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THE WORKS OF VICTOR HUGO
Handy Library Edition
NAPOLEON THE LITTLE
_THE WORKS OF VICTOR HUGO_
NAPOLEON THE LITTLE
_BOSTON_
_LITTLE, BROWN AND COMPANY_
_Copyright, 1909,_
By Little, Brown, and Company
CONTENTS
PAGE
BOOK I
I. December 20, 1848 1
II. Mission of the Representatives 10
III. Notice of Expiration of Term 12
IV. Men Will Awaken 17
V. Biography 22
VI. Portrait 26
VII. In Continuation of the Panegyrics 35
BOOK II
I. The Constitution 46
II. The Senate 49
III. The Council of State and the Corps
Législatif 52
IV. The Finances 55
V. The Liberty of the Press 57
VI. Novelties in Respect to What Is Lawful 60
VII. The Adherents 64
VIII. Meus Agitat Molem 69
IX. Omnipotence 76
X. The Two Profiles of M. Bonaparte 81
XI. Recapitulation 86
BOOK III
The Crime 96
The Coup d'État at Bay 98
BOOK IV
THE OTHER CRIMES
I. Sinister Questions 150
II. Sequel of the Crimes 159
III. What 1802 Would Have Been 175
IV. The Jacquerie 180
BOOK V
PARLIAMENTARISM
I. 1789 189
II. Mirabeau 191
III. The Tribune 193
IV. The Orators 196
V. Influence of Oratory 201
VI. What an Orator Is 203
VII. What the Tribune Accomplished 205
VIII. Parliamentarism 208
IX. The Tribune Destroyed 211
BOOK VI
THE ABSOLUTION: FIRST PHASE
I. The Absolution 214
II. The Diligence 215
III. Scrutiny of the Vote.--A Reminder of
Principles.--Facts 217
IV. Who Really Voted for M. Bonaparte 229
V. Concession 232
VI. The Moral Side of the Question 234
VII. An Explanation for M. Bonaparte's Benefit 238
VIII. Axioms 244
IX. Wherein M. Bonaparte Has Deceived Himself 246
BOOK VII
THE ABSOLUTION: SECOND PHASE: THE OATH
I. For an Oath, an Oath and a Half 251
II. Difference in Price 255
III. Oaths of Scientific and Literary Men 258
IV. Curiosities of the Business 261
V. The 5th of April, 1852 266
VI. Everywhere the Oath 272
BOOK VIII
PROGRESS CONTAINED IN THE COUP D'ÉTAT
I. The Quantum of Good Contained in Evil 275
II. The Four Institutions That Stand
Opposed to the Republic 280
III. Slow Movement of Normal Progress 282
IV. What an Assembly Would Have Done 285
V. What Providence Has Done 289
VI. What the Ministers, Army, Magistracy,
and Clergy Have Done< 291
VII. The Form of the Government of God 292
CONCLUSION--PART FIRST
PETTINESS OF THE MASTER--ABJECTNESS OF THE SITUATION
I. 293
II. 298
III. 301
CONCLUSION--PART SECOND
FAITH AND AFFLICTION
I. 315
II. 323
NAPOLEON THE LITTLE
BOOK I
I
DECEMBER 20, 1848
On Thursday, December 20, 1848, the Constituent Assembly, being in
session, surrounded at that moment by an imposing display of troops,
heard the report of the Representative Waldeck-Rousseau, read on behalf
of the committee which had been appointed to scrutinize the votes in
the election of President of the Republic; a report in which general
attention had marked this phrase, which embodied its whole idea: "It
is the seal of its inviolable authority which the nation, by this
admirable application of the fundamental law, itself affixes on the
Constitution, to render it sacred and inviolable." Amid the profound
silence of the nine hundred representatives, of whom almost the entire
number was assembled, the President of the National Constituent
Assembly, Armaud Marrast, rose and said:--
"In the name of the French people,
"Whereas Citizen Charles-Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, born at Paris,
fulfils the conditions of eligibility prescribed by Article 44 of the
Constitution;
"Whereas in the ballot cast throughout the extent of the territory of
the Republic, for the election of President, he has received an
absolute majority of votes;
"By virtue of Articles 47 and 48 of the Constitution, the National
Assembly proclaims him President of the Republic from this present day
until the second Sunday in May, 1852."
There was a general movement on all the benches, and in the galleries
filled with the public; the President of the Constituent Assembly
added:
"According to the terms of the decree, I invite the Citizen President
of the Republic to ascend the tribune, and to take the oath."
The representatives who crowded the right lobby returned to their
places and left the passage free. It was about four in the afternoon,
it was growing dark, and the immense hall of the Assembly having become
involved in gloom, the chandeliers were lowered from the ceiling, and
the messengers placed lamps on the tribune. The President made a sign,
the door on the right opened, and there was seen to enter the hall, and
rapidly ascend the tribune, a man still young, attired in black, having
on his breast the badge and riband of the Legion of Honour.
All eyes were turned towards this man. A pallid face, its bony
emaciated angles thrown into bold relief by the shaded lamps, a nose
large and long, moustaches, a curled lock of hair above a narrow
forehead, eyes small and dull, and with a timid and uneasy manner,
bearing no resemblance to the Emperor,--this man was Citizen
Charles-Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte.
During the murmurs which greeted his entrance, he remained for some
instants, his right hand in the breast of his buttoned coat, erect and
motionless on the tribune, the pediment of which bore these dates:
February 22, 23, 24; and above which were inscribed these three words:
_Liberty_, _Equality_, _Fraternity_.
Before being elected President of the Republic, Charles-Louis-Napoleon
Bonaparte had been a representative of the people for several months,
and though he had rarely attended a whole sitting, he had been
frequently seen in the seat he had selected, on the upper benches of
the Left, in the fifth row in the zone commonly called the Mountain,
behind his old preceptor, Representative Vieillard. This man, then,
was no new figure in the Assembly, yet his entrance on this occasion
produced a profound sensation. It was to all, to his friends as to his
foes, the future that entered, an unknown future. Amid the immense
murmur, produced by the whispered words of all present, his name
passed from mouth to mouth, coupled with most diverse opinions. His
antagonists detailed his adventures, his _coups-de-main_, Strasburg,
Boulogne, the tame eagle, and the piece of meat in the little hat. His
friends dwelt upon his exile, his proscription, his imprisonment, an
excellent work of his on the artillery, his writings at Ham, which
were marked, to a certain degree, with the liberal, democratic, and
socialistic spirit, the maturity of the more sober age at which he had
now arrived; and to those who recalled his follies, they recalled his
misfortunes.
General Cavaignac, who, not having been elected President, had just
resigned his power into the hands of the Assembly, with that tranquil
laconism which befits republics, was seated in his customary place at
the head of the ministerial bench, on the left of the tribune, and
observed in silence, with folded arms, this installation of the new
man.
