prisoner, a police spy, they said.
"He expected to be shot. I had him set at liberty."
Bancel was in this barricade of the Rue Pagevin. We shook hands.
He asked me,--
"Shall we conquer?"
"Yes," I answered.
We then could hardly entertain a doubt.
De Flotte and Bancel wished to accompany me, fearing that I should be
arrested by the regiment guarding the Bank.
The weather was misty and cold, almost dark. This obscurity concealed
and helped us. The fog was on our side.
As we reached the corner of the Rue de la Vrillière, a group on
horseback passed by.
It consisted of a few others, preceded by a man who seemed a soldier,
but who was not in uniform. He wore a cloak with a hood.
De Flotte nudged me with his elbow, and whispered,--
"Do you know Fialin?"
I answered,--
"No."
"Have you seen him?
"No."
"Do you wish to see him?"
"No."
"Look at him."
I looked at him.
This man in truth was passing before us. It was he who preceded the
group of officers. He came out of the Bank. Had he been there to effect
a new forced loan? The people who were at the doors looked at him with
curiosity, and without anger. His entire bearing was insolent. He turned
from time to time to say a word to one of his followers. This little
cavalcade "pawed the ground" in the mist and in the mud. Fialin had the
arrogant air of a man who caracoles before a crime. He gazed at the
passers-by with a haughty look. His horse was very handsome, and, poor
beast, seemed very proud. Fialin was smiling. He had in his hand the
whip that his face deserved.
He passed by. I never saw the man except on this occasion.
De Flotte and Bancel did not leave me until they had seen me get into my
vehicle. My true-hearted coachman was waiting for me in the Rue de la
Vrillière. He brought me back to No 15, Rue Richelieu.
CHAPTER XI.
THE BARRICADE OF THE RUE MESLAY
The first barricade of the Rue Saint Martin was erected at the junction
of the Rue Meslay. A large cart was overturned, placed across the
street, and the roadway was unpaved; some flag-stones of the footway
were also torn up. This barricade, the advanced work of defence of the
whole revolted street, could only form a temporary obstacle. No portion
of the piled-up stones was higher than a man. In a good third of the
barricade the stones did not reach above the knee. "It will at all
events be good enough to get killed in," said a little street Arab who
was rolling numerous flag-stones to the barricade. A hundred combatants
took up their position behind it. Towards nine o'clock the movements of
the troops gave warning of the attack. The head of the column of the
Marulaz Brigade occupied the corner of the street on the side of the
boulevard. A piece of artillery, raking the whole of the street, was
placed in position before the Porte Saint Martin. For some time both
sides gazed on each other in that moody silence which precedes an
encounter; the troops regarding the barricade bristling with guns, the
barricade regarding the gaping cannon. After a while the order for a
general attack was given. The firing commenced. The first shot passed
above the barricade, and struck a woman who was passing some twenty
paces in the rear, full in the breast. She fell, ripped open. The fire
became brisk without doing much injury to the barricade. The cannon was
too near; the bullets flew too high.
The combatants, who had not yet lost a man, received each bullet with a
cry of "Long live the Republic!" but without firing. They possessed few
cartridges, and they husbanded them. Suddenly the 49th regiment
advanced in close column order.
The barricade fired.
The smoke filled the street; when it cleared away, there could be seen
a dozen men on the ground, and the soldiers falling back in disorder by
the side of the houses. The leader of the barricade shouted, "They are
falling back. Cease firing! Let us not waste a ball."
The street remained for some time deserted. The cannon recommenced
fining. A shot came in every two minutes, but always badly aimed. A man
with a fowling-piece came up to the leader of the barricade, and said
to him, "Let us dismount that cannon. Let us kill the gunners."
"Why!" said the chief, smiling, "they are doing us no harm, let us do
none to them."
Nevertheless the sound of the bugle could be distinctly heard on the
other side of the block of houses which concealed the troops echelloned
on the Square of Saint Martin, and it was manifest that a second attack
was being prepared.
This attack would naturally be furious, desperate, and stubborn.
It was also evident that, if this barricade were carried, the entire
street would be scoured. The other barricades were still weaker than
the first, and more feebly defended. The "middle class" had given their
guns, and had re-entered their houses. They lent their street, that was
all.
It was therefore necessary to hold the advanced barricade as long as
possible. But what was to be done, and how was the resistance to be
maintained? They had scarcely two shots per man left.
An unexpected source of supply arrived.
A young man, I can name him, for he is dead--Pierre Tissié,[19] who was
a workman, and who also was a poet, had worked during a portion of the
morning at the barricades, and at the moment when the firing began he
went away, stating as his reason that they would not give him a gun. In
the barricade they had said, "There is one who is afraid."
Pierre Tissié was not afraid, as we shall see later on.
He left the barricade.
Pierre Tissié had only his knife with him, a Catalan knife; he opened
it at all hazards, he held it in his hand, and went on straight before
him.
As he came out of the Rue Saint Sauveur, he saw at the corner of a
little lonely street, in which all the windows were closed, a soldier
of the line standing sentry, posted there doubtlessly by the main guard
at a little distance.
This soldier was at the halt with his gun to his shoulder ready to
fire.
He heard the step of Pierre Tissié, and cried out,--
"Who goes there?"
"Death!" answered Pierre Tissié.
The soldier fired, and missed Pierre Tissié, who sprang on him, and
struck him down with a blow of his knife.
The soldier fell, and blood spurted out of his mouth.
"I did not know I should speak so truly," muttered Pierre Tissié.
And he added, "Now for the ambulance!"
He took the soldier on his back, picked up the gun which had fallen to
the ground, and came back to the barricade. "I bring you a wounded
man," said he.
"A dead man," they exclaimed.
In truth the soldier had just expired.
"Infamous Bonaparte!" said Tissié. "Poor red breeches! All the same, I
have got a gun."
They emptied the soldier's pouch and knapsack. They divided the
cartridges. There were 150 of them. There were also two gold pieces of
ten francs, two days' pay since the 2d of December. These were thrown
on the ground, no one would take them.
They distributed the cartridges with shouts of "Long live the Republic!"
Meanwhile the attacking party had placed a mortar in position by the
side of the cannon.
The distribution of the cartridges was hardly ended when the infantry
appeared, and charged upon the barricade with the bayonet. This second
assault, as had been foreseen, was violent and desperate. It was
repulsed. Twice the soldiers returned to the charge, and twice they
fell back, leaving the street strewn with dead. In the interval between
the assaults, a shell had pierced and dismantled the barricade, and the
cannon began to fire grape-shot.
The situation was hopeless; the cartridges were exhausted. Some began
to throw down their guns and go away. The only means of escape was by
the Rue Saint Sauveur, and to reach the corner of the Rue Saint Sauveur
it was necessary to get over the lower part of the barricade, which
left nearly the whole of the fugitives unprotected. There was a perfect
rain of musketry and grape-shot. Three or four were killed there, one,
like Baudin, by a ball in his eye. The leader of the barricade suddenly
noticed that he was alone with Pierre Tissié, and a boy of fourteen
years old, the same who had rolled so many stones for the barricade. A
third attack was pending, and the soldiers began to advance by the side
of the houses.
"Let us go," said the leader of the barricade.
"I shall remain," said Pierre Tissié.
"And I also," said the boy.
And the boy added,--
"I have neither father nor mother. As well this as anything else."
The leader fired his last shot, and retired like the others over the
lower part of the barricade. A volley knocked off his hat. He stooped
down and picked it up again. The soldiers were not more than
twenty-five paces distant.
He shouted to the two who remained,--
"Come along!"
"No," said Pierre Tissié.
"No," said the boy.
A few moments afterwards the soldiers scaled the barricade already half
in ruins.
Pierre Tissié and the boy were killed with bayonet thrusts.
Some twenty muskets were abandoned in this barricade.
[19] It must not be forgotten that this has been written in exile, and
that to name a hero was to condemn him to exile.
CHAPTER XII.
THE BARRICADE OF THE MAIRIE OF THE FIFTH ARRONDISSEMENT
National Guards in uniform filled the courtyard of the Mairie of the
Fifth Arrondissement. Others came in every moment. An ex-drummer of the
Garde Mobile had taken a drum from a lower room at the side of the
guard-room, and had beaten the call to arms in the surrounding streets.
Towards nine o'clock a group of fourteen or fifteen young men, most of
whom were in white blouses, entered the Mairie, shouting, "Long live
the Republic!" They were armed with guns. The National Guard received
them with shouts of "Down with Louis Bonaparte!" They fraternized in
the courtyard. Suddenly there was a movement. It was caused by the
arrival of the Representatives Doutre and Pelletier.
"What is to be done?" shouted the crowd.
"Barricades," said Pelletier.
They unharnessed the horses, which the carter led away, and they turned
the cart round without upsetting it across the wide roadway of the
faubourg. The barricade was completed in a moment. A truck came up.
They took it and stood it against the wheels of the cart, just as a
screen is placed before a fireplace.
The remainder was made up of casks and paving-stones. Thanks to the
flour-cart the barricade was lofty, and reached to the first story of
the houses. It intersected the faubourg at the corner of the little Rue
Saint Jean. A narrow entrance had been contrived at the barricade at
the corner of the street.
"One barricade is not sufficient," said Doutre, "we must place the
Mairie between two barriers, so as to be able to defend both sides at
the same time."
They constructed a second barricade, facing the summit of the faubourg.
This one was low and weakly built, being composed only of planks and of
paving-stones. There was about a hundred paces distance between the two
barricades.
There were three hundred men in this space. Only one hundred had guns.
The majority had only one cartridge.
The firing began about ten o'clock. Two companies of the line appeared
and fired several volleys. The attack was only a feint. The barricade
replied, and made the mistake of foolishly exhausting its ammunition.
The troops retired. Then the attack began in earnest. Some Chasseurs de
Vincennes emerged from the corner of the boulevard.
Following out the African mode of warfare, they glided along the side
of the walls, and then, with a run, they threw themselves upon the
barricade.
No more ammunition in the barricade. No quarter to be expected.
Those who had no more powder or balls threw down their guns. Some
wished to reoccupy their position in the Mairie, but it was impossible
for them to maintain any defence there, the Mairie being open and
commanded from every side; they scaled the walls and scattered
themselves about in the neighboring houses; others escaped by the
narrow passage of the boulevard which led into the Rue Saint Jean; most
of the combatants reached the opposite side of the boulevard, while
those who had a cartridge left fired a last volley upon the troops from
the height of the paving-stones. Then they awaited their death. All
were killed.
One of those who succeeded in slipping into the Rue Saint Jean, where
moreover they ran the gauntlet of a volley from their assailants, was
M.H. Coste, Editor of the _Evénement_ and of the _Avénement du Peuple_.
M. Coste had been a captain in the Garde Mobile. At a bend in the
street, which placed him out of reach of the balls, M. Conte noticed in
front of him the drummer of the Garde Mobile, who, like him, had
escaped by the Rue Saint Jean, and who was profiting by the loneliness
of the street to get rid of his drum.
"Keep your drum," cried he to him.
"For what purpose?"
"To beat the call to arms."
"Where?"
"At Batignolles."
"I will keep it," said the drummer.
These two men came out from the jaws of death, and at once consented to
re-enter them.
But how should they cross all Paris with this drum? The first patrol
which met them would shoot them. A porter of an adjoining house, who
noticed their predicament, gave them a packing-cloth. They enveloped
the drum in it, and reached Batignolles by the lonely streets which
skirt the walls.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE BARRICADE OF THE RUE THEVENOT
Georges Biscarrat was the man who had given the signal for the looting
in the Rue de l'Echelle.
I had known Georges Biscarrat ever since June, 1848. He had taken part
in that disastrous insurrection. I had had an opportunity of being
useful to him. He had been captured, and was kneeling before the
firing-party; I interfered, and I saved his life, together with that of
some others, M., D., D., B., and that brave-hearted architect Rolland,
who when an exile, later on, so ably restored the Brussels Palace of
Justice.
