cause them to rise and question them. He has dealt with living facts.All the details of the 2nd of December have in this wise passed before his eyes; he has recorded them all, weighed them all – not one has escaped him. History will be able to complete this narration, but not to weaken it. The magistrates were recreant to their trust, he has performed their functions. When direct, spoken testimony has failed him, he has sent to the spot what one might call genuine investigating commissions. He might cite many a fact for which he has prepared genuine interrogatories to which detailed replies were made. He repeats that he has subjected the 2nd of December to a long and severe examination. He has carried the torch so far as he was able. Thanks to this investigation he has in his possession nearly two hundred reports from which the book in question will emerge. There is not a single fact beneath which, when the book is published, the author will not be able to put a name. It will be readily understood that he will abstain from doing so, that he will even substitute sometimes for the real names, yes and for accurate indications of places, designations as obscure as possible, in view of the pending proscriptions. He has no desire to furnish M. Bonaparte with a supplemental list.It is undoubtedly true that in this narrative of the 2nd of December, the author is not, any more than in this present book, "impartial," as people are accustomed to say of a history when they wish to praise the historian. Impartiality – a strange virtue, which Tacitus does not possess. Woe to him who should remain impartial in face of the bleeding wounds of liberty! In presence of the deed of December 2nd, 1851, the author feels that all human nature rises to arms within his breast; he does not conceal it from himself, and every one should perceive it when reading him. But in him the passion for truth equals the passion for right. The wrathful man does not lie. This history of the 2nd of December, therefore, – he declares as he is about to quote a few pages of it, – will have been written, we have just seen by what method, under conditions of the most absolute reality.We deem it profitable to detach from it and to publish in this place a chapter which, we think, will make an impression on men's minds, in that it casts a new light on the "success" of M. Bonaparte. Thanks to the judicious reticences of the official historiographers of the 2nd of December, people are not sufficiently apprised how near the coup d'état came to being abortive, and they are altogether ignorant as to the means by which it was saved. We proceed to place this special detail before the reader's eyes.[The author has concluded to reserve for this book alone the chapter in question which now forms an integral part thereof. He has therefore rewritten for the History of a Crime, the narrative of the events of December 4, with new facts, and from another point of view.]]

"THE DAY OF THE 4th OF DECEMBER"THE COUP D'ÉTAT AT BAY

I

"The resistance had assumed unexpected proportions.

"The combat had become menacing; it was no longer a combat, but a battle, which was engaged on all sides. At the Élysée and the different departments, people began to turn pale; they had wished for barricades, and they had got them.

"All the centre of Paris was becoming covered with improvised redoubts; the quarters thus barricaded formed a sort of immense trapezium, between the Halles and Rue Rambuteau on one side, and the boulevards on the other; bounded on the east by Rue du Temple, and on the west by Rue Montmartre. This vast network of streets, cut in all directions by redoubts and entrenchments, assumed every hour a more terrible aspect, and was becoming a kind of fortress. The combatants at the barricades pushed their advance guards as far as the quays. Outside the trapezium, which we have described, the barricades extended, as we have said, as far as Faubourg Saint-Martin, and to the neighbourhood of the canal. The quarter of the schools, whither the Committee of Resistance had despatched Representative de Flotte, had risen even more generally than on the evening before; the suburbs were taking fire; the drums were beating to arms at the Batignolles; Madier de Montjau was arousing Belleville; three enormous barricades were in course of construction at the Chapelle-Saint-Denis. In the business streets the citizens were delivering up their muskets, and the women were making lint. 'All is going well! Paris is up!' exclaimed B – , to us, as he entered the Committee of Resistance with a face radiant with joy.[35 - A Committee of Resistance, charged with the task of centralizing the action and directing the combat, had been named on the evening of the 2nd of December, by the members of the Left assembled at the house of Representative Lafon, Quai Jemmappes, No. 2. This committee, which was obliged to change its retreat twenty-seven times in four days, and which, so to say, sat night and day, and did not cease to act for a single instant during the various crises of the coup d'état, was composed of Representatives Carnot, de Flotte, Jules Favre, Madier de Montjau, Michel de Bourges, Schœlcher, and Victor Hugo.] Fresh intelligence reached us every instant; all the permanent committees of the different quarters placed themselves in communication with us. The members of the committee deliberated and issued orders and instructions for the combat in every direction. Victory seemed certain. There was a moment of enthusiasm and joy when all these men, still standing between life and death, embraced one another. – 'Now,' exclaimed Jules Favre, 'let but a regiment come over, or a legion, and Louis Bonaparte is lost!' – 'To-morrow, the Republic will be at the Hotel de Ville!' said Michel de Bourges. All was ferment, all was excitement; in the most peaceful quarters the proclamations were torn down, and the ordinances defaced. On Rue Beaubourg, the women cried from the windows to the men employed in erecting a barricade: 'Courage!' The agitation reached even to Faubourg Saint-Germain. At the headquarters on Rue de Jerusalem, which is the centre of the great cobweb that the police spreads over Paris, everyone trembled; their anxiety was immense, for they saw the possibility that the Republic would triumph. In the courtyards, in the bureaus, and in the passages, the clerks and sergents-de-ville began to talk with affectionate regret of Caussidiere.