At length silence was restored, the President of the Assembly struck
the table before him several times with his wooden knife, and then, the
last murmurs having subsided, said:
"I will now read the form of the oath."
There was something almost religious about that moment. The Assembly
was no longer an Assembly, it was a temple. The immense significance of
the oath was rendered still more impressive by the circumstance that it
was the only oath taken throughout the whole territory of the Republic.
February had, and rightly, abolished the political oath, and the
Constitution had, as rightly, retained only the oath of the President.
This oath possessed the double character of necessity and of grandeur.
It was an oath taken by the executive, the subordinate power, to the
legislative, the superior power; it was even more than this--in
contrast to the monarchical fiction by which the people take the oath
to the man invested with power, it was the man invested with power who
took the oath to the people. The President, functionary and servant,
swore fidelity to the sovereign people. Bending before the national
majesty, manifest in the omnipotent Assembly, he received from the
Assembly the Constitution, and swore obedience to it. The
representatives were inviolable, and he was not. We repeat it: a
citizen responsible to all the citizens, he was, of the whole nation,
the only man so bound. Hence, in this oath, sole and supreme, there was
a solemnity which went to the heart. He who writes these lines was
present in his place in the Assembly, on the day this oath was taken;
he is one of those who, in the face of the civilized world called to
bear witness, received this oath in the name of the people, and who
have it still in their hands. Thus it runs:--
"In presence of God, and before the French people, represented by the
National Assembly, I swear to remain faithful to the democratic
republic, one and indivisible, and to fulfil all the duties imposed
upon me by the Constitution."
The President of the Assembly, standing, read this majestic formula;
then, before the whole Assembly, breathlessly silent and attentive,
intensely expectant, Citizen Charles-Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, raising
his right hand, said, in a firm, loud voice:
"I swear it!"
Representative Boulay (de la Meurthe), since Vice-President of the
Republic, who had known Charles-Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte from his
childhood, exclaimed: "He is an honest man, he will keep his oath."
The President of the Assembly, still standing, proceeded thus (I quote
_verbatim_ the words recorded in the _Moniteur_): "We call God and man
to witness the oath which has just been sworn. The National Assembly
receives that oath, orders it to be transcribed upon its records,
printed in the _Moniteur_, and published in the same manner as
legislative acts."
It seemed that the ceremony was now at an end, and we imagined that
Citizen Charles-Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, thenceforth, until the second
Sunday in May, 1852, President of the Republic, would descend from the
tribune. But he did not; he felt a magnanimous impulse to bind himself
still more rigorously, if possible; to add something to the oath which
the Constitution demanded from him, in order to show how largely the
oath was free and spontaneous. He asked permission to address the
Assembly. "You have the floor," said the President of the Assembly.
There was more profound silence, and closer attention than before.
Citizen Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte unfolded a paper and read a speech. In
this speech, having announced and installed the ministry appointed by
him, he said:--
"I desire, in common with yourselves, citizen representatives, to
consolidate society upon its true basis, to establish democratic
institutions, and earnestly to seek every means calculated to relieve
the sufferings of the generous and intelligent people who have just
bestowed on me so signal a proof of their confidence."[1]
[1] "Hear! Hear!"--_Moniteur_.
He then thanked his predecessor in the executive power, the same man
who, later, was able to say these noble words: "_I did not fall from
power, I descended from it_;" and he glorified him in these terms:--
"The new administration, in entering upon its duties, is bound to thank
that which preceded it for the efforts it has made to transmit the
executive power intact, and to maintain public tranquillity.[2]
[2] "Murmurs of assent."--_Moniteur_.
"The conduct of the Honourable General Cavaignac has been worthy of the
manliness of his character, and of that sentiment of duty which is the
first quality requisite in the chief of the State."[3]
[3] "Renewed murmurs of assent."--_Moniteur_.
The Assembly cheered these words, but that which especially struck
every mind, which was profoundly graven in every memory, which found
its echo in every honest heart, was the declaration, the wholly
spontaneous declaration, we repeat, with which he began his address.
"The suffrages of the nation, and the oath I have just taken, command
my future conduct. My duty is clearly marked. I will fulfil it as a man
of honour.
"I shall regard as the enemies of the country all who seek to change,
by illegal means, that which all France has established."
When he had done speaking, the Constituent Assembly rose, and uttered
as with a single voice, the exclamation: "Long live the Republic!"
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte descended from the tribune, went up to General
Cavaignac, and offered him his hand. The general, for a few instants,
hesitated to accept the grasp. All who had just heard the words of
Louis Bonaparte, pronounced in a tone so instinct with good faith,
blamed the general for his hesitation.
The Constitution to which Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte took oath on
December 20, 1848, "in the face of God and man," contained, among other
articles, these:--
"Article 36. The representatives of the people are inviolable.
"Article 37. They may not be arrested on a criminal charge unless
taken in the fact, or prosecuted without the permission of the
Assembly first obtained.
"Article 68. Every act by which the President of the Republic
dissolves the National Assembly, prorogues it, or impedes the
execution of its decrees, is high treason.
"By such act, of itself, the President forfeits his office, the
citizens are bound to refuse him obedience, and the executive power
passes, of absolute right, to the National Assembly. The judges of
the Supreme Court shall thereupon immediately assemble, under
penalty of forfeiture; they shall convoke the jurors in such place
as they shall appoint, to proceed to the trial of the President and
his accomplices; and they shall themselves appoint magistrates who
shall proceed to execute the functions of the ministry."
In less than three years after this memorable day, on the 2nd of
December, 1851, at daybreak, there might be read on all the street
corners in Paris, this placard:--
"In the name of the French people, the President of the Republic:
"Decrees--
"Article 1. The National Assembly is dissolved.
"Article 2. Universal suffrage is re-established. The law of the
31st of May is repealed.
"Article 3. The French people are convoked in their comitia.
"Article 4. A state of siege is decreed throughout the first
military division.
"Article 5. The Council of State is dissolved.
"Article 6. The Minister of the Interior is charged with the
execution of this decree.
"Done at the Palace of the Élysée, December 2, 1851.
"LOUIS-NAPOLEON BONAPARTE."
At the same time Paris learned that fifteen of the inviolable
representatives of the people had been arrested in their homes,
during the night, by order of Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte.