This took place on the 24th June, 1848, in the underground floor of No.
93, Boulevard Beaumarchais, a house then in course of construction.
Georges Biscarrat became attached to me. It appeared that he was the
nephew of one of the oldest and best friends of my childhood, Félix
Biscarrat, who died in 1828. Georges Biscarrat came to see me from time
to time, and on occasions he asked my advice or gave me information.
Wishing to preserve him from evil influences, I had given him, and he
had accepted, this guiding maxim, "No insurrection except for Duty and
for Right."
What was this hooting in the Rue de l'Echelle? Let us relate the
incident.
On the 2d of December, Bonaparte had made an attempt to go out. He had
ventured to go and look at Paris. Paris does not like being looked at
by certain eyes; it considers it an insult, and it resents an insult
more than a wound. It submits to assassination, but not to the leering
gaze of the assassin. It took offence at Louis Bonaparte.
At nine o'clock in the morning, at the moment when the Courbevoie
garrison was descending upon Paris, the placards of the _coup d'état_
being still fresh upon the walls, Louis Bonaparte had left the Elysée,
had crossed the Place de la Concorde, the Garden of the Tuileries, and
the railed courtyard of the Carrousel, and had been seen to go out, by
the gate of the Rue de l'Echelle. A crowd assembled at once. Louis
Bonaparte was in a general's uniform; his uncle, the ex-King Jérôme,
accompanied him, together with Flahaut, who kept in the near. Jérôme
wore the full uniform of a Marshal of France, with a hat with a white
feather; Louis Bonaparte's horse was a head before Jérôme's horse.
Louis Bonaparte was gloomy, Jérôme attentive, Flahaut beaming. Flahaut
had his hat on one side. There was a strong escort of Lancers. Edgar
Ney followed. Bonaparte intended to go as far as the Hôtel de Ville.
Georges Biscarrat was there. The street was unpaved, the road was being
macadamized; he mounted on a heap of stones, and shouted, "Down with
the Dictator! Down with the Praetorians!" The soldiers looked at him
with bewilderment, and the crowd with astonishment. Georges Biscarrat
(he told me so himself) felt that this cry was too erudite, and that it
would not be understood, so he shouted, "Down with Bonaparte! Down with
the Lancers!"
The effect of this shout was electrical. "Down with Bonaparte! Down
with the Lancers!" cried the people, and the whole street became stormy
and turbulent. "Down with Bonaparte!" The outcry resembled the
beginning of an execution; Bonaparte made a sudden movement to the
right, turned back, and re-entered the courtyard of the Louvre.
Georges Biscarrat felt it necessary to complete his shout by a
barricade.
He said to the bookseller, Benoist Mouilhe, who had just opened his
shop, "Shouting is good, action is better." He returned to his house in
the Rue du Vert Bois, put on a blouse and a workman's cap, and went
down into the dark streets. Before the end of the day he had made
arrangements with four associations--the gas-fitters, the last-makers,
the shawl-makers, and the hatters.
In this manner he spent the day of the 2d of December.
The day of the 3d was occupied in goings and comings "almost useless."
So Biscarrat told Versigny, and he added, "However I have succeeded in
this much, that the placards of the _coup d'état_ have been everywhere
torn down, so much so that in order to render the tearing down more
difficult the police have ultimately posted them in the public
conveniences--their proper place."
On Thursday, the 4th, early in the morning, Georges Biscarrat went to
Ledouble's restaurant, where four Representatives of the People usually
took their meals, Brives, Bertlhelon, Antoine Bard, and Viguier,
nicknamed "Father Viguier." All four were there. Viguier related what
we had done on the preceding evening, and shared my opinion that the
closing catastrophe should be hurried on, that the Crime should be
precipitated into the abyss which befitted it. Biscarrat came in. The
Representatives did not know hire, and stared at him. "Who are you?"
asked one of them. Before he could answer, Dr. Petit entered, unfolded
a paper, and said,--
"Does any one know Victor Hugo's handwriting?"
"I do," said Biscarrat. He looked at the paper. It was my proclamation
to the army. "This must be printed," said Petit. "I will undertake it,"
said Biscarrat. Antoine Bard asked him, "Do you know Victor Hugo?" "He
saved my life," answered Biscarrat. The Representatives shook hands
with him.
Guilgot arrived. Then Versigny. Versigny knew Biscarrat. He had seen
him at my house. Versigny said, "Take care what you do. There is a man
outside the door." "It is a shawl-maker," said Biscarrat. "He has come
with me. He is following me." "But," resumed Versigny, "he is wearing a
blouse, beneath which he has a handkerchief. He seems to be hiding
this, and he has something in the handkerchief."
"Sugar-plums," said Biscarrat.
They were cartridges.
Versigny and Biscarrat went to the office of the _Siècle_; at the
_Siècle_ thirty workmen, at the risk of being shot, offered to print my
Proclamation. Biscarrat left it with them, and said to Versigny, "Now I
want my barricade."
The shawl-maker walked behind them. Versigny and Biscarrat turned their
steps towards the top of the Saint Denis quarter. When they drew near
to she Porte Saint Denis they heard the hum of many voices. Biscarrat
laughed and said to Versigny, "Saint Denis is growing angry, matters
are improving." Biscarrat recruited forty combatants on the way,
amongst whom was Moulin, head of the association of leather-dressers.
Chapuis, sergeant-major of the National Guard, brought them four
muskets and ten swords. "Do you know where there are any more?" asked
Biscarrat. "Yes, at the Saint Sauveur Baths." They went there, and
found forty muskets. They gave them swords and cartridge-pouches.
Gentlemen well dressed, brought tin boxes containing powder and balls.
Women, brave and light-hearted, manufactured cartridges. At the first
door adjoining the Rue du Hasard-Saint-Sauveur they requisitioned iron
bars and hammers from a large courtyard belonging to a locksmith.
Having the arms, they had the men. They speedily numbered a hundred.
They began to tear up the pavements. It was half-past ten. "Quick!
quick!" cried Georges Biscarrat, "the barricade of my dreams!" It was
in the Rue Thévenot. The barrier was constructed high and formidable.
To abridge. At eleven o'clock Georges Biscarrat had completed his
barricade. At noon he was killed there.
CHAPTER XIV.
OSSIAN AND SCIPIO
Arrests grew more numerous.
Towards noon a Commissary of Police, named Boudrot, appeared at the
divan of the Rue Lepelletier. He was accompanied by the police agent
Delahodde. Delahodde was that traitorous socialist writer, who, upon
being unmasked, had passed from the Secret Police to the Public Police
Service. I knew him, and I record this incident. In 1832 he was a
master in the school at which were my two sons, then boys, and he had
addressed poetry to me. At the same time he was acting the spy upon me.
The Lepelletier divan was the place of meeting of a large number of
Republican journalists. Delahodde knew them all. A detachment of the
Republican Guard occupied the entrances to the café. Then ensued an
inspection of all the ordinary customers, Delahodde walking first, with
the Commissary behind him. Two Municipal Guards followed them. From
time to time Delahodde looked round and said, "Lay hold of this man."
In this manner some score of writers were arrested, among whom were
Hennett de Kesler.[20] On the preceding evening Kesler had been on the
Saint Antoine barricade. Kesler said to Delahodde, "You are a miserable
wretch." "And you are an ungrateful fellow," replied Delahodde; "_I am
saving your life_." Curious words; for it is difficult to believe that
Delahodde was in the secret of what was to happen on the fatal day of
the Fourth.
At the head-quarters of the Committee encouraging information was
forwarded to us from every side. Testelin, the Representative of Lille,
is not only a learned man, but a brave man. On the morning of the 3d he
had reached, shortly after me, the Saint Antoine barricade, where
Baudin had just been killed. All was at an end in that direction.
Testelin was accompanied by Charles Gambon, another dauntless man.[21]
The two Representatives wandered through the agitated and dark streets,
little followed, in no way understood, seeking a ferment of insurgents,
and only finding a swarming of the curious. Testelin, nevertheless,
having come to the Committee, informed us of the following:--At the
corner of a street of the Faubourg Saint Antoine Gambon and himself had
noticed a crowd. They had gone up to it. This crowd was reading a bill
placarded on a wall. It was the Appeal to Arms signed "Victor Hugo."
Testelin asked Gambon, "Have you a pencil?" "Yes," answered Gambon.
Testelin took the pencil, went up to the placard, and wrote his name
beneath mine, then he gave the pencil to Gambon, who in turn wrote his
name beneath that of Testelin. Upon this the crowd shouted, "Bravo!
these are true-hearted men!" "Shout 'Long live the Republic!'" cried
Testelin. All shouted "Long live the Republic!" "And from above, from
the open windows," added Gambon, "women clapped their hands."
"The little hands of women applauding are a good sign," said Michel de
Bourges.
As has been seen, and we cannot lay too much stress upon the fact, what
the Committee of Resistance wished was to prevent the shedding of blood
as much as possible. To construct barricades, to let them be destroyed,
and to reconstruct them at other points, to avoid the army, and to wear
it out, to wage in Paris the war of the desert, always retreating,
never yielding, to take time for an ally, to add days to days; on the
one hand to give the people time to understand and to rise, on the
other, to conquer the _coup d'état_ by the weariness of the army; such
was the plan discussed and adopted.
The order was accordingly given that the barricades should be but
slightly defended.
We repeated in every possible form to the combatants,--
"Shed as little blood as possible! Spare the blood of the soldiers and
husband your own."
Nevertheless, the struggle once begun, it became impossible in many
instances, during certain excited hours of fighting, to moderate their
ardor. Several barricades were obstinately defended, particularly those
in the Rue Rambuteau, in the Rue Montorgueil, and in the Rue Neuve
Saint Eustache.
These barricades were commanded by daring leaders.
Here, for the sake of history, we will record a few of these brave men
fighting outlines who appeared and disappeared in the smoke of the
combat. Radoux, an architect, Deluc, Mallarmet, Félix Bony, Luneau, an
ex-Captain of the Republican Guard, Camille Berru, editor of the
_Avénement_, gay, warmhearted, and dauntless, and that young Eugène
Millelot, who was destined to be condemned at Cayenne to receive 200
lashes, and to expire at the twenty-third stroke, before the very eyes
of his father and brother, proscribed and convicts like himself.
The barricade of the Rue Aumaire was amongst those which were not
carried without resistance. Although raised in haste, it was fairly
constructed. Fifteen or sixteen resolute men defended it; two were
killed.
The barricade was carried with the bayonet by a battalion of the 16th
of the line. This battalion, hurled on the barricade at the double, was
received by a brisk fusillade; several soldiers were wounded.
The first who fell in the soldiers' ranks was an officer. He was a
young man of twenty-five, lieutenant of the first company, named Ossian
Dumas; two balls broke both of his legs as though by a single blow.
At that time there were in the army two brothers of the name of Dumas,
Ossian and Scipio. Scipio was the elder. They were near relatives of
the Representative, Madier de Montjau.
These two brothers belonged to a poor but honored family. The elder had
been educated at the Polytechnic School, the other at the School of
Saint Cyr.
Scipio was four years older than his brother. According to that
splendid and mysterious law of ascent, which the French Revolution has
created, and which, so to speak, has placed a ladder in the centre of a
society hitherto caste-bound and inaccessible, Scipio Dumas' family had
imposed upon themselves the most severe privations in order to develop
his intellect and secure his future. His relations, with the touching
heroism of the poor of the present era, denied themselves bread to
afford him knowledge. In this manner he attained to the Polytechnic
School, where he quickly became one of the best pupils.
Having concluded his studies, he was appointed an officer in the
artillery, and sent to Metz. It then became his turn to help the boy
who had to mount after him. He held out his hand to his younger
brother. He economized the modest pay of an artillery lieutenant, and,
thanks to him, Ossian became an officer like Scipio. While Scipio,
detained by duties belonging to his position, remained at Metz, Ossian
was incorporated in an infantry regiment, and went to Africa. There he
saw his first service.