"If one can believe what has oozed out from this den, the prefect, Maupas, who had been so warm in the cause the evening before, and was put forward so odiously, began to back out and lose courage. It seemed as if he were listening with terror to the noise, as of a rising flood, made by the insurrection – by the holy and legitimate insurrection of the right. He stammered and hesitated while the word of command died away upon his tongue. 'That poor young man has the colic,' said the former prefect, Carlier, on leaving him. In this state of consternation, Maupas clung to Morny. The electric telegraph maintained a perpetual dialogue from the Prefecture of Police to the Department of the Interior, and from the Department of the Interior to the Prefecture of Police. All the most alarming news, all the signs of panic and confusion were passed on, one after another, from the prefect to the minister. Morny, who was less frightened, and who is, at least, a man of spirit, received all these shocks in his cabinet It is reported that at the first communication he said: 'Maupas is ill;' and to the question: 'What is to be done,' replied by the telegraph: 'Go to bed!' To the second question he still replied: 'Go to bed!' and, as the third, losing all patience he answered: 'Go to bed and be d – d!'

"The zeal of the government agents was fast giving way and beginning to change sides. A courageous man, who had been despatched by the Committee of Resistance to rouse Faubourg Saint-Marceau, was arrested on Rue des Fossés-Saint-Victor, with his pockets filled with the proclamations and decrees of the Left. He was immediately marched off in the direction of the Prefecture of Police. He expected to be shot. As the escort which was conducting him passed the Morgue on Quai-Saint-Michel, musket-shots were heard in the Cité. The sergent-de-ville at the head of the escort said to the soldiers: 'Go back to your guard-house; I will take care of the prisoner,' As soon as the soldiers were gone, he cut the cords with which the prisoner's hands were fastened, and said to him: 'Go, I spare your life; don't forget that it was I who set you at liberty. Look at me well, so that you may know me again.'

"The principal military accomplices held a council. The question was discussed whether it was not necessary for Louis Bonaparte to quit Faubourg Saint-Honoré immediately, and remove either to the Invalides or to the Palais du Luxembourg, two strategic points more easy to defend against a coup de main than the Élysée. Some preferred the Invalides, others the Luxembourg; the subject gave rise to an altercation between two generals.

"It was at this moment that the ex-King of Westphalia, Jérôme Bonaparte, seeing that the coup d'état was tottering to its fall, and having some care for the morrow, wrote his nephew the following significant letter: —

"My dear Nephew, – The blood of Frenchmen has been spilt; stop its effusion by a serious appeal to the people. Your sentiments are not rightly understood. Your second proclamation, in which you speak of the plebiscitum, is ill received by the people, who do not look upon it as re-establishing the right of suffrage. Liberty possesses no guarantee if there is not an Assembly to contribute to the constitution of the Republic. The army has the upper hand. Now is the moment to complete the material victory by a moral victory, and that which a government cannot do when beaten, it ought to do when victorious. After destroying the old parties, bring about the restoration of the people; proclaim that universal suffrage, sincere, and acting in harmony with the greatest liberty, shall name the President and the Constituent Assembly to save and restore the Republic.