II
MISSION OF THE REPRESENTATIVES
Those who, as representatives of the people, received, in trust for the
people, the oath of the 20th of December, 1848, those, especially who,
being twice invested with the confidence of the nation, had as
representatives heard that oath sworn, and as legislators had seen it
violated, had assumed, with their writ of summons, two duties. The
first of these was, on the day when that oath should be violated, to
rise in their places, to present their breasts to the enemy, without
calculating either his numbers or his strength, to shelter with their
bodies the sovereignty of the people and as a means to combat and cast
down the usurper, to grasp every sort of weapon, from the law found in
the code, to the paving stone that one picks up in the street. The
second duty was, after having accepted the combat and all its chances
to accept proscription and all its miseries, to stand eternally erect
before the traitor, his oath in their hands, to forget their personal
sufferings, their private sorrows, their families dispersed and
maltreated, their fortunes destroyed, their affections crushed, their
bleeding hearts; to forget themselves, and to feel thenceforth but a
single wound--the wound of France to cry aloud for justice; never to
suffer themselves to be appeased, never to relent, but to be
implacable; to seize the despicable perjurer, crowned though he were,
if not with the hand of the law, at least with the pincers of truth,
and to heat red-hot in the fire of history all the letters of his oath,
and brand them on his face.
He who writes these lines is one of those who did not shrink, on the
2nd of December, from the utmost effort to accomplish the first of
these two great duties; in publishing this book he performs the second.
III
NOTICE OF EXPIRATION OF TERM
It is time that the human conscience should awaken.
Ever since the 2nd of December, 1851, a successful ambush, a crime,
odious, repulsive, infamous, unprecedented, considering the age in
which it was committed, has triumphed and held sway, erecting itself
into a theory, pluming itself in the sunlight, making laws, issuing
decrees, taking society, religion, and the family under its protection,
holding out its hand to the kings of Europe, who accept it, and calling
them, "my brother," or "my cousin." This crime no one disputes, not
even those who profit by it and live by it; they say simply that it was
necessary; not even he who committed it, who says merely that he, the
criminal, has been "absolved." This crime contains within itself all
crimes, treachery in the conception, perjury in the execution, murder
and assassination in the struggle, spoliation, swindling, and robbery
in the triumph; this crime draws after it as integral parts of itself,
suppression of the laws, violation of constitutional inviolabilities,
arbitrary sequestration, confiscation of property, midnight massacres,
secret military executions, commissions superseding tribunals, ten
thousand citizens banished, forty thousand citizens proscribed, sixty
thousand families ruined and despairing. These things are patent. Even
so! it is painful to say it, but there is silence concerning this
crime; it is there, men see it, touch it, and pass on to their
business; shops are opened, the stock jobbers job, Commerce, seated on
her packages, rubs her hands, and the moment is close at hand when
everybody will regard all that has taken place as a matter of course.
He who measures cloth does not hear the yard-stick in his hand speak to
him and say: "'Tis a false measure that governs." He who weighs out a
commodity does not hear his scales raise their voice and say: "'Tis a
false weight that reigns." A strange order of things surely, that has
for its base supreme disorder, the negation of all law! equilibrium
resting on iniquity!
Let us add,--what, for that matter is self-evident,--that the author of
this crime is a malefactor of the most cynical and lowest description.
At this moment, let all who wear a robe, a scarf, or a uniform; let all
those who serve this man, know, if they think themselves the agents of
a power, that they deceive themselves; they are the shipmates of a
pirate. Ever since the 2nd of December there have been no
office-holders in France, there have been only accomplices. The moment
has come when every one must take careful account of what he has done,
of what he is continuing to do. The gendarmes who arrested those whom
the man of Strasburg and Boulogne called "insurgents," arrested the
guardians of the Constitution. The judge who tried the combatants of
Paris or the provinces, placed in the dock the mainstays of the law.
The officer who confined in the hulks the "condemned men," confined the
defenders of the Republic and of the State. The general in Africa who
imprisoned at Lambassa the transported men bending beneath the sun's
fierce heat, shivering with fever, digging in the sun-baked soil a
furrow destined to be their grave, that general sequestrated, tortured,
assassinated the men of the law. All, generals, officers, gendarmes,
judges, are absolutely under forfeiture. They have before them more
than innocent men,--heroes! more than victims,--martyrs!
Let them know this, therefore, and let them hasten to act upon the
knowledge; let them, at least, break the fetters, draw the bolts, empty
the hulks, throw open the jails, since they have not still the courage
to grasp the sword. Up, consciences, awake, it is full time!
If law, right, duty, reason, common sense, equity, justice, suffice
not, let them think of the future! If remorse is mute, let
responsibility speak!
And let all those who, being landed proprietors, shake the magistrate
by the hand; who, being bankers, fête a general; who, being peasants,
salute a gendarme; let all those who do not shun the hôtel in which
dwells the minister, the house in which dwells the prefect, as he would
shun a _lazaretto_; let all those who, being simple citizens, not
functionaries, go to the balls and the banquets of Louis Bonaparte and
see not that the black flag waves over the Élysée,--let all these in
like manner know that this sort of shame is contagious; if they avoid
material complicity, they will not avoid moral complicity.
The crime of the 2nd of December bespatters them.
The present situation, that seems so calm to the unthinking, is most
threatening, be sure of that. When public morality is under eclipse, an
appalling shadow settles down upon social order.
All guarantees take wing, all supports vanish.
Thenceforth there is not in France a tribunal, nor a court, nor a
judge, to render justice and pronounce a sentence, on any subject,
against any one, in the name of any one.
Bring before the assizes a malefactor of any sort: the thief will say
to the judges: "The chief of the State robbed the Bank of twenty-five
millions;" the false witness will say to the judges: "The chief of the
State took an oath in the face of God and of man, and that oath he has
violated;" the sequestrator will say: "The chief of the State has
arrested, and detained against all law, the representatives of the
sovereign people;" the swindler will say: "The chief of the State got
his election, got power, got the Tuileries, all by swindling;" the
forger will say: "The chief of the State forged votes;" the footpad
will say: "The chief of the State stole their purses from the Princes
of Orleans;" the murderer will say: "The chief of the State shot,
sabred, bayonetted, massacred passengers in the streets;" and all
together, swindler, forger, false witness, footpad, robber, assassin,
will add: "And you judges, you have been to salute this man, to praise
him for having perjured himself, to compliment him for committing
forgery, to praise him for stealing and swindling, to thank him for
murdering! what do you want of us?"
Assuredly, this is a very serious state of things! to sleep in such a
situation, is additional ignominy.
It is time, we repeat, that this monstrous slumber of men's consciences
should end. It must not be, after that fearful scandal, the triumph of
crime, that a scandal still more fearful should be presented to
mankind: the indifference of the civilized world.
If that were to be, history would appear one day as an avenger; and
from this very hour, as the wounded lion takes refuge in the solitudes,
the just man, veiling his face in presence of this universal
degradation, would take refuge in the immensity of public contempt.
IV
MEN WILL AWAKEN
But it is not to be; men will awaken.
The present book has for its sole aim to arouse the sleepers. France
must not even adhere to this government with the assent of lethargy; at
certain hours, in certain places, under certain shadows, to sleep is to
die.