Scipio and Ossian were Republicans. In October, 1851, the 16th of the
line, in which Ossian was serving, was summoned to Paris. It was one of
the regiments chosen by the ill-omened hand of Louis Bonaparte, and on
which the _coup d'état_ counted.
The 2d of December arrived.
Lieutenant Ossian Dumas obeyed, like nearly all his comrades, the order
to take up arms; but every one round him could notice his gloomy
attitude.
The day of the 3d was spent in marches and counter-marches. On the 4th
the combat began. The 16th, which formed part of the Herbillon Brigade,
was told off to capture the barricades of the Rues Beaubourg,
Trausnonain, and Aumaire. This battle-field was formidable; a perfect
square of barricades had been raised there.
It was by the Rue Aumaire, and with the regiment of which Ossian formed
part, that the military leaders resolved to begin action.
At the moment when the regiment, with arms loaded, was about to march
upon the Rue Aumaire, Ossian Dumas went up to his captain, a brave and
veteran officer, with whom he was a favorite, and declared that he
would not march a step farther, that the deed of the 2d of December was
a crime, that Louis Bonaparte was a traitor, that it was for them,
soldiers, to maintain the oath which Bonaparte violated; and that, as
for himself, he would not lend his sword to the butchery of the
Republic.
A halt was made. The signal of attack was awaited; the two officers,
the old captain and the young lieutenant, conversed in a low tone.
"And what do you want to do?" asked the captain.
"Break my sword."
"You will be taken to Vincennes."
"That is all the same to me."
"Most certainly dismissed."
"Possibly."
"Perhaps shot."
"I expect it."
"But there is no longer any time; you should have resigned yesterday."
"There is always time to avoid committing a crime."
The captain, as may be seen, was simply one of those professional
heroes, grown old in the leather stock, who know of no country but the
flag, and no other law but military discipline. Iron arms and wooden
heads. They are neither citizens nor men. They only recognize honor in
the form of a general's epaulets. It is of no use talking to them of
political duties, of obedience to the laws, of the Constitution. What
do they know about all this? What is a Constitution; what are the most
holy laws, against three words which a corporal may murmur into the ear
of a sentinel? Take a pair of scales, put in one side the Gospels, in
the other the official instructions; now weigh them. The corporal turns
the balance; the Deity kicks the beam.
God forms a portion of the order of the day of Saint Bartholomew. "Kill
all. He will recognized his own."
This is what the priests accept, and at times glorify.
Saint Bartholomew has been blessed by the Pope and decorated with the
Catholic medal.[22]
Meanwhile Ossian Dumas appeared determined. The captain made a last
effort.
"You will ruin yourself," said he.
"I shall save my honor."
"It is precisely your honor that you are sacrificing."
"Because I am going away?"
"To go away is to desert."
This seemed to impress Ossian Dumas. The captain continued,--
"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 massacred, 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 pronounced against the _coup d'état_,
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. Grâce! 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 sunshine 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 Elysée 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.
Our appeal had ended by being heard. Decidedly, as we have seen, Paris
was rising. The fall of Bonaparte seemed to be foreshadowed. Two
Representatives, Fabvier and Crestin, met in the Rue Royale, and
Crestin, pointing to the Palace of the Assembly, said to Fabvier, "We
shall be there to-morrow."
One noteworthy incident. Mazes became eccentric, the prison unbent
itself; the interior experienced an undefinable reverberation from the
outside. The warders, who the preceding evening had been insolent to
the Representatives when going for their exercise in the courtyard, now
saluted them to the ground. That very morning of Thursday, the 4th, the
governor of the prison had paid a visit to the prisoners, and had said
to them, "It is not my fault." He brought them books and writing-paper,
a thing which up to that time he had refused. The Representative
Valentin was in solitary confinement; on the morning of the 4th his
warder suddenly became amiable, and offered to obtain for him news from
outside, through his wife, who, he said, had been a servant in General
Leflô's household. These were significant signs. When the jailer smiles
it means that the jail is half opening.
We may add, what is not a contradiction, that at the same time the
garrison at Mazas was being increased. 1200 more men were marched in,
in detachments of 100 men each, spacing out their arrivals in "little
doses" as an eye-witness remarked to us. Later on 400 men. 100 litres
of brandy were distributed to them. One litre for every sixteen men.
The prisoners could hear the movement of artillery round the prison.
The agitation spread to the most peaceable quarters. But the centre of
Paris was above all threatening. The centre of Paris is a labyrinth of
streets which appears to be made for the labyrinth of riots. The Ligue,
the Fronde, the Revolution--we must unceasingly recall these useful
facts--the 14th of July, the 10th of August, 1792, 1830, 1848, have
come out from thence. These brave old streets were awakened. At eleven
o'clock in the morning from Notre Dame to the Porte Saint Martin there
were seventy-seven barricades. Three of them, one in the Rue Maubuée,
another in the Rue Bertin-Poirée, another in the Rue Guérin-Boisseau,
attained the height of the second stories; the barricade of the Porte
Saint Denis was almost as bristling and as formidable as the barrier of
the Faubourg Saint Antoine in June, 1848. The handful of the
Representatives of the People had swooped down like a shower of sparks
on these famous and inflammable crossroads. The beginning of the fire.
The fire had caught. The old central market quarter, that city which is
contained in the city, shouted, "Down with Bonaparte!" They hooted the
police, they hissed the troops. Some regiments seemed stupefied. They
cried, "Throw up your butt ends in the air!" From the windows above,
women encouraged the construction of the barricades. There was powder
there, there were muskets. Now, we were no longer alone. We saw rising
up in the gloom behind us the enormous head of the people. Hope at the
present time was on our side. The oscillation of uncertainty had at
length become steady, and we were, I repeat, almost perfectly
confident.
There had been a moment when, owing to the good news pouring in upon
us, this confidence had become so great that we who had staked our
lives on this great contest, seized with an irresistible joy in the
presence of a success becoming hourly more certain, had risen from our
seats, and had embraced each other. Michel de Bourges was particularly
angered against Bonaparte, for he had believed his word, and had even
gone so far as to say, "He is my man." Of the four of us, he was the
most indignant. A gloomy flash of victory shone in him. He struck the
table with his fist, and exclaimed, "Oh! the miserable wretch!
To-morrow--" and he struck the table a second time, "to-morrow his
head shall fall in the Place de Grève before the Hôtel de Ville."
I looked at him.
"No," said I, "this man's head shall not fall."
"What do you mean?"
"I do not wish it."
"Why?"
"Because," said I, "if after such a crime we allow Louis Bonaparte to
live we shall abolish the penalty of death."
This generous Michel de Bourges remained thoughtful for a moment, then
he pressed my hand.
Crime is an opportunity, and always gives us a choice, and it is better
to extract from it progress than punishment. Michel de Bourges realized
this.
Moreover this incident shows to what a pitch our hopes had been raised.
Appearances were on our side, actual facts not so. Saint-Arnaud had his
orders. We shall see them.
Strange incidents took place.
Towards noon a general, deep in thought, was on horseback in the Place
de la Madeleine, at the head of his wavering troops. He hesitated.
A carriage stopped, a woman stepped out and conversed in a low tone
with the general. The crowd could see her. The Representative Raymond,
who lived at No 4, Place de la Madeleine, saw her from his window. This
woman was Madame K. The general stooping down on his horse, listened,
and finally made the dejected gesture of a vanquished man. Madame K.
got back into her carriage. This man, they said, loved that woman. She
could, according to the side of her beauty which fascinated her victim,
inspire either heroism or crime. This strange beauty was compounded of
the whiteness of an angel, combined with the look of a spectre.
It was the look which conquered.
This man no longer hesitated. He entered gloomily into the enterprise.
From twelve to two o'clock there was in this enormous city given over
to the unknown an indescribable and fierce expectation. All was calm
and awe-striking. The regiments and the limbered batteries quitted the
faubourg and stationed themselves noiselessly around the boulevards.
Not a cry in the ranks of the soldiery. An eye-witness said, "The
soldiers march with quite a jaunty air." On the Quai de la Ferronnerie,
heaped up with regiments ever since the morning of the 2d of December,
there now only remained a post of Municipal Guards. Everything ebbed
back to the centre, the people as well as the army; the silence of the
army had ultimately spread to the people. They watched each other.
Each soldier had three days' provisions and six packets of cartridges.
It has since transpired that at this moment 10,000 francs were daily
spent in brandy for each brigade.
Towards one o'clock, Magnan went to the Hôtel de Ville, had the reserve
limbered under his own eyes, and did not leave until all the batteries
were ready to march.
Certain suspicious preparations grew more numerous. Towards noon the
State workmen and the hospital corps had established a species of huge
ambulance at No. 2, Faubourg Montmartre. A great heap of litters was
piled up there. "What is all this for?" asked the crowd.
Dr. Deville, who had attended Espinasse when he had been wounded,
noticed him on the boulevard, and asked him, "Up to what point are you
going?"
Espinasse's answer is historical.
He replied, "To the end."
At two o'clock five brigades, those of Cotte, Bourgon, Canrobert, Dulac,
and Reybell, five batteries of artillery, 16,400 men,[23] infantry and
cavalry, lancers, cuirassiers, grenadiers, gunners, were echelloned
without any ostensible reason between the Rue de la Paix and the Faubourg
Poissonnière. Pieces of cannon were pointed at the entrance of every
street; there were eleven in position on the Boulevard Poissonnière alone.
The foot soldiers had their guns to their shoulders, the officers their
swords drawn. What did all this mean? It was a curious sight, well worth
the trouble of seeing, and on both sides of the pavements, on all the
thresholds of the shops, from all the stories of the houses, an
astonished, ironical, and confiding crowd looked on.
Little by little, nevertheless, this confidence diminished, and irony
gave place to astonishment; astonishment changed to stupor. Those who
have passed through that extraordinary minute will not forget it. It
was evident that there was something underlying all this. But what?
Profound obscurity. Can one imagine Paris in a cellar? People felt as
though they were beneath a low ceiling. They seemed to be walled up in
the unexpected and the unknown. They seemed to perceive some mysterious
will in the background. But after all they were strong; they were the
Republic, they were Paris; what was there to fear! Nothing. And they
cried, "Down with Bonaparte!" The troops continued to keep silence, but
the swords remained outside their scabbards, and the lighted matches of
the cannon smoldered at the corners of the streets. The cloud grew
blacker every minute, heavier and more silent. This thickening of the
darkness was tragical. One felt the coming crash of a catastrophe, and
the presence of a villain; snake-like treason writhed during this
night, and none can foresee where the downward slide of a terrible
design will stop when events are on a steep incline.
What was coming out of this thick darkness?
[23] 16,410 men, the figures taken from the Ministry of War.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE MASSACRE
Suddenly a window was opened.
Upon Hell.
Dante, had he leaned over the summit of the shadow, would have been able
to see the eighth circle of his poem; the funereal Boulevard Montmartre.
Paris, a prey to Bonaparte; a monstrous spectacle. The gloomy armed men
massed together on this boulevard felt an appalling spirit enter into
them; they ceased to be themselves, and became demons.
There was no longer a single French soldier, but a host of indefinable
phantoms, carrying out a horrible task, as though in the glimmering
light of a vision.
There was no longer a flag, there was no longer law, there was no longer
humanity, there was no longer a country, there was no longer France;
they began to assassinate.
The Schinderhannes division, the brigades of Mandrin, Cartouche,
Poulailler, Trestaillon, and Tropmann appeared in the gloom, shooting
down and massacring.
No; we do not attribute to the French army what took place during this
mournful eclipse of honor.