"It is in the name of my brother's memory, and sharing his horror for civil war, that I now write to you; trust my long experience, and remember that France, Europe, and posterity will be called on to judge your conduct.

"Your affectionate uncle,

    "Jérôme Bonaparte.

"On Place de la Madeleine, the two representatives, Fabvier and Crestin, met and accosted each other. General Fabvier directed his colleague's attention to four pieces of cannon which, turning in an opposite direction to that they had before been pursuing, left the Boulevard and galloped off towards the Élysée. 'Can it be that the Élysée is already on the defensive?' said the general. Crestin, pointing to the façade of the palate of the Assembly, on the other side of Place de la Révolution, replied: 'General, to-morrow we shall be there.' – From, some garrets that look on the stables of the Élysée, three travelling carriages were observed from an early hour in the morning, loaded, with the horses put to, and the postilions in their saddles ready to start.

"The impulsion was really given, the movement of rage and hatred was becoming universal, and the coup d'état seemed to be lost; one shock more and Louis Bonaparte would fall. Let the day but end as it had begun, and all was over. The coup d'état was approaching a state of despair. The hour for supreme resolutions was come. What did he intend doing? It was necessary that he should strike a great blow, an unexpected blow, a terrible blow. He was reduced to this alternative: to perish, or to save himself by a frightful expedient.

"Louis Bonaparte had not quitted the Élysée. He was in a cabinet on the ground floor, near the splendid gilt saloon, where, as a child, in 1815, he had been present at the second abdication of Napoleon. He was there alone; orders had been given that no one should be allowed to have access to him. From time to time the door was opened a little way, and the grey head of General Roguet, his aide-de-camp, appeared. The general was the only person who was allowed to open this door and enter the room. The general brought news, more and more alarming, and frequently terminated what he had to say with the words: 'The thing doesn't work;' or 'Things are going badly.' When he had finished, Louis Bonaparte, who was seated with his elbows on a table and his feet on the fire-dogs, before a roaring fire, turned his head half round on the back of his chair, and, in a most phlegmatic tone, and without apparent emotion, invariably answered in the following words: 'Let them execute my orders.' The last time that General Roguet entered the room in this manner with bad news, it was nearly one o'clock – he himself has related these details, to the honour of his master's calmness. He told the Prince that the barricades in the centre of the town still held out, and were increasing in number; that on the boulevards the cries of 'Down with the dictator' (he did not dare say 'Down with Soulouque'), and hisses everywhere hailed the troops as they passed; that before Galerie Jouffroy a major had been pursued by the crowd, and that at the corner of the Café Cardinal a captain of the staff had been torn from his horse. Louis Bonaparte half rose from his chair, and gazing fixedly at the general, calmly said to him: 'Very well! let Saint-Arnaud be told to execute my orders.'

"What were these orders?

"We shall see.

"Here we pause to reflect, and the narrator lays down his pen with a species of hesitation and distress of mind. We are approaching the abominable crisis of that mournful day, the 4th; we are approaching that monstrous deed from which emerged the success of the coup d'état, dripping with blood. We are about to unveil the most horrible of the premeditated acts of Louis Bonaparte; we are about to reveal, to narrate, to describe what all the historiographers of the 2nd of December have concealed; what General Magnan carefully omitted in his report; what, even at Paris, where these things were seen, men scarcely dare to whisper to each other. We are about to enter upon the ghastly.

"The 2nd of December is a crime covered with darkness, a coffin closed and silent, from the cracks in which streams of blood gush forth.

"We are about to raise the coffin-lid."