Let us add that at this moment, France--strange to say, but none the
less true--knows not what took place on the 2nd of December and
subsequently, or knows it imperfectly; and this is her excuse. However,
thanks to several generous and courageous publications, the facts are
beginning to creep out. This book is intended to bring some of those
facts forward, and, if it please God, to present them in their true
light. It is important that people should know who and what this M.
Bonaparte is. At the present moment, thanks to the suppression of the
platform, thanks to the suppression of the press, thanks to the
suppression of speech, of liberty, and of truth,--a suppression which
has had for one result the permitting M. Bonaparte to do everything,
but which has had at the same time the effect of nullifying all his
measures without exception, including the indescribable ballot of the
20th of December,--thanks, we say, to this stifling of all complaints
and of all light, no man, no fact wears its true aspect or bears its
true name. M. Bonaparte's crime is not a crime, it is called a
necessity; M. Bonaparte's ambuscade is not an ambuscade, it is called a
defence of public order; M. Bonaparte's robberies are not robberies,
they are called measures of state; M. Bonaparte's murders are not
murders, they are called public safety; M. Bonaparte's accomplices are
not malefactors, they are called magistrates, senators, and councillors
of state; M. Bonaparte's adversaries are not the soldiers of the law
and of right, they are called Jacquerie, demagogues, communists. In the
eyes of France, in the eyes of Europe, the 2nd of December is still
masked. This book is a hand issuing from the darkness, and tearing that
mask away.
Now, we propose to scrutinize this triumph of order, to depict this
government so vigorous, so firm, so well-based, so strong, having on
its side a crowd of paltry youths, who have more ambition than boots,
dandies and beggars; sustained on the Bourse by Fould the Jew, and in
the Church by Montalembert the Catholic; esteemed by women who would
fain pass for maids, by men who want to be prefects; resting on a
coalition of prostitutions; giving fêtes; making cardinals; wearing
white neck-cloths and yellow kid gloves, like Morny, newly varnished
like Maupas, freshly brushed like Persigny,--rich, elegant, clean,
gilded, joyous, and born in a pool of blood!
Yes, men will awaken!
Yes, men will arouse from that torpor which, to such a people, is
shame; and when France does awaken, when she does open her eyes, when
she does distinguish, when she does see that which is before her and
beside her, she will recoil with a terrible shudder from the monstrous
crime which dared to espouse her in the darkness, and of which she has
shared the bed.
Then will the supreme hour strike!
The sceptics smile and insist; they say:
"Hope for nothing. This government, you say, is the shame of France. Be
it so, but this same shame is quoted on the Bourse. Hope for nothing.
You are poets and dreamers if you hope. Why, look about you: the
tribune, the press, intelligence, speech, thought, all that was
liberty, has vanished. Yesterday, these things were in motion, alive;
to-day, they are petrified. Well, people are satisfied with this
petrification, they accommodate themselves to it, make the most of it,
conduct business on it, and live as usual. Society goes on, and plenty
of worthy folk are well pleased with this state of things. Why do you
want to change it, to put an end to it? Don't deceive yourselves, it is
all solid, all firm; it is the present and the future."
We are in Russia. The Neva is frozen over. Houses are built on the ice,
and heavy chariots roll over it. It is no longer water, but rock. The
people go to and fro upon this marble which was once a river. A town is
run up, streets are marked out, shops opened; people buy, sell, eat,
drink, sleep, light fires on what once was water. You can do whatever
you please there. Fear nothing. Laugh, dance; it is more solid than
_terra firma_. Why, it rings beneath the foot, like granite. Long
live winter! Long live the ice! This will last till doomsday! And look
at the sky: is it day? is it night? what is it? A pale, misty light
steals over the snow; one would say that the sun is dying!
No, thou art not dying, O liberty! One of these days, at the moment
when thou art least expected, at the very hour when they shall have
most utterly forgotten thee, thou wilt rise!--O dazzling vision! the
star-like face will suddenly be seen issuing from the earth,
resplendent on the horizon! Over all that snow, over all that ice, over
that hard, white plain, over that water become rock, over all that
wretched winter, thou wilt cast thy arrow of gold, thy ardent and
effulgent ray! light, heat, life! And then, listen! hear you that dull
sound? hear you that crashing noise, all-pervading and formidable? 'Tis
the breaking up of the ice! 'tis the melting of the Neva! 'tis the
river resuming its course! 'tis the water, living, joyous, and
terrible, heaving up the hideous, dead ice, and crushing it.--'Twas
granite, said you; see, it splinters like glass! 'tis the breaking up
of the ice, I tell you: 'tis the truth returning, 'tis progress
recommencing, 'tis mankind resuming its march, and uprooting, carrying
off, mingling, crushing and drowning in its waves, like the wretched
furniture of a submerged hovel, not only the brand-new empire of Louis
Bonaparte, but all the structures and all the work of the eternal
antique despotism! Look on these things as they are passing. They are
vanishing for ever. You will never behold them again. That book, half
submerged, is the old code of iniquity; that sinking framework is the
throne; that other framework, floating off, is the scaffold!
And for this immense engulfment, this supreme victory of life over
death, what was needed? One glance from thee, O sun! one of thy rays, O
liberty!
V
BIOGRAPHY
Charles-Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, born at Paris, on April 20, 1808, is
the son of Hortense de Beauharnais, who was married by the Emperor
to Louis-Napoleon, King of Holland. In 1831, taking part in the
insurrections in Italy, where his elder brother was killed, Louis
Bonaparte attempted to overthrow the Papacy. On the 30th of October,
1836, he attempted to overthrow Louis Philippe. He failed at Strasburg,
and, being pardoned by the King, he embarked for America, leaving his
accomplices behind him to be tried. On the 11th of November he wrote:
"The King, _in his clemency_, has ordered me taken to America;" he
declared himself "keenly affected by the King's _generosity_," adding:
"Certainly, we were all culpable towards the government in taking up
arms against it, but _the greatest culprit was myself_;" and he
concluded thus: "I was _guilty_ towards the government, and the
government has been _generous_ to me."[1] He returned from America, and
went to Switzerland, got himself appointed captain of artillery at
Berne, and a citizen of Salenstein, in Thurgovia; equally avoiding,
amid the diplomatic complications occasioned by his presence, to call
himself a Frenchman, or to avow himself a Swiss, and contenting
himself, in order to satisfy the French government, with stating in a
letter, dated the 20th of August, 1838, that he lived "almost alone,"
in the house "where his mother died," and that it was "his firm
determination to remain quiet."
[1] A letter read at the Court of Assize by the advocate Parquin,
who, after reading it, exclaimed: "Among the numerous faults of
Louis-Napoleon, we may not, at least, include ingratitude."