There have been massacres in history, abominable ones assuredly, but
they have possessed some show of reason; Saint Bartholomew and the
Dragonnades are explained by religion, the Sicilian Vespers and the
butcheries of September are explained by patriotism; they crush the
enemy or annihilate the foreigner; these are crimes for a good cause;
but the carnage of the Boulevard Montmartre is a crime without an
ostensible reason.
The reason exists, however. It is hideous.
Let us give it.
Two things stand erect in a State, the Law and the People.
A man murders the Law. He feels the punishment approaching, there only
remains one thing for him to do, to murder the People. He murders the
People.
The Second of December was the Risk, the Fourth was the Certainty.
Against the indignation which arose they opposed the Terror.
The Fury, Justice, halted petrified before the Fury, Extermination.
Against Erinnyes they set up Medusa.
To put Nemesis to flight, what a terrifying triumph!
To Louis Napoleon pertains this glory, which is the summit of his shame.
Let us narrate it.
Let us narrate what History had never seen before.
The assassination of a people by a man.
Suddenly, at a given signal, a musket shot being fired, no matter where,
no matter by whom, the shower of bullets poured upon the crowd. A shower
of bullets is also a crowd; it is death scattered broadcast. It does not
know whither it goes, nor what it does; it kills and passes on.
But at the same time it has a species of soul; it is premeditated, it
executes a will. This was an unprecedented moment. It seemed as though a
handful of lightnings was falling upon the people. Nothing simpler. It
formed a clear solution to the difficulty; the rain of lead overwhelmed
the multitude. What are you doing there? Die! It is a crime to be
passing by. Why are you in the street? Why do you cross the path of the
Government? The Government is a cut-throat. They have announced a thing,
they must certainly carry it out; what is begun must assuredly be
achieved; as Society is being saved, the People must assuredly be
exterminated.
Are there not social necessities? Is it not essential that Béville
should have 87,000 francs a year and Fleury 95,000 francs? Is it not
essential that the High Chaplain, Menjaud, Bishop of Nancy, should have
342 francs a day, and that Bassano and Cambacérès should each have 383
francs a day, and Vaillant 468 francs, and Saint-Arnaud 822 francs? Is
it not necessary that Louis Bonaparte should have 76,712 francs a day?
Could one be Emperor for less?
In the twinkling of an eye there was a butchery on the boulevard a
quarter of a league long. Eleven pieces of cannon wrecked the
Sallandrouze carpet warehouse. The shot tore completely through
twenty-eight houses. The baths of Jouvence were riddled. There was a
massacre at Tortoni's. A whole quarter of Paris was filled with an
immense flying mass, and with a terrible cry. Everywhere sudden death. A
man is expecting nothing. He falls. From whence does this come? From
above, say the Bishops' _Te Deum_; from below, says Truth.
From a lower place than the galleys, from a lower place than Hell.
It is the conception of a Caligula, carried out by a Papavoine.
Xavier Durrieu comes upon the boulevard. He states,--
"I have taken sixty steps, I have seen sixty corpses."
And he draws back. To be in the street is a Crime, to be at home is a
Crime. The butchers enter the houses and slaughter. In slaughter-house
slang the soldiers cry, "Let us pole-axe the lot of them."
Adde, a bookseller, of 17, Boulevard Poissonnière, is standing before his
door; they kill him. At the same moment, for the field of murder is vast,
at a considerable distance from there, at 5, Rue de Lancry, M. Thirion de
Montauban, owner of the house, is at his door; they kill him. In the Rue
Tiquetonne a child of seven years, named Boursier, is passing by; they
kill him. Mdlle. Soulac, 196, Rue du Temple, opens her window; they kill
her. At No. 97, in the same street, two women, Mesdames Vidal and
Raboisson, sempstresses, are in their room; they kill them. Belval, a
cabinet-maker, 10, Rue de la Lune, is at home; they kill him. Debaëcque,
a merchant, 45, Rue du Sentier, is in his own house; Couvercelle,
florist, 257, Rue Saint Denis, is in his own house; Labitte, a jeweller,
55, Boulevard Saint Martin, is in his own house; Monpelas, perfumer, 181,
Rue Saint Martin, is in his own house; they kill Monpelas, Labitte,
Couvercelle, and Debaëcque. They sabre at her own home, 240, Rue Saint
Martin, a poor embroideress, Mdlle. Seguin, who not having sufficient
money to pay for a doctor, died at the Beaujon hospital, on the 1st of
January, 1852, on the same day that the Sibour _Te Deum_ was chanted at
Notre Dame. Another, a waistcoat-maker, Françoise Noël, was shot down at
20, Rue du Faubourg Montmartre, and died in the Charité. Another, Madame
Ledaust, a working housekeeper, living at 76, Passage du Caire, was shot
down before the Archbishop's palace, and died at the Morgue. Passers-by,
Mdlle. Gressier, living at 209, Faubourg Saint Martin; Madame Guilard,
living at 77, Boulevard Saint Denis; Madame Gamier, living at 6,
Boulevard Bonne Nouvelle, who had fallen, the first named beneath the
volleys on the Boulevard Montmartre, the two others on the Boulevard
Saint Denis, and who were still alive, attempted to rise, and became
targets for the soldiers, bursting with laughter, and this time fell back
again dead. Deeds of gallantry ware performed. Colonel Rochefort, who was
probably created General for this, charged in the Rue do la Paix at the
head of his Lancers a flock of nurses, who were put to flight.
Such was this indescribable enterprise. All the men who took part in it
were instigated by hidden influences; all had something which urged them
forward; Herbillon had Zaatcha behind him; Saint-Arnaud had Kabylia;
Renault had the affair of the Saint-André and Saint Hippolyte villages;
Espinasse, Rome and the storming of the 30th of June; Magnan, his debts.
Must we continue? We hesitate. Dr. Piquet, a man of seventy, was killed
in his drawing-room by a ball in his stomach; the painter Jollivart, by
a ball in the forehead, before his easel, his brains bespattered his
painting. The English captain, William Jesse, narrowly escaped a ball
which pierced the ceiling above his head; in the library adjoining the
Magasins du Prophète, a father, mother, and two daughters were sabred.
Lefilleul, another bookseller, was shot in his shop on the Boulevard
Poissonnière; in the Rue Lepelletier, Boyer, a chemist, seated at his
counter, was "spitted" by the Lancers. A captain, killing all before
him, took by storm the house of the Grand Balcon. A servant was killed
in the shop of Brandus. Reybell through the volleys said to Sax, "And I
also am discoursing sweet music." The Café Leblond was given over to
pillage. Billecoq's establishment was bombarded to such a degree that it
had to be pulled down the next day. Before Jouvain's house lay a heap of
corpses, amongst them an old man with his umbrella, and a young man with
his eye-glass. The Hôtel de Castille, the Maison Dorée, the Petite
Jeannette, the Café de Paris, the Café Anglais became for three hours
the targets of the cannonade. Raquenault's house crumbled beneath the
shells; the bullets demolished the Montmartre Bazaar.
None escaped. The guns and pistols were fired at close quarters.
New Year's-day was not far off, some shops were full of New Year's
gifts. In the passage du Saumon, a child of thirteen, flying before the
platoon-firing, hid himself in one of these shops, beneath a heap of
toys. He was captured and killed. Those who killed him laughingly
widened his wounds with their swords. A woman told me, "The cries of the
poor little fellow could be heard all through the passage." Four men
were shot before the same shop. The officer said to them, "This will
teach you to loaf about." A fifth named Mailleret, who was left for dead,
was carried the next day with eleven wounds to the Charité. There he
died.
They fired into the cellars by the air-holes.
A workman, a currier, named Moulins, who had taken refuge in one of
these shot-riddled cellars, saw through the cellar air-hole a passer-by,
who had been wounded in the thigh by a bullet, sit down on the pavement
with the death rattle in his throat, and lean against a shop. Some
soldiers who heard this rattle ran up and finished off the wounded man
with bayonet thrusts.
One brigade killed the passer-by from the Madeleine to the Opera,
another from the Opera to the Gymmase; another from the Boulevard Bonne
Nouvelle to the Porte Saint Denis; the 75th of the line having carried
the barricade of the Porte Saint Denis, it was no longer a fight, it was
a slaughter. The massacre radiated--a word horribly true--from the
boulevard into all the streets. It was a devil-fish stretching out its
feelers. Flight? Why? Concealment? To what purpose? Death ran after you
quicker than you could fly. In the Rue Pagevin a soldier said to a
passer-by, "What are you doing here?" "I am going home." The soldier
kills the passer-by. In the Rue des Marais they kill four young men in
their own courtyard. Colonel Espinasse exclaimed, "After the bayonet,
cannon!" Colonel Rochefort exclaimed, "Thrust, bleed, slash!" and he
added, "It is an economy of powder and noise." Before Barbedienne's
establishment an officer was showing his gun, an arm of considerable
precision, admiringly to his comrades, and he said, "With this gun I can
score magnificent shots between the eyes." having said this, he aimed at
random at some one, and succeeded. The carnage was frenzied. While the
butchering under the orders of Carrelet filled the boulevard, the
Bourgon brigade devastated the Temple, the Marulaz brigade devastated
the Rue Rambuteau; the Renault division distinguished itself on the
"other side of the water." Renault was that general, who, at Mascara,
had given his pistols to Charras. In 1848 he had said to Charras,
"Europe must be revolutionized." And Charras had said, "Not quite so
fast!" Louis Bonaparte had made him a General of Division in July, 1851.
The Rue aux Ours was especially devastated. Morny that evening said to
Louis Bonaparte, "The 15th Light Infantry have scored a success. They
have cleaned out the Rue aux Ours."
At the corner of the Rue du Sentier an officer of Spahis, with his sword
raised, cried out, "This is not the sort of thing! You do not understand
at all. Fire on the women." A woman was flying, she was with child, she
falls, they deliver her by the means of the butt-ends of their muskets.
Another, perfectly distracted, was turning the corner of a street. She
was carrying a child. Two soldiers aimed at her. One said, "At the
woman!" And he brought down the woman. The child rolled on the pavement.
The other soldier said, "At the child!" And he killed the child.
A man of high scientific repute, Dr. Germain Sée, declares that in one
house alone, the establishment of the Jouvence Baths, there were at six
o'clock, beneath a shed in the courtyard, about eighty wounded, nearly
all of whom (seventy, at least) were old men, women, and children. Dr.
Sée was the first to attend to them.
In the Rue Mandar, there was, stated an eye-witness, "a rosary of
corpses," reaching as far as the Rue Neuve Saint Eustache. Before the
house of Odier twenty-six corpses. Thirty before the hotel Montmorency.
Fifty-two before the Variétés, of whom eleven were women. In the Rue
Grange-Batelière there were three naked corpses. No. 19, Faubourg
Montmartre, was full of dead and wounded.
A woman, flying and maddened, with dishevelled hair and her arms raised
aloft, ran along the Rue Poissonnière, crying, "They kill! they kill!
they kill! they kill! they kill!"
The soldiers wagered. "Bet you I bring down that fellow there." In this
manner Count Poninsky was killed whilst going into his own house, 52,
Rue de la Paix.
I was anxious to know what I ought to do. Certain treasons, in order to
be proved, need to be investigated. I went to the field of murder.
In such mental agony as this, from very excess of feeling one no longer
thinks, or if one thinks, it is distractedly. One only longs for some
end or other. The death of others instills in you so much horror that
your own death becomes an object of desire; that is to say, if by dying,
you would be in some degree useful! One calls to mind deaths which have
put an end to angers and to revolts. One only retains this ambition, to
be a useful corpse.
I walked along terribly thoughtful.
I went towards the boulevards; I saw there a furnace; I heard there a
thunderstorm.
I saw Jules Simon coming up to me, who during these disastrous days
bravely risked a precious life. He stopped me. "Where are you going?" he
asked me. "You will be killed. What do you want?" "That very thing,"
said I.
We shook hands.
I continued to go on.