On the 6th of August, 1840 he disembarked at Boulogne, parodying the
disembarkation at Cannes, with the _petit chapeau_ on his head,[2]
carrying a gilt eagle on the end of a flag-staff, and a live eagle in
a cage, proclamations galore, and sixty valets, cooks, and grooms,
disguised as French soldiers with uniforms bought at the Temple, and
buttons of the 42nd Regiment of the Line, made in London. He scatters
money among the passers-by in the streets of Boulogne, sticks his hat
on the point of his sword, and himself cries, "Vive l'Empereur!" fires
a pistol shot at an officer,[3] which hits a soldier and knocks out
three of his teeth, and finally runs away. He is taken into custody;
there are found on his person 500,000 francs, in gold and
bank-notes;[4] the procureur-general, Franck-Carrè, says to him in
the Court of Peers: "You have been tampering with the soldiers, and
distributing money to purchase treason." The peers sentenced him to
perpetual imprisonment. He was confined at Ham. There his mind seemed
to take refuge within itself and to mature: he wrote and published some
books, instinct, notwithstanding a certain ignorance of France and of
the age, with democracy and with progress: "The Extinction of
Pauperism," "An Analysis of the Sugar Question," "Napoleonic Ideas," in
which he made the Emperor a "humanitarian." In a treatise entitled
"Historical Fragments," he wrote thus: "I am a citizen before I am a
Bonaparte." Already in 1852, in his book "Political Reveries," he had
declared himself a republican. After five years of captivity, he
escaped from the prison of Ham, disguised as a mason, and took refuge
in England.
[2] Court of Peers. Attempt of the 6th August, 1840, page 140,
evidence of Geoffroy, grenadier.
[3] Captain Col. Puygellier, who had said to him: "You are a
conspirator and a traitor."
[4] Court of Peers. Evidence of the witness Adam, Mayor of
Boulogne.
February arrived; he hailed the Republic, took his seat as a
representative of the people in the Constituent Assembly, mounted the
tribune on the 21st of September, 1848, and said: "All my life shall
be devoted to strengthening the Republic;" published a manifesto which
may be summed up in two lines: liberty, progress, democracy, amnesty,
abolition of the decrees of proscription and banishment; was elected
President by 5,500,000 votes, solemnly swore allegiance to the
Constitution on the 20th of December, 1848, and on the 2nd of December,
1851, shattered that Constitution. In the interval he had destroyed
the Roman republic, and had restored in 1849 that Papacy which in 1831
he had essayed to overthrow. He had, besides, taken nobody knows how
great a share in the obscure affair of the lottery of the gold ingots.
A few weeks previous to the _coup d'état_, this bag of gold became
transparent, and there was visible within it a hand greatly resembling
his. On December 2, and the following days, he, the executive power,
assailed the legislative power, arrested the representatives, drove
out the assembly, dissolved the Council of State, expelled the high
court of justice, suppressed the laws, took 25,000,000 francs from
the bank, gorged the army with gold, swept the streets of Paris with
grape-shot, and terrorized France. Since then, he has proscribed
eighty-four representatives of the people; stolen from the Princes of
Orleans the property of their father, Louis Philippe, to whom he owed
his life; decreed despotism in fifty-eight articles, under the name of
Constitution; throttled the Republic; made the sword of France a gag
in the mouth of liberty; pawned the railways; picked the pockets of
the people; regulated the budget by ukase; transported to Africa and
Cayenne ten thousand democrats; banished to Belgium, Spain, Piedmont,
Switzerland, and England forty thousand republicans, brought grief to
every heart and the blush of shame to every brow.
Louis Bonaparte thinks that he is mounting the steps of a throne; he
does not perceive that he is mounting those of a scaffold.
VI
PORTRAIT
Louis Bonaparte is a man of middle height, cold, pale, slow in his
movements, having the air of a person not quite awake. He has
published, as we have mentioned before, a moderately esteemed treatise
on artillery, and is thought to be acquainted with the handling of
cannon. He is a good horseman. He speaks drawlingly, with a slight
German accent. His histrionic abilities were displayed at the Eglinton
tournament. He has a heavy moustache, covering his smile, like that of
the Duke of Alva, and a lifeless eye like that of Charles IX.
Judging him apart from what he calls his "necessary acts," or his
"great deeds," he is a vulgar, commonplace personage, puerile,
theatrical, and vain. Those persons who are invited to St. Cloud, in
the summer, receive with the invitation an order to bring a morning
toilette and an evening toilette. He loves finery, display, feathers,
embroidery, tinsel and spangles, big words, and grand titles,--everything
that makes a noise and glitter, all the glassware of power. In his
capacity of cousin to the battle of Austerlitz, he dresses as a
general. He cares little about being despised; he contents himself with
the appearance of respect.
This man would tarnish the background of history; he absolutely sullies
its foreground. Europe smiled when, glancing at Haiti, she saw this
white Soulouque appear. But there is now in Europe, in every
intelligent mind, abroad as at home, a profound stupor, a feeling, as
it were, of personal insult; for the European continent, whether it
will or no, is responsible for France, and whatever abases France
humiliates Europe.
Before the 2nd of December, the leaders of the Right used freely to say
of Louis Bonaparte: "_He is an idiot._" They were mistaken. To be sure
that brain of his is awry, and has gaps in it, but one can discern here
and there thoughts consecutive and concatenate. It is a book whence
pages have been torn. Louis Napoleon has a fixed idea; but a fixed idea
is not idiocy; he knows what he wants, and he goes straight to it;
through justice, through law, through reason, through honour, through
humanity, it may be, but straight on none the less.
He is not an idiot. He is a man of another age than our own. He seems
absurd and mad, because he is out of his place and time. Transport him
to Spain in the 16th century, and Philip II would recognise him; to
England, and Henry VIII would smile on him; to Italy, and Cæsar Borgia
would jump on his neck. Or even, confine yourself to setting him
outside the pale of European civilization,--place him, in 1817, at
Janina, and Ali-Tepeleni would grasp him by the hand.
There is in him something of the Middle Ages, and of the Lower Empire.
That which he does would have seemed perfectly simple and natural to
Michael Ducas, to Romanus Diogenes, to Nicephorus Botoniates, to the
Eunuch Narses, to the Vandal Stilico, to Mahomet II, to Alexander VI,
to Ezzelino of Padua, as it seems perfectly simple and natural to
himself. But he forgets, or knows not, that in the age wherein we live,
his actions will have to traverse the great streams of human morality,
set free by three centuries of literature and by the French Revolution;
and that in this medium, his actions will wear their true aspect, and
appear what they really are--hideous.
His partisans--he has some--complacently compare him with his uncle,
the first Bonaparte. They say: "The one accomplished the 18th Brumaire,
the other the 2nd of December: they are two ambitious men." The first
Bonaparte aimed to reconstruct the Empire of the West, to make Europe
his vassal, to dominate the continent by his power, and to dazzle it by
his grandeur; to take an arm-chair himself, and give footstools to the
kings; to cause history to say: "Nimrod, Cyrus, Alexander, Hannibal,
Cæsar, Charlemagne, Napoleon;" to be a master of the world. And so he
was. It was for that that he accomplished the 18th Brumaire. This
fellow would fain have horses and women, be called _Monseigneur_, and
live luxuriously. It was for this that he accomplished the 2nd of
December. Yes: they are both ambitious; the comparison is just.
Let us add, that, like the first Bonaparte, the second also aims to be
emperor. But that which somewhat impairs the force of the comparison
is, that there is perhaps, a slight difference between conquering an
empire and pilfering it.
However this may be, that which is certain and which cannot be veiled,
even by the dazzling curtain of glory and of misfortune on which are
inscribed: Arcola, Lodi, the Pyramids, Eylau, Friedland, St.
Helena--that which is certain, we repeat, is that the 18th Brumaire was
a crime, of which the 2nd of December has aggravated the stain on the
memory of Napoleon.
M. Louis Bonaparte does not object to have it whispered that he is a
socialist. He feels that this gives him a sort of vague field which
ambition may exploit. As we have already said, when he was in prison,
he passed his time in acquiring a quasi-reputation as a democrat. One
fact will describe him. When, being at Ham, he published his book "On
the Extinction of Pauperism," a book having apparently for its sole and
exclusive aim, to probe the wound of the poverty of the common people,
and to suggest the remedy, he sent the book to one of his friends with
this note, which we have ourselves seen: "Read this book on pauperism,
and tell me if you think it is calculated _to do me good_."
The great talent of M. Louis Bonaparte is silence. Before the 2nd of
December, he had a council of ministers who, being responsible,
imagined that they were of some consequence. The President presided.
Never, or scarcely ever, did he take part in their discussions. While
MM. Odillon Barrot, Passy, Tocqueville, Dufaure, or Faucher were
speaking, _he occupied himself_, says one of these ministers, _in
constructing, with intense earnestness, paper dolls, or in drawing
men's heads on the documents before him_.
To feign death, that is his art. He remains mute and motionless,
looking in the opposite direction from his object, until the hour for
action comes; then he turns his head, and leaps upon his prey. His
policy appears to you abruptly, at some unexpected turning, pistol in
hand, like a thief. Up to that point, there is the least possible
movement. For one moment, in the course of the three years that have
just passed, he was seen face to face with Changarnier, who also, on
his part, had a scheme in view. "Ibant obscuri," as Virgil says. France
observed, with a certain anxiety, these two men. What was in their
minds? Did not the one dream of Cromwell, the other of Monk? Men asked
one another these questions as they looked on the two men. In both of
them, there was the same attitude of mystery, the same policy of
immobility. Bonaparte said not a word, Changarnier made not a gesture;
this one did not stir, that one did not breathe; they seemed to be
playing the game of which should be the most statuesque.
This silence of his, Louis Bonaparte sometimes breaks; but then he does
not speak, he lies. This man lies as other men breathe. He announces an
honest intention; be on your guard: he makes an assertion, distrust
him: he takes an oath, tremble.
Machiavel made small men; Louis Bonaparte is one of them.
To announce an enormity against which the world protests, to disavow it
with indignation, to swear by all the gods, to declare himself an
honest man,--and then, at the moment when people are reassured, and
laugh at the enormity in question, to execute it. This was his course
with respect to the _coup d'état_, with respect to the decrees of
proscription, with respect to the spoliation of the Princes of
Orleans;--and so it will be with the invasion of Belgium, and of
Switzerland, and with everything else. It is his way; you may think
what you please of it; he employs it; he finds it effective; it is
his affair. He will have to settle the matter with history.
You are of his familiar circle; he hints at a project, which seems to
you, not immoral,--one does not scrutinize so closely,--but insane and
dangerous, and dangerous to himself; you raise objections; he listens,
makes no reply, sometimes gives way for a day or two, then resumes his
project, and carries out his will.
There is in his table, in his office at the Élysée, a drawer,
frequently half open. He takes thence a paper; reads it to a minister;
it is a decree. The minister assents or dissents. If he dissents, Louis
Bonaparte throws the paper back into the drawer, where there are many
other papers, the dreams of an omnipotent man, shuts the drawer, takes
out the key, and leaves the room without saying a word. The minister
bows and retires, delighted with the deference which has been paid to
his opinion. Next morning the decree is in the _Moniteur_.
Sometimes with the minister's signature.
Thanks to this _modus operandi_, he has always in his service the
unforeseen, a mighty weapon, and encountering in himself no internal
obstacle in that which is known to other men as conscience, he pursues
his design, through no matter what, no matter how, and attains his
goal.
He draws back sometimes, not before the moral effect of his acts, but
before their material effect. The decrees of expulsion of eighty-four
representatives of the people, published on January 6 in the
_Moniteur_, revolted public sentiment. Fast bound as France was,
the shudder was perceptible. The 2nd of December was not long past;
there was danger in popular excitement. Louis Bonaparte understood
this. Next day a second decree of expulsion was to have appeared,
containing eight hundred names. Louis Bonaparte had the proof brought
to him from the _Moniteur_; the list occupied fourteen columns of
the official journal. He crumpled the proof, threw it into the fire,
and the decree did not appear. The proscriptions proceeded without a
decree.
In his enterprises, he needs aids and collaborators; he needs what he
calls "men." Diogenes sought them with a lantern, he seeks them with a
banknote in his hand. And finds them. There are certain sides of human
nature which produce a particular species of persons, of whom he is the
centre, and who group around him _ex necessitate_, in obedience to
that mysterious law of gravitation which regulates the moral being no
less than the cosmic atom. To undertake "the act of the 2nd of
December,"--to execute it, and to complete it, he needed these men, and
he had them. Now he is surrounded by them; these men form his retinue,
his court, mingling their radiance with his. At certain epochs of
history, there are pleiades of great men; at other epochs, there are
pleiades of vagabonds.
But do not confound the epoch, the moment of Louis Bonaparte, with the
19th century: the toadstool sprouts at the foot of the oak, but it is
not the oak.
M. Louis Bonaparte has succeeded. He has with him henceforth money,
speculation, the Bourse, the Bank, the counting-room, the strong-box,
and all those men who pass so readily from one side to the other, when
all they have to straddle is shame. He made of M. Changarnier a dupe,
of M. Thiers a stop-gap, of M. de Montalembert an accomplice, of power
a cavern, of the budget his farm. They are coining at the Mint a medal,
called the medal of the 2nd of December, in honour of the manner in
which he keeps his oaths. The frigate _La Constitution_ has been
debaptized, and is now called _L'Élysée_. He can, when he chooses,
be crowned by M. Sibour,[1] and exchange the couch of the Élysée for
the state bed of the Tuileries. Meanwhile, for the last seven months,
he has been displaying himself; he has harangued, triumphed, presided
at banquets, given balls, danced, reigned, turned himself about in all
directions; he has paraded himself, in all his ugliness, in a box at
the Opéra; he has had himself dubbed Prince-President; he has
distributed standards to the army, and crosses of honour to the
commissioners of police. When there was occasion to select a symbol, he
effaced himself and chose the eagle; modesty of a sparrow-hawk!