I reached the boulevard; the scene was indescribable. I witnessed this
crime, this butchery, this tragedy. I saw that reign of blind death, I
saw the distracted victims fall around me in crowds. It is for this that
I have signed myself in this book AN EYE-WITNESS.
Destiny entertains a purpose. It watches mysteriously over the future
historian. It allows him to mingle with exterminations and carnages, but
it does not permit him to die, because it wishes him to relate them.
In the midst of this inexpressible Pandemonium, Xavier Durrieu met me as
I was crossing the bullet-swept boulevard. He said to me, "Ah, here you
are. I have just met Madame D. She is looking for you." Madame D.[24]
and Madame de la R.,[25] two noble and brave women, had promised Madame
Victor Hugo, who was ill in bed, to ascertain where I was, and to give
her some news of me. Madame D. had heroically ventured into this carnage.
The following incident happened to her. She stopped before a heap of
bodies, and had had the courage to manifest her indignation; at the cry
of horror to which she gave vent, a cavalry soldier had run up behind
her with a pistol in his hand, and had it not been for a quickly opened
door through which she threw herself, and which saved her, she would
have been killed.
It is well known that the total slaughter in this butchery is
unrecorded. Bonaparte has kept these figures hidden in darkness. Such is
the habit of those who commit massacres. They are scarcely likely to
allow history to certify the number of the victims. These statistics are
an obscure multitude which quickly lose themselves in the gloom. One of
the two colonels of whom we have had a glimpse in pages 223-225 of this
work, has stated that his regiment alone had killed "at least 2,500
persons." This would be more than one person per soldier. We believe
that this zealous colonel exaggerates. Crime sometimes boasts of its
blackness.
Lireux, a writer, arrested in order to be shot, and who escaped by a
miracle, declares that he saw "more than 800 corpses."
Towards four o'clock the post-chaises which were in the courtyard of the
Elysée were unhorsed and put up.
This extermination, which an English witness, Captain William Jesse,
calls "a wanton fusillade," lasted from two till five o'clock. During
these three terrible hours, Louis Bonaparte carried out what he had been
premeditating, and completed his work. Up to that time the poor little
"middle-class" conscience was almost indulgent. Well, what of it? It was
a game at Prince, a species of state swindling, a conjuring feat on a
large scale; the sceptics and the knowing men said, "It is a good joke
played upon those idiots." Suddenly Louis Bonaparte grew uneasy and
revealed all his policy. "Tell Saint-Arnaud to execute my orders."
Saint-Arnaud obeyed, the _coup d'état_ acted according to its own code
of laws, and from that appalling moment an immense torrent of blood
began to flow across this crime.
They left the corpses lying on the pavements, wild-looking, livid,
stupefied, with their pockets turned inside out. The military murderer
is thus condemned to mount the villainous scale of guilt. In the morning
an assassin, in the evening a thief.
When night came enthusiasm and joy reigned at the Elysée. These men
triumphed. Conneau has ingeniously related the scene. The familiar
spirits were delirious with joy. Fialin addressed Bonaparte in
hail-fellow-well-met style. "You had better break yourself of that,"
whispered Vieillard. In truth this carnage made Bonaparte Emperor. He
was now "His Majesty." They drank, they smoked like the soldiers on the
boulevards; for having slaughtered throughout the day, they drank
throughout the night; wine flowed upon the blood. At the Elysée they
were amazed at the result. They were enraptured; they loudly expressed
their admiration. "What a capital idea the Prince had had! How well the
thing had been managed! This was much better than flying the country, by
Dieppe, like D'Haussez; or by Membrolle, like Guernon-Ranville; or being
captured, disguised as a footboy, and blacking the boots of Madame de
Saint Fargeau, like poor Polignac!" "Guizot was no cleverer than
Polignac," exclaimed Persigny. Fleury turned to Morny: "Your theorists
would not have succeeded in a _coup d'état_." "That is true, they were
not particularly vigorous," answered Morny. He added, "And yet they were
clever men,--Louis Philippe, Guizot, Thiers--" Louis Bonaparte, taking
his cigarette from his lips, interrupted, "If such are clever men, I
would rather be an ass--"
"A hyena in an ass's skin," says History.
[24] No. 20, Cité Rodier.
[25] Rue Caumartin. See pages 142, 145-148.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE APPOINTMENT MADE WITH THE WORKMEN'S SOCIETIES
What had become of our Committee during these tragic events, and what
was it doing? It is necessary to relate what took place.
Let us go back a few hours.
At the moment when this strange butchery began, the seat of the
Committee was still in the Rue Richelieu. I had gone back to it after
the exploration which I had thought it proper to make at several of the
quarters in insurrection, and I gave an account of what I had seen to my
colleagues. Madier de Montjau, who also arrived from the barricades,
added to my report details of what he had seen. For some time we heard
terrible explosions, which appeared to be close by, and which mingled
themselves with our conversation. Suddenly Versigny came in. He told us
that horrible events were taking place on the Boulevards; that the
meaning of the conflict could not yet be ascertained, but that they were
cannonading, and firing volleys of musket-balls, and that the corpses
bestrewed the pavement; that, according to all appearances, it was a
massacre,--a sort of Saint Bartholomew improvised by the coup d'état;
that they were ransacking the houses at a few steps from us, and that
they were killing every one. The murderers were going from door to door,
and were drawing near. He urged us to leave Grévy's house without delay.
It was manifest that the Insurrectionary Committee would be a "find" for
the bayonets. We decided to leave, whereupon M. Dupont White, a man
distinguished for his noble character and his talent, offered us a
refuge at his house, 11, Rue Monthabor. We went out by the back-door of
Grévy's house, which led into 1, Rue Fontaine Molière, but leisurely,
and two by two, Madier de Montjau with Versigny, Michel de Bourges with
Carnot, myself arm-in-arm with Jules Favre. Jules Favre, dauntless and
smiling as ever, wrapped a comforter over his mouth, and said, "I do not
much mind being shot, but I do mind catching cold."
Jules Favre and I reached the rear of Saint Roch, by the Rue des
Moulins. The Rue Veuve Saint Roch was thronged with a mass of affrighted
passers-by, who came from the Boulevards flying rather than walking. The
men were talking in a loud voice, the women screaming. We could hear the
cannon and the ear-piercing rattle of the musketry. All the shops were
being shut. M. de Falloux, arm-in-arm with M. Albert de Rességuier, was
striding down the Rue de Saint Roch and hurrying to the Rue Saint
Honoré. The Rue Saint Honoré presented a scene of clamorous agitation.
People were coming and going, stopping, questioning one another,
running. The shopkeepers, at the threshold of their half-opened doors,
asked the passers-by what was taking place, and were only answered by
this cry, "Oh, my God!" People came out of their houses bareheaded and
mingled with the crowd. A fine rain was falling. Not a carriage in the
street. At the corner of the Rue Saint Roch and Rue Saint Honoré we
heard voices behind us saying, "Victor Hugo is killed."
"Not yet," said Jules Favre, continuing to smile, and pressing my arm.
They had said the same thing on the preceding day to Esquiros and to
Madier de Montjau. And this rumor, so agreeable to the Reactionaries,
had even reached my two sons, prisoners in the Concièrgerie.
The stream of people driven back from the Boulevards and from the Rue
Richelieu flowed towards the Rue de la Paix. We recognized there some of
the Representatives of the Right who had been arrested on the 2d, and
who were already released. M. Buffet, an ex-minister of M. Bonaparte,
accompanied by numerous other members of the Assembly, was going towards
the Palais Royal. As he passed close by us he pronounced the name of
Louis Bonaparte in a tone of execration.
M. Buffet is a man of some importance; he is one of the three political
advisers of the Right; the two others are M. Fould and M. Molé.
In the Rue Monthabor, two steps from the Rue Saint Honoré, there was
silence and peace. Not one passer-by, not a door open, not a head out of
window.
In the apartment into which we were conducted, on the third story, the
calm was not less perfect. The windows looked upon an inner courtyard.
Five or six red arm-chairs were drawn up before the fire; on the table
could be seen a few books which seemed to me works on political economy
and executive law. The Representatives, who almost immediately joined us
and who arrived in disorder, threw down at random their umbrellas and
their coats streaming with water in the corner of this peaceful room. No
one knew exactly what was happening; every one brought forward his
conjectures.
The Committee was hardly seated in an adjoining little room when our
ex-colleague, Leblond, was announced. He brought with him King the
delegate of the working-men's societies. The delegate told us that the
committee of the societies were sitting in permanent session, and had
sent him to us. According to the instructions of the Insurrectionary
Committee, they had done what they could to lengthen the struggle by
evading too decisive encounters. The greater part of the associations
had not yet given battle; nevertheless the plot was thickening. The
combat had been severe during the morning. The Association of the Rights
of Man was in the streets; the ex-constituent Beslay had assembled, in
the Passage du Caire, six or seven hundred workmen from the Marais, and
had posted them in the streets surrounding the Bank. New barricades
would probably be constructed during the evening, the forward movement
of the resistance was being precipitated, the hand-to-hand struggle
which the Committee had wished to delay seemed imminent, all was rushing
forward with a sort of irresistible impulse. Should we follow it, or
should we stop? Should we run the risk of bringing matters to an end
with one blow, which should be the last, and which would manifestly
leave one adversary on the ground--either the Empire or the Republic?
The workmen's societies asked for our instructions; they still held in
reserve their three or four thousand combatants; and they could,
according to the order which the Committee should give them, either
continue to restrain them or send them under fire without delay. They
believed themselves curtain of their adherents; they would do whatever
we should decide upon, while not hiding from us that the workmen wished
for an immediate conflict, and that it would be somewhat hazardous to
leave them time to become calm.
The majority of the members of the Committee were still in favor of a
certain slackening of action which should tend to prolong the struggle;
and it was difficult to say that they were in the wrong. It was certain
that if they could protract the situation in which the _coup d'état_ had
thrown Paris until the next week, Louis Bonaparte was lost. Paris does
not allow herself to be trampled upon by an army for a whole week.
Nevertheless, I was for my own part impressed with the following:--The
workmen's societies offered us three or four thousand combatants, a
powerful assistance;--the workman does not understand strategy, he lives
on enthusiasm, abatements of ardor discourage him; his zeal is not
extinguished, but it cools:--three thousand to-day would be five hundred
to-morrow. And then some serious incident had just taken place on the
Boulevards. We were still ignorant of what it actually was: we could not
foresee what consequences it might bring about; but seemed to me
impossible that the still unknown, but yet violent event, which had just
taken place would not modify the situation, and consequently change our
plan of battle. I began to speak to this effect. I stated that we ought
to accept the offer of the associations, and to throw them at once into
the struggle; I added that revolutionary warfare often necessitates
sudden changes of tactics, that a general in the open country and before
the enemy operates as he wishes; it is all clear around him; he knows
the effective strength of his soldiers, the number of his regiments; so
many men, so many horses, so many cannons, he knows his strength, and
the strength of his enemy, he chooses his hour and his ground, he has a
map under his eyes, he sees what he is doing. He is sure of his
reserves, he possesses them, he keeps them back, he utilizes them when
he wishes, he always has them by him. "But for ourselves," cried I, "we
are in an undefined and inconceivable position. We are stepping at a
venture upon unknown risks. Who is against us? We hardly know. Who is
with us? We are ignorant. How many soldiers? How many guns? How many
cartridges? Nothing! but the darkness. Perhaps the entire people,
perhaps no one. Keep a reserve! But who would answer for this reserve?
It is an army to-day, it will be a handful of dust to-morrow. We only
can plainly distinguish our duty, as regards all the rest it is black
darkness. We are guessing at everything. We are ignorant of everything.
We are fighting a blind battle! Let us strike all the blows that can be
struck, let us advance straight before us at random, let us rush upon
the danger! And let us have faith, for as we are Justice and the Law,
God must be with us in this obscurity. Let us accept this glorious and
gloomy enterprise of Right disarmed yet still fighting."