[1] The Archbishop of Paris.
VII
IN CONTINUATION OF THE PANEGYRICS
He has succeeded. The result is that he has plenty of apotheoses. Of
panegyrists he has more than Trajan. One thing, however, has struck me,
which is, that among all the qualities that have been discovered in him
since the 2nd of December, among all the eulogies that have been
addressed to him, there is not one word outside of this circle:
adroitness, coolness, daring, address, an affair admirably prepared and
conducted, moment well chosen, secret well kept, measures well taken.
False keys well made--that's the whole story. When these things have
been said, all has been said, except a phrase or two about "clemency;"
and yet no one extols the magnanimity of Mandrin, who, sometimes, did
not take all the traveller's money, and of Jean l'Ecorcheur, who,
sometimes, did not kill all travellers.
In endowing M. Bonaparte with twelve millions of francs, and four
millions more for keeping up the châteaux, the Senate--endowed by M.
Bonaparte with a million--felicitated M. Bonaparte upon "having saved
society," much as a character in a comedy congratulates another on
having "saved the money-box."
For myself, I am still seeking in the glorification of M. Bonaparte by
his most ardent apologists, any praise that would not exactly befit
Cartouche or Poulailler, after a good stroke of business; and I blush
sometimes for the French language, and for the name of Napoleon, at the
terms, really over-raw, and too thinly veiled, and too appropriate to
the facts, in which the magistracy and clergy felicitate this man on
having stolen the power of the State by burglarising the Constitution,
and on having, by night, evaded his oath.
When all the burglaries and all the robberies which constitute the
success of his policy had been accomplished, he resumed his true name;
every one then saw that this man was a Monseigneur. It was M.
Fortoul,[1]--to his honour be it said--who first made this discovery.
[1] The first report addressed to M. Bonaparte, and in which
M. Bonaparte is called _Monseigneur_ is signed FORTOUL.
When one measures the man and finds him so small, and then measures his
success, and finds it so enormous, it is impossible that the mind
should not experience some surprise. One asks oneself: "How did he do
it?" One dissects the adventure and the adventurer, and laying aside
the advantage he derives from his name, and certain external facts, of
which he made use in his escalade, one finds, as the basis of the man
and his exploit, but two things,--cunning and cash.
As to cunning: we have already characterised this important quality of
Louis Bonaparte; but it is desirable to dwell on the point.
On November 27, 1848, he said to his fellow-citizens in his manifesto:
"I feel it incumbent on me to make known to you my sentiments and my
principles. _There must be no equivocation between you and me. I am
not ambitious...._ Brought up in _free_ countries, in the school of
misfortune, _I shall ever remain faithful_ to the duties that shall be
imposed on me by your suffrages, and the will of the Assembly. _I shall
make it a point of honour to leave, at the end of the four years, to my
successor, power consolidated, liberty intact, and real progress
accomplished._"
On December 31, 1849, in his first message to the Assembly, he wrote:
"It is my aspiration to be worthy of the confidence of the nation, by
maintaining the Constitution _which I have sworn to execute_." On
November 12, 1850, in his second annual message to the Assembly, he
said: "If the Constitution contains defects and dangers, you are free
to make them known to the country; I alone, _bound by my oath_, confine
myself within the strict limits which that Constitution has traced."
On September 4, in the same year, at Caen, he said: "When, in all
directions, prosperity seems reviving, he were, indeed, _a guilty man_
who should seek to check its progress by _changing that which now
exists_." Some time before, on July 25, 1849, at the inauguration of
the St. Quentin railway, he went to Ham, smote his breast at the
recollection of Boulogne, and uttered these solemn words:
"Now that, elected by universal France, I am become the legitimate head
of this great nation, I cannot pride myself on a captivity which was
occasioned by _an attack upon a regular government_.
"When one has observed the enormous evils which even the most righteous
revolutions bring in their train, one can scarcely comprehend one's
_audacity in having chosen to take upon one's self the terrible
responsibility of a change_; I do not, therefore, complain of having
_expiated_ here, by an imprisonment of six years, my _rash defiance of
the laws of my country_, and it is with joy that, in the very scene of
my sufferings, I propose to you a toast in honour of those who,
notwithstanding their convictions, are resolute to _respect the
institutions of their country_."
All the while he was saying this, he retained in the depths of his
heart, as he has since proved, after his fashion, that thought which he
had written in that same prison of Ham: "Great enterprises seldom
succeed at the first attempt."[2]
[2] _Historical Fragments._
Towards the middle of November, 1851, Representative F----, a
frequenter of the Élysée, was dining with M. Bonaparte.
"What do they say in Paris, and in the Assembly?" asked the President
of the representative.
"Oh, prince!"
"Well?"
"They are still talking."
"About what?"
"About the _coup d'état_."
"And the Assembly believes in it?"
"A little, prince."
"And you?"
"I--oh, not at all."
Louis Bonaparte earnestly grasped M. F----'s hands, and said to him
with feeling:
"I thank you, M. F----, you, at least, do not think me a scoundrel."
This happened a fortnight before December 2. At that time, and indeed,
at that very moment, according to the admission of Maupas the
confederate, Mazas was being made ready.
Cash: that is M. Bonaparte's other source of strength.
Let us take the facts, judicially proved by the trials at Strasburg and
Boulogne.
At Strasburg, on October 30, 1836, Colonel Vaudrey, an accomplice of M.
Bonaparte, commissioned the quartermasters of the 4th Regiment of
artillery, "to distribute among the cannoneers of each battery, two
pieces of gold."
On the 5th of August, 1840, in the steamboat he had freighted, the
_Ville d'Edimbourg_, while at sea, M. Bonaparte called about him
the sixty poor devils, his domestics, whom he had deceived into
accompanying him by telling them he was going to Hamburg on a pleasure
excursion, harangued them from the roof of one of his carriages
fastened on the deck, declared his project, tossed them their disguise
as soldiers, gave each of them a hundred francs, and then set them
drinking. A little drunkenness does not damage great enterprises. "I
saw," said the witness Hobbs, the under-steward, before the Court of
Peers,[3] "I saw in the cabin a great quantity of money. The passengers
appeared to me to be reading printed papers; they passed all the night
drinking and eating. I did nothing else but uncork bottles, and serve
food." Next came the captain. The magistrate asked Captain Crow: "Did
you see the passengers drink?"--Crow: "To excess; I never saw anything
like it."[4]
[3] Court of Peers, _Depositions of witnesses_, p. 94.
[4] Court of Peers, _Depositions of witnesses_, pp. 71, 81,
88, 94.