The ex-constituent Leblond and the delegate King being consulted by the
Committee, seconded my advice. The Committee decided that the societies
should be requested in our name to come down into the streets
immediately, and to call out their forces. "But we are keeping nothing
for to-morrow," objected a member of the Committee, "what ally shall we
have to-morrow?" "Victory," said Jules Favre. Carnot and Michel de
Bourges remarked that it would be advisable for those members of the
association who belonged to the National Guard to wear their uniforms.
This was accordingly settled.
The delegate King rose,--"Citizen Representatives," said he, "these
orders will be immediately transmitted, our friends are ready, in a few
hours they will assemble. To-night barricades and the combat!"
I asked him, "Would it be useful to you if a Representative, a member of
the Committee, were with you to-night with his sash girded?"
"Doubtless," he answered.
"Well, then," resumed I, "here I am! Take me."
"We will all go," exclaimed Jules Favre.
The delegate observed that it would suffice for one of us to be there at
the moment when the societies should make their appearance, and that he
could then notify the other members of the Committee to come and join
him. It was settled that as soon as the places of meeting and the
rallying-points should be agreed upon, he would send some one to let me
know, and to take me wherever the societies might be. "Before an hour's
time you shall hear from me," said he on leaving us.
As the delegates were going away Mathieu de la Drôme arrived. On coming
in he halted on the threshold of the door, he was pale, he cried out to
us, "You are no longer in Paris, you are no longer under the Republic;
you are in Naples and under King Bomba."
He had come from the boulevards.
Later on I again saw Mathieu de la Drôme. I said to him, "Worse than
Bomba,--Satan."
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE VERIFICATION OF MORAL LAWS
The carnage of the Boulevard Montmartre constitutes the originality of
the _coup d'état_. Without this butchery the 2d of December would only
be an 18th Brumaire. Owing to the massacre Louis Bonaparte escapes the
charge of plagiarism.
Up to that time he had only been an imitator. The little hat at Boulogne,
the gray overcoat, the tame eagle appeared grotesque. What did this parody
mean? people asked. He made them laugh; suddenly he made
them tremble.
He who becomes detestable ceases to be ridiculous.
Louis Bonaparte was more than detestable, he was execrable.
He envied the hugeness of great crimes; he wished to equal the worst.
This striving after the horrible has given him a special place to
himself in the menagerie of tyrants. Petty rascality trying to emulate
deep villainy, a little Nero swelling himself to a huge Lacénaire; such
is this phenomenon. Art for art, assassination for assassination.
Louis Bonaparte has created a special genus.
It was in this manner that Louis Bonaparte made his entry into the
Unexpected. This revealed him.
Certain brains are abysses. Manifestly for a long time past Bonaparte
had harbored the design of assassinating in order to reign.
Premeditation haunts criminals, and it is in this manner that treason
begins. The crime is a long time present in them, but shapeless and
shadowy, they are scarcely conscious of it; souls only blacken
gradually. Such abominable deeds are not invented in a moment; they do
not attain perfection at once and at a single bound; they increase and
ripen, shapeless and indecisive, and the centre of the ideas in which
they exist keeps them living, ready for the appointed day, and vaguely
terrible. This design, the massacre for a throne, we feel sure, existed
for a long time in Louis Bonaparte's mind. It was classed among the
possible events of this soul. It darted hither and thither like a
_larva_ in an aquarium, mingled with shadows, with doubts, with desires,
with expedients, with dreams of one knows not what Caesarian socialism,
like a Hydra dimly visible in a transparency of chaos. Hardly was he
aware that he was fostering this hideous idea. When he needed it, he
found it, armed and ready to serve him. His unfathomable brain had
darkly nourished it. Abysses are the nurseries of monsters.
Up to this formidable day of the 4th December, Louis Bonaparte did not
perhaps quite know himself. Those who studied this curious Imperial
animal did not believe him capable of such pure and simple ferocity.
They saw in him an indescribable mongrel, applying the talents of a
swindler to the dreams of an Empire, who, even when crowned, would be a
thief, who would say of a parricide, What roguery! Incapable of gaining
a footing on any height, even of infamy, always remaining half-way
uphill, a little above petty rascals, a little below great malefactors.
They believed him clever at effecting all that is done in gambling-hells
and in robbers' caves, but with this transposition, that he would cheat
in the caves, and that he would assassinate in the gambling-hells.
The massacre of the Boulevards suddenly unveiled this spirit. They saw it
such as it really was: the ridiculous nicknames "Big-beak," "Badinguet,"
vanished; they saw the bandit, they saw the true _contraffatto_ hidden
under the false Bonaparte.
There was a shudder! It was this then which this man held in reserve!
Apologies have been attempted, they could but fail. It is easy to praise
Bonaparte, for people have praised Dupin; but it is an exceedingly
complicated operation to cleanse him. What is to be done with the 4th
of December? How will that difficulty be surmounted? It is far more
troublesome to justify than to glorify; the sponge works with greater
difficulty than the censer; the panegyrists of the _coup d'état_ have
lost their labor. Madame Sand herself, although a woman of lofty
intellect, has failed miserably in her attempt to rehabilitate
Bonaparte, for the simple reason that whatever one may do, the
death-roll reappears through this whitewashing.
No! no! no extenuation whatever is possible. Unfortunate Bonaparte. The
blood is drawn. It must be drunk.
The deed of the 4th of December is the most colossal dagger-thrust that
a brigand let loose upon civilization has ever effected, we will not say
upon a people, but upon the entire human race. The stroke was most
monstrous, and struck Paris to the ground. Paris on the ground is
Conscience, is Reason, is all human liberty on the ground; it is the
progress of centuries lying on the pavement; it is the torch of Justice,
of Truth, and of Life reversed and extinguished. This is what Louis
Bonaparte effected the day when he effected this.
The success of the wretch was complete. The 2d of December was lost;
the 4th of December saved the 2d of December. It was something like
Erostratus saving Judas. Paris understood that all had not yet been told
as regards deeds of horror, and that beneath the oppressor there was the
garbage-picker. It was the case of a swindler stealing César's mantle.
This man was little, it is true, but terrifying. Paris consented to this
terror, renounced the right to have the last word, went to bed and
simulated death. Suffocation had its share in the matter. This crime
resembled, too, no previous achievements. Even after centuries have
passed, and though he should be an Aeschylus or a Tacitus, any one
raising the cover would smell the stench. Paris resigned herself, Paris
abdicated, Paris surrendered; the novelty of the treason proved its
chief strength; Paris almost ceased to be Paris; on the next day the
chattering of this terrified Titan's teeth could be heard in the
shadows.
Let us lay a stress upon this, for we must verify the laws of morality.
Louis Bonaparte remained, even after the 4th of December, Napoleon the
Little. This enormity still left him a dwarf. The size of the crime does
not change the stature of the criminal, and the pettiness of the
assassin withstands the immensity of the assassination.
Be that as it may, the Pigmy had the better of the Colossus. This
avowal, humiliating as it is, cannot be evaded.
Such are the blushes to which History, that greatly dishonored one, is
condemned.
THE FOURTH DAY--THE VICTORY.
CHAPTER I.
WHAT HAPPENED DURING THE NIGHT--THE RUE TIQUETONNE
Just as Mathieu de la Drôme had said, "You are under King Bomba,"
Charles Gambon entered. He sank down upon a chair and muttered, "It is
horrible." Bancel followed him. "We have come from it," said Bancel.
Gambon had been able to shelter himself in the recess of a doorway. In
front of Barbedienne's alone he had counted thirty-seven corpses. What
was the meaning of it all? To what purpose was this monstrous
promiscuous murder? No one could understand it. The Massacre was a
riddle.
We were in the Sphinx's Grotto.
Labrousse came in. It was urgently necessary that we should leave Dupont
White's house. It was on the point of being surrounded. For some moments
the Rue Monthabor, ordinarily so deserted, was becoming thronged with
suspicious figures. Men seemed to be attentively watching number Eleven.
Some of these men, who appeared to be acting in concert, belonged to the
ex-"Club of Clubs," which, owing to the manoeuvres of the Reactionists,
exhaled a vague odor of the police. It was necessary that we should
disperse. Labrousse said to us, "I have just seen Longe-pied roving
about."
We separated. We went away one by one, and each in his own direction. We
did not know where we should meet again, or whether we should meet
again. What was going to happen and what was about to become of us all?
No one knew. We were filled with a terrible dread.
I turned up towards the Boulevards, anxious to see what was taking
place.
What was taking place I have just related.
Bancel and Versigny had rejoined me.
As I left the Boulevards, mingled with the whirl of the terrified crowd,
not knowing where I was going, returning towards the centre of Paris, a
voice suddenly whispered in my ear, "There is something over there which
you ought to see." I recognized the voice. It was the voice of E.P.
E.P. is a dramatic author, a man of talent, for whom under Louis
Philippe I had procured exemption from military service. I had not seen
him for four or five years. I met him again in this tumult. He spoke to
me as though we had seen each other yesterday. Such are these times of
bewilderment. There is no time to greet each other "according to the
rules of society." One speaks as though all were in full flight.
"Ah! it is you!" I exclaimed. "What do you want with me?"
He answered me, "I live in a house over there."
And he added,-
"Come."
He drew me into a dark street. We could hear explosions. At the bottom
of the street could be seen the ruins of a barricade. Versigny and
Bancel, as I have just said, were with me. E.P. turned to them.
"These gentlemen can come," said he.
I asked him,--
"What street is this?"
"The Rue Tiquetonne."
We followed him.
I have elsewhere told this tragical event.[26]
E.P. stopped before a tall and gloomy house. He pushed open a
street-door which was not shut, then another door and we entered into a
parlor perfectly quiet and lighted by a lamp.
This room appeared to adjoin a shop. At the end could be distinguished
two beds side by side, one large and one small. Above the little bed
hung a woman's portrait, and above the portrait a branch of holy
box-tree.
The lamp was placed over the fireplace, where a little fire was burning.
Near the lamp upon a chair there was an old woman leaning forward,
stooping down, folded in two as though broken, over something which was
in the shadow, and which she held in her arms. I drew near. That which
she held in her arms was a dead child.
The poor woman was silently sobbing.
E.P., who belonged to the house, touched her on the shoulder, and
said,--
"Let us see it."
The old woman raised her head, and I saw on her knees a little boy, pale,
half-undressed, pretty, with two red holes in his forehead.
The old woman stared at me, but she evidently did not see me, she
muttered, speaking to herself,--
"And to think that he called me 'Granny' this morning!"
E.P. took the child's hand, the hand fell back again.
"Seven years old," he said to me.
A basin was on the ground. They had washed the child's face; two tiny
streams of blood trickled from the two holes.
At the end of the room, near a half-opened clothes-press, in which could
be seen some linen, stood a woman of some forty years, grave, poor, clean,
fairly good-looking.
"A neighbor," E.P. said to me.
He explained to me that a doctor lived in the house, that the doctor had
come down and had said, "There is nothing to be done." The child had
been hit by two balls in the head while crossing the street to "get out
of the way." They had brought him back to his grandmother, who "had no
one left but him."
The portrait of the dead mother hung above the little bed.
The child had his eyes half open, and that inexpressible gaze of the
dead, where the perception of the real is replaced by the vision of the
infinite. The grandmother spoke through her sobs by snatches: "God! is
it possible? Who would have thought it?--What brigands!"
She cried out,--
"Is this then the Government?"
"Yes," I said to her.
We finished undressing the child. He had a top in his pocket. His head
rolled from one shoulder to the other; I held him and I kissed him on
the brow; Versigny and Bancel took off his stockings. The grandmother
suddenly started up.
"Do not hurt him!" she cried.
She took the two little white and frozen feet in her old hands, trying
to warm them.
When the poor little body was naked, they began to lay it out. They took
a sheet from the clothes-press.