They landed, and were met by the custom-house officers of Vimereux. M.
Louis Bonaparte began proceedings, by offering the lieutenant of the
guard a pension of 1,200 francs. The magistrate: "Did you not offer the
commandant of the station a sum of money if he would march with
you?"--The Prince: "I caused it to be offered him, but he refused
it."[5]
[5] Court of Peers, _Cross examination of the accused_, p. 13.
They arrived at Boulogne. His aides-de-camp--he had some already--wore,
hanging from their necks, tin cases full of gold pieces. Others came
next with bags of small coins in their hands.[6] Then they threw money
to the fishermen and the peasants, inviting them to cry: "Long live the
Emperor!"--"Three hundred loud-mouthed knaves will do the thing," had
written one of the conspirators.[7] Louis Bonaparte approached the
42nd, quartered at Boulogne.
[6] Court of Peers, _Depositions of witnesses_, pp. 103, 185,
etc.
[7] The President: Prisoner Querelles, these children that cried
out, are not they the three hundred loud-mouthed knaves that you
asked for in your letter?--(Trial at Strasburg.)
He said to the voltigeur Georges Koehly: "_I am Napoleon_; you shall
have promotion, decorations." He said to the voltigeur Antoine Gendre:
"_I am the son of Napoleon_; we are going to the Hôtel du Nord to order
a dinner for you and me." He said to the voltigeur Jean Meyer: "_You
shall be well paid._" He said to the voltigeur Joseph Mény: "_You must
come to Paris; you shall be well paid._"[8]
[8] Court of Peers, _Depositions of witnesses_, pp. 142, 143,
155, 156, 158.
An officer at his side held in his hand his hat full of five-franc
pieces, which he distributed among the lookers-on, saying: "_Shout,
Long live the Emperor!_"
The grenadier Geoffroy, in his evidence, characterises in these words
the attempt made on his mess by an officer and a sergeant who were in
the plot: "The sergeant had a bottle in his hand, and the officer a
sabre." In these few words is the whole 2nd of December.
Let us proceed:--
"Next day, June 17, the commandant, Mésonan, who I thought had gone,
entered my room, announced by my aide-de-camp. I said to him,
'Commandant, I thought you were gone!'--'No, general, I am not gone. I
have a letter to give you.'--'A letter? And from whom?'--'Read it,
general.'
"I asked him to take a seat; I took the letter, but as I was opening
it, I saw that the address was--_à M. le Commandant Mésonan_. I said to
him: 'But, my dear Commandant, this is for you, not for me.'--'Read it,
General!'--I opened the letter and read thus:--
"'My dear Commandant, it is most essential that you should
immediately see the general in question; you know he is a man of
resolution, on whom one may rely. You know also that he is a man
whom I have put down to be one day a marshal of France. _You will
offer him, from me, 100,000 francs_; and you will ask him into what
banker's or notary's hands _I shall pay 300,000 francs_ for him, in
the event of his losing his command.'
"I stopped here, overcome with indignation; I turned over the leaf, and
I saw that the letter was signed, 'LOUIS NAPOLEON.'
"I handed the letter back to the commandant, saying that it was a
ridiculous and abortive affair."
Who speaks thus? General Magnan. Where? In the open Court of Peers.
Before whom? Who is the man seated on the prisoners' bench, the man
whom Magnan covers with "scorn," the man towards whom Magnan turns his
"indignant" face? Louis Bonaparte.
Money, and with money gross debauchery: such were his means of action
in his three enterprises at Strasburg, at Boulogne, at Paris. Two
failures and a success. Magnan, who refused at Boulogne, sold himself
at Paris. If Louis Bonaparte had been defeated on the 2nd of December,
just as there were found on him, at Boulogne, the 500,000 francs he had
brought from London, so there would have been found at the Élysée, the
twenty-five millions taken from the Bank.
There has, then, been in France,--one must needs speak of these things
coolly,--in France, that land of the sword, that land of cavaliers, the
land of Hoche, of Drouot, and of Bayard--there has been a day, when a
man, surrounded by five or six political sharpers, experts in
ambuscades, and grooms of _coups d'état_, lolling in a gilded office,
his feet on the fire-dogs, a cigar in his mouth, placed a price upon
military honour, weighed it in the scales like a commodity, a thing
buyable and sellable, put down the general at a million, the private at
a louis, and said of the conscience of the French army: "That is worth
so much."
And this man is the nephew of the Emperor.
By the bye, this nephew is not proud: he accommodates himself, with
great facility, to the necessities of his adventures; adapts himself
readily and without reluctance, to every freak of destiny. Place him in
London, and let it be his interest to please the English government, he
would not hesitate, and with the very hand which now seeks to seize the
sceptre of Charlemagne, he would grasp the truncheon of a policeman. If
I were not Napoleon, I would be Vidocq.
And here thought pauses!
And such is the man by whom France is governed! governed, do I say?
possessed rather in full sovereignty!
And every day, and every moment, by his decrees, by his messages, by
his harangues, by all these unprecedented imbecilities which he parades
in the _Moniteur_, this _émigré_, so ignorant of France, gives lessons
to France! and this knave tells France that he has saved her! From
whom? from herself. Before he came, Providence did nothing but
absurdities; God waited for him to put everything in order; and at
length he came. For the last thirty-six years poor France had been
afflicted with all sorts of pernicious things: that "sonority," the
tribune; that hubbub, the press; that insolence, thought; that crying
abuse, liberty: he came, and for the tribune, he substituted the
Senate; for the press, the censorship; for thought, imbecility; for
liberty, the sabre; and by the sabre, the censorship, imbecility, and
the Senate, France is saved! Saved! bravo! and from whom, I ask again?
from herself. For what was France before, if you please? a horde of
pillagers, robbers, Jacquerie, assassins, demagogues! It was necessary
to put fetters on this abominable villain, this France, and it was M.
Bonaparte Louis who applied the fetters. Now France is in prison, on
bread and water, punished, humiliated, throttled and well guarded; be
tranquil, everybody; Sieur Bonaparte, gendarme at the Élysée, answers
for her to Europe; this miserable France is in her strait waistcoat,
and if she stirs!--
Ah! what spectacle is this? What dream is this? What nightmare is this?
On the one hand, a nation, first among nations, and on the other, a
man, last among men--and see what that man does to that nation! God
save the mark! He tramples her under foot, he laughs at her to her
face, he flouts her, he denies her, he insults her, he scoffs at her!
How now! He says, there is none but I! What! in this land of France
where no man's ears may be boxed with impunity, one may box the ears of
the whole people! Oh! abominable shame! Each time that M. Bonaparte
spits, every one must needs wipe his face! And this can last! And you
tell me that it will last! No! No! No! By all the blood we have in our
veins, no! this shall not last. Were it to last, it must be that there
is no God in heaven, or no longer a France on earth!