Then the grandmother burst into bitter lamentation.
She cried out,--
"They shall give him back to me!"
She drew herself up and gazed at us, and began to pour forth incoherent
utterances, in which were mingled Bonaparte, and God, and her little
one, and the school to which he went, and her daughter whom she had
lost, and even reproaches to us. She was livid, haggard, as though
seeing a vision before her, and was more of a phantom than the dead
child.
Then she again buried her face in her hands, placed her folded arms on
her child, and once more began to sob.
The woman who was there came up to me, and without saying a word, wiped
my mouth with a handkerchief. I had blood upon my lips.
What could be done? Alas! We went out overwhelmed.
It was quite dark. Bancel and Versigny left me.
[26] "Les Châtiments."
CHAPTER II.
WHAT HAPPENED DURING THE NIGHT--THE MARKET QUARTER
I came back to my lodging, 19, Rue Richelieu.
The massacre seemed to be at an end; the fusillades were heard no
longer. As I was about to knock at the door I hesitated for a moment; a
man was there who seemed to be waiting. I went straight up to this man,
and I said to him,--
"You seem to be waiting for somebody?"
He answered,--
"Yes."
"For whom?"
"For you."
And he added, lowering his voice, "I have come to speak to you."
I looked at this man. A street-lamp shone on him. He did not avoid the
light.
He was a young man with a fair beard, wearing a blue blouse, and who had
the gentle bearing of a thinker and the robust hands of a workman.
"Who are you?" I asked him.
He answered,--"I belong to the Society of the Last-makers. I know you
very well, Citizen Victor Hugo."
"From whom do you come?" I resumed.
He answered still in a whisper,--
"From Citizen King."
"Very good," said I.
He then told me his name. As he has survived the events of the night of
the 4th, and as he since escaped the denunciations, it can be understood
that we will not mention his name here, and that we shall confine
ourselves to terming him throughout the course of this story by his
trade, calling him the "last-maker."[27]
"What do you want to say to me?" I asked him.
He explained that matters were not hopeless, that he and his friends
meant to continue the resistance, that the meeting-places of the
Societies had not yet been settled, but that they would be during the
evening, that my presence was desired, and that if I would be under the
Colbert Arcade at nine o'clock, either himself or another of their men
would be there, and would serve me as guide. We decided that in order to
make himself known, the messenger, when accosting me, should give the
password, "What is Joseph doing?"
I do not know whether he thought he noticed any doubt or mistrust on my
part. He suddenly interrupted himself, and said,--
"After all, you are not bound to believe me. One does not think of
everything: I ought to have asked them to give me a word in writing. At
a time like this one distrusts everybody."
"On the contrary," I said to him, "one trusts everybody. I will be in
the Colbert Arcade at nine o'clock."
And I left him.
I re-entered my asylum. I was tired, I was hungry, I had recourse to
Charamaule's chocolate and to a small piece of bread which I had still
left. I sank down into an arm-chair, I ate and I slept. Some slumbers
are gloomy. I had one of those slumbers, full of spectres; I again saw
the dead child and the two red holes in his forehead, these formed two
mouths: one said "Morny," and the other "Saint-Arnaud." History is not
made, however, to recount dreams. I will abridge. Suddenly I awoke. I
started: "If only it is not past nine o'clock!" I had forgotten to wind
up my watch. It had stopped. I went out hastily. The street was lonely,
the shops were shut. In the Place Louvos I heard the hour striking
(probably from Saint Roch); I listened. I counted nine strokes. In a few
moments I was under the Colbert Arcade. I peered into the darkness. No
one was under the Arcade.
I felt that it was impossible to remain there, and have the appearance
of waiting about; near the Colbert Arcade there is a police-station, and
the patrols were passing every moment. I plunged into the street. I
found no one there. I went as far as the Rue Vivienne. At the corner of
the Rue Vivienne a man was stopping before a placard and was trying to
deface it or to tear it down. I drew near this man, who probably took me
for a police agent, and who fled at the top of his speed. I retraced my
steps. Near the Colbert Arcade, and just as I reached the point in the
street where they post the theatrical bills, a workman passed me, and
said quickly, "What is Joseph doing?"
I recognized the last-maker.
"Come," he said to me.
We set out without speaking and without appearing to know each other, he
walking some steps before me.
We first went to two addresses, which I cannot mention here without
pointing out victims for the proscription. In these two houses we got no
news; no one had come there on the part of the societies.
"Let us go to the third place," said the last-maker, and he explained to
me that they had settled among them three successive meeting-places, in
case of need, so as to be always sure of finding each other if,
perchance, the police discovered the first or even the second
meeting-place, a precaution which for our part we adopted as much as
possible with regard to our meetings of the Left end of the Committee.
We had reached the market quarter. Fighting had been going on there
throughout the day. There were no longer any gas-lamps in the streets.
We stopped from time to time, and listened so as not to run headlong
into the arms of a patrol. We got over a paling of planks almost
completely destroyed, and of which barricades had probably been made,
and we crossed the extensive area of half-demolished houses which at
that epoch encumbered the lower portions of the Rue Montmartre and Rue
Montorgueil. On the peaks of the high dismantled gables could be seen a
flickering red glow, doubtless the reflection of the bivouac-fires of the
soldiers encamped in the markets and in the neighborhood of Saint
Eustache. This reflection lighted our way. The last-maker, however,
narrowly escaped falling into a deep hole, which was no less than the
cellar of a demolished house. On coming out of this region, covered with
ruins, amongst which here and there a few trees might be perceived, the
remains of gardens which had now disappeared, we entered into narrow,
winding, and completely dark streets, where it was impossible to
recognize one's whereabouts. Nevertheless the last-maker walked on as
much at his ease as in broad daylight, and like a man who is going
straight to his destination. Once he turned round to me, and said to
me,--
"The whole of this quarter is barricaded; and if, as I hope, our friends
come down, I will answer that they will hold it for a long time."
Suddenly he stopped. "Here is one," said he. In truth, seven or eight
paces before us was a barricade entirely constructed of paving-stones,
not exceeding a man's height, and which in the darkness appeared like a
ruined wall. A narrow passage had been formed at one end. We passed
through it. There was no one behind the barricade.
"There has already been fighting here a short time ago," said the
last-maker in a low voice; and he added, after a pause, "We are getting
near."
The unpaving had left holes, of which we had to be careful. We strode,
and sometimes jumped, from paving-stone to paving-stone. Notwithstanding
the intense darkness, there yet hovered about an indefinable glimmer; on
our way we noticed before us on the ground, close to the foot-pavement,
something which looked like a stretched-out form. "The devil!" muttered
my guide, "we were just going to walk upon it." He took a little wax
match from his pocket and struck it on his sleeve; the flame flashed
out. The light fell upon a pallid face, which looked at us with fixed
eyes. It was a corpse lying there; it was an old man. The last-maker
rapidly waved the match from his head to his feet. The dead man was
almost in the attitude of a crucified man; his two arms were stretched
out; his white hair, red at the ends, was soaking in the mud; a pool of
blood was beneath him; a large blackish patch on his waistcoat marked
the place where the ball had pierced his breast; one of his braces was
undone; he had thick laced boots on his feet. The last-maker lifted up
one of his arms, and said, "His collar-bone is broken." The movement
shook the head, and the open mouth turned towards us as though about to
speak to us. I gazed at this vision; I almost listened. Suddenly it
disappeared.
This face re-entered the gloom; the match had just gone out.
We went away in silence. After walking about twenty paces, the
last-maker, as though talking to himself, said in a whisper, "Don't know
him."
We still pushed forward. From the cellars to the roofs, from the
ground-floors to the garrets, there was not a light in the house. We
appeared to be groping in an immense tomb.
A man's voice, firm and sonorous, suddenly issued out of the darkness,
and shouted to us, "Who goes there?"
"Ah, there they are!" said the last-maker, and he uttered a peculiar
whistle.
"Come on," resumed the voice.
It was another barricade. This one, a little higher than the first, and
separated from it by a distance of about a hundred paces, was, as far as
could be seen, constructed of barrels filled with paving-stones. On the
top could be seen the wheels of a truck entangled between the barrels;
planks and beams were intermingled. A passage had been contrived still
narrower than the gangway of the other barricade.
"Citizens," said the last-maker, as he went into the barricade, "how
many of you are there here?"
The voice which had shouted, "Who goes there?" answered,--
"There are two of us."
"Is that all?"
"That is all."
They were in truth two,--two men who alone during that night, in that
solitary street, behind that heap of paving-stones, awaited the
onslaught of a regiment.
Both wore blouses; they were two workmen; with a few cartridges in their
pockets, and a musket upon each of their shoulders.
"So then," resumed the last-maker, in an impatient tone, "our friends
have not yet come!"
"Well, then," I said to him, "let us wait for them."
The last-maker spoke for a short time in a low tone, and probably told
my name to one of the two defenders of the barricade, who came up to me
and saluted me. "Citizen Representative," said he, "it will be very warm
here shortly."
"In the meantime," answered I laughingly, "it is cold."
It was very cold, in truth. The street which was completely unpaved
behind the barricade, was nothing better than a sewer, ankle deep in
water.
"I say that it will be warm," resumed the workman, "and that you would
do well to go farther off."
The last-maker put his hand on his shoulder: "Comrade, it is necessary
that we should remain here. The meeting-place is close by, in the
ambulance."
"All the same," resumed the other workman, who was very short, and who
stood up on a paving-stone; "the Citizen Representative would do well to
go farther off."
"I can very well be where you are," said I to him.
The street was quite dark, nothing could be seen of the sky. Inside the
barricade on the left, on the side where the passage was, could be seen
a high paling of badly joined planks, through which shone in places a
feeble light. Above the paling rose out, lost in the darkness, a house
of six or seven storys; the ground floor, which was being repaired, and
which was under-pinned, being closed in by these planks. A ray of light
issuing from between the planks fell on the opposite wall, and lighted
up an old torn placard, on which could be read, "Asnières. Water
tournaments. Grand ball."
"Have you another gun?" asked the last-maker of the taller of the two
workmen.
"If we had three guns we should be three men," answered the workman.
The little one added, "Do you think that the good will is wanting? There
are plenty of musicians, but there are no clarionets."
By the side of the wooden paling could be seen a little, narrow and low
door, which looked more like the door of a stall than the door of a
shop. The shop to which this door belonged was hermetically sealed. The
door seemed to be equally closed. The last-maker went up to it and
pushed it gently. It was open.
"Let us go in," he said.
I went in first, he followed me, and shut the door behind me. We were in
a room on the ground floor. At the end, on the left, a half-opened door
emitted the reflection of a light. The room was only lighted by this
reflection. A counter and a species of stove, painted in black and
white, could be dimly distinguished.
A short, half-suffocated, intermittent gurgling could be heard, which
seemed to come from an adjoining room on the same side as the light. The
last-maker walked quickly to the half-opened door. I crossed the room
after him, and we found ourselves in a sort of vast shed, lighted by one
candle. We were on the other side of the plank paling. There was only
the plank paling between ourselves and the barricade.
This species of shed was the ground floor in course of demolition. Iron
columns, painted red, and fixed into stone sockets at short distances
apart, supported the joists of the ceiling; facing the street, a huge
framework standing erect, and denoting the centre of the surrounding
paling, supported the great cross-beam of the first story, that is to
say, supported the whole house. In a corner were lying some masons'
tools, a heap of rubbish, and a large double ladder. A few straw-bottomed
chairs were scattered here and there. The damp ground served for the
flooring. By the side of a table, on which stood a candle in the midst
of medicine bottles, an old woman and a young girl of about eight years
old--the woman seated, the child squatting before a great basketful of
old linen--were making lint. The end of the room, which was lost in the
darkness, was carpeted with a litter of straw, on which three mattresses
had been thrown. The gurgling noise came from there.
"It is the ambulance," said the last-maker.
The old woman turned her head, and seeing us, shuddered convulsively,
and then, reassured probably by the blouse of the last-maker, she got up
and came towards us.
The last-maker whispered a few words in her ear. She answered, "I have
seen nobody."
Then she added, "But what makes me uneasy is that my husband has not yet
come back. They have done nothing but fire muskets the whole evening."
Two men were lying on two of the mattresses at the end of the room. A
third mattress was unoccupied and was waiting.
The wounded man nearest to me had received a musket ball in his stomach.
He it was who was gurgling. The old woman came towards the mattress with
a candle, and whispered to us, showing us her fist, "If you could only
see the hole that that has made! We have stuffed lint as large as this
into his stomach."
She resumed, "He is not above twenty-five years old. He will be dead
to-morrow morning."
The other was still younger. He was hardly eighteen. "He has a handsome
black overcoat," said the woman. "He is most likely a student." The
young man had the whole of the lower part of his face swathed in
blood-stained linen. She explained to us that he had received a ball in
the mouth, which had broken his jaw. He was in a high fever, and gazed
at us with lustrous eyes. From time to time he stretched his right arm
towards a basin full of water in which a sponge was soaking; he took the
sponge, carried it to his face, and himself moistened his bandages.
It seemed to me that his gaze fastened upon me in a singular manner. I
went up to him, I stooped down, and I gave him my hand, which he took in
his own. "Do you know me?" I asked him. He answered "Yes," by a pressure
of the hand which went to my heart.
The last-maker said to me, "Wait a minute for me here, I shall be back
directly; I want to see in this neighborhood, if there is any means of
getting a gun."
He added,--
"Would you like one for yourself?"
"No," answered I. "I shall remain here without a gun. I only take a half
share in the civil war; I am willing to die, I am not willing to kill."
I asked him if he thought his friends were going to come. He declared
that he could not understand it, that the men from the societies ought
to have arrived already, that instead of two men in the barricade there
should be twenty, that instead of two barricades in the street there
should have been ten, and that something must have happened; he added,--
"However, I will go and see; promise to wait for me here."
"I promise you," I answered, "I will wait all night if necessary."
He left me.
The old woman had reseated herself near the little girl, who did not
seem to understand much of what was passing round her, and who from time
to time raised great calm eyes towards me. Both were poorly clad, and it
seemed to me that the child had stockingless feet. "My man has not yet
come back," said the old woman, "my poor man has not yet come back. I
hope nothing has happened to him!" With many heart-rending "My God's,"
and all the while quickly picking her lint, she wept. I could not help
thinking with anguish of the old man we had seen stretched on the
pavement at a few paces distant.
A newspaper was lying on the table. I took it up, and I unfolded it. It
was the _P----_, the rest of the title had been torn off. A
blood-stained hand was plainly imprinted on it. A wounded man on
entering had probably placed his hand on the table on the spot where the
newspaper lay. My eyes fell upon these lines:--
"M. Victor Hugo has just published an appeal to pillage and
assassination."
In these terms the journal of the Elysée described the proclamation
which I had dictated to Baudin, and which may be read in page 103 of
this History.
As I threw back the paper on the table one of the two defenders of the
barricade entered. It was the short man.
"A glass of water," said he. By the side of the medicine bottles there
was a decanter and a glass. He drank, greedily. He held in his hand a
morsel of bread and a sausage, which he was biting.
Suddenly we heard several successive explosions, following one after
another, and which seemed but a short distance off. In the silence of
this dark night it resembled the sound of a load of wood being shot on
to the pavement.
The calm and serious voice of the other combatant shouted from outside,
"It is beginning."
"Have I time to finish my bread?" asked the little one.
"Yes," said the other.
The little one then turned to me.
"Citizen Representative," said he to me, "those are volleys. They are
attacking the barricades over there. Really you must go away."
I answered him, "But you yourselves are going to stay here."
"As for us, we are armed," resumed he; "as for you, you are not. You
will only get yourself killed without benefiting any one. If you had a
gun, I should say nothing. But you have not. You must go away."
"I cannot," I answered him. "I am waiting for some one."
He wished to continue and to urge me. I pressed his hand.
"Let me do as I like," said I.
He understood that my duty was to remain, and no longer persisted.
There was a pause. He again began to bite his bread. The gurgling of the
dying man alone was audible. At that moment a sort of deep and hollow
booming reached us. The old woman started from her chair, muttering, "It
is the cannon!"
"No," said the little man, "it is the slamming of a street-door." Then
he resumed, "There now! I have finished my bread," and he dusted one
hand against the other, and went out.
In the meantime the explosions continued, and seemed to come nearer. A
noise sounded in the shop. It was the last-maker who was coming back. He
appeared on the threshold of the ambulance. He was pale.
"Here I am," said he, "I have come to fetch you. We must go home. Let us
be off at once."
I arose from the chair where I had seated myself. "What does this mean?
Will they not come?"
"No," he answered, "no one will come. All is at an end."
Then he hastily explained that he had gone through the whole of the
quarter in order to find a gun, that it was labor lost, that he had
spoken to "two or three," that we must abandon all hope of the
societies, _that they would not come down_, that what had been done
during the day had appalled every one, that the best men were terrified,
that the boulevards were "full of corpses," that the soldiers had
committed "horrors," that the barricade was about to be attacked, that
on his arrival he had heard the noise of footsteps in the direction of
the crossway, that it was the soldiers who were advancing, that we could
do nothing further there, that we must be off, that this house was
"stupidly chosen," that there was no outlet in the rear, that perhaps we
should already find it difficult to get out of the street, and that we
had only just time.
He told this all panting, briefly, jerkily, and interrupted at every
moment with this ejaculation, "And to think that they have no arms, and
to think that I have no gun!"
As he finished we heard from the barricade a shout of "Attention!" and
almost immediately a shot was fired.
A violent discharge replied to this shot.
Several balls struck the paling of the ambulance, but they were too
obliquely aimed, and none pierced it. We heard the glass of several
broken windows falling noisily into the street.
"There is no longer time," said the last-maker calmly; "the barricade is
attacked."
He took a chair and sat down. The two workmen were evidently excellent
marksmen. Two volleys assailed the barricade, one after the other. The
barricade answered with animation. Then the fire ceased. There was a
pause.
"Now they are coming at us with the bayonet! They are coming at the
double!" said a voice in the barricade.
The other voice said, "Let us be off." A last musket-shot was fired.
Then a violent blow which we interpreted as a warning shook our wooden
wall. It was in reality one of the workmen who had thrown down his gun
when going away; the gun in falling had struck the paling of the
ambulance. We heard the rapid steps of the two combatants, as they ran
off.
Almost at the same moment a tumult of voices, and of butt ends of
muskets striking the paving-stones, filled the barricade.
"It is taken," said the last-maker, and he blew out the candle.
To the silence which enveloped this street a moment before succeeded a
sort of ill-omened tumult. The soldiers knocked at the doors of the
houses with the butt-ends of their muskets. It was by a miracle that the
shop-door escaped them. If they had merely pushed against it, they would
have seen that it was not shut, and would have entered.
A voice, probably the voice of an officer, cried out, "Light up the
windows!" The soldiers swore. We heard them say, "Where are those
blackguard Reds? Let us search the houses." The ambulance was plunged in
darkness. Not a word was spoken, not a breath could be heard; even the
dying man, as though he divined the danger, had ceased to gurgle. I felt
the little girl pressing herself against my legs.
A soldier struck the barrels, and said laughingly,--
"Here is something to make a fire with to-night."
Another resumed,--
"Which way have they gone? They were at least thirty. Let us search the
houses."
We heard one raising objections to this,--
"Nonsense! What do you want to do on a night like this? Enter the houses
of the 'middle classes' indeed! There is some waste ground over yonder.
They have taken refuge there."
"All the same," repeated the others, "let us search the houses."
At this moment a musket-shot was fired from the end of the street.
This shot saved us.
In fact, it was probably one of the two workmen who had fired in order
to draw off their attention from us.
"That comes from over there," cried the soldiers, "They are over there!"
and all starting off at once in the direction from which the shot had
been fired, they left the barricade and ran down the street at the top
of their speed.
The last-maker and myself got up.
"They are no longer there," whispered he. "Quick! let us be off."
"But this poor woman," said I. "Are we going to leave her here?"
"Oh," she said, "do not be afraid, I have nothing to fear; as for me, I
am an ambulance. I am taking care of the wounded. I shall even relight
my candle when you are gone. What troubles me is that my poor husband
has not yet come back!"
We crossed the shop on tiptoe. The last-maker gently opened the door and
glanced out into the street. Some inhabitants had obeyed the order to
light up their windows, and four or five lighted candles here and there
flickered in the wind upon the sills of the windows. The street was no
longer completely dark.
"There is no one about now," said the last-maker; "but let us make
haste, for they will probably come back."
We went out: the old woman closed the door behind us, and we found
ourselves in the street. We got over the barricade and hurried away as
quickly as possible. We passed by the dead old man. He was still there,
lying on the pavement indistinctly revealed by the flickering glimmer
from the windows; he looked as though he was sleeping. As we reached the
second barricade we heard behind us the soldiers, who were returning.
We succeeded in regaining the streets in course of demolition. There we
were in safety. The sound of musketry still reached us. The last-maker
said, "They are fighting in the direction of the Rue de Cléry." Leaving
the streets in course of demolition, we went round the markets, not
without risk of falling into the hands of the patrols, by a number of
zigzags, and from one little street to another little street. We reached
the Rue Saint Honoré.
At the corner of the Rue de l'Arbre Sec the last-maker and I separated,
"For in truth," said he to me, "two run more danger than one." And I
regained No. 19, Rue Richelieu.
While crossing the rue des Bourdonnais we had noticed the bivouac of the
Place Saint Eustache. The troops who had been dispatched for the attack
had not yet come back. Only a few companies were guarding it. We could
hear shouts of laughter. The soldiers were warming themselves at large
fires lighted here and there. In the fire which was nearest to us we
could distinguish in the middle of the brazier the wheels of the
vehicles which had served for the barricades. Of some there only
remained a great hoop of red-hot iron.
[27] We may now, after twenty-six years, give the name of this loyal
and courageous man. His name was Galoy (and not Galloix, as certain
historians of the _coup d'état_ have printed it while recounting, after
their fashion, the incidents which we are about to read).
CHAPTER III.
WHAT HAPPENED DURING THE NIGHT.--THE PETIT CARREAU
On the same night, almost at the same moment, at a few paces distant, a
villainous deed was being perpetrated.
After the taking of the barricade, where Pierre Tissié was killed,
seventy or eighty combatants had retired in good order by the Rue Saint
Sauveur. They had reached the Rue Montorgueil, and had rejoined each
other at the junction of the Rue du Petit Carreau and the Rue du Cadran.
At this point the street rises. At the corner of the Rue du Petit
Carreau and the Rue de Cléry there was a deserted barricade, fairly high
and well built. There had been fighting there during the morning. The
soldiers had taken it, but had not demolished it. Why? As we have said,
there were several riddles of this nature during this day.
The armed band which came from the Rue Saint Denis had halted there and
had waited. These men were astonished at not being pursued. Had the
soldiers feared to follow them into the little narrow streets, where
each corner of the houses might conceal an ambuscade? Had a counter
order been given? They hazarded various conjectures. Moreover they heard
close by, evidently on the boulevard, a terrific noise of musketry, and
a cannonade which resembled continuous thunder. Having no more
ammunition, they were reduced to listen. If they had known what was
taking place there, they would have understood why they were not
pursued. The butchery of the boulevard was beginning. The generals
employed in the massacre had suspended fighting for awhile.
The fugitives of the boulevard streamed in their direction, but when
they perceived the barricade they turned back. Some, however, joined
them indignant, and crying out for vengeance. One who lived in the
neighborhood ran home and brought back a little tin barrel full of
cartridges.