Before the middle of 1852 Livingstone was ready to start on the journey
which resulted in the opening of routes from Central Africa to the West
and East coasts; but the way was still beset with difficulties. The
missionary societies were regarded as "unpatriotic" by the authorities
at the Cape; and he, as the most outspoken of critics, and the most
uncompromising denouncer of the slave-trade and champion of the natives,
came in for a double share of their suspicion. On the other hand, his
brethren gave him only a half-hearted support and doubted his orthodoxy.
He found great difficulty even in procuring ammunition. A country
postmaster whom he had accused of overcharging, threatened an action at
the last moment, which he compromised rather than be detained. As it
was, he had anticipated his meagre salary by more than a year, and had
to be content with very inferior oxen, and a wagon which required
constant mending throughout the journey. On June 8, 1852, he at last got
away, taking with him a Mr. Fleming, the agent of his friend Mr.
Rutherford, a Cape merchant, in the hope of by degrees substituting
legitimate traffic for that in slaves.
The heavy Cape wagon with its ten poor oxen dragged heavily onward.
Livingstone had so loaded himself with parcels for stations up-country,
and his wagon and team were so inferior, that he did not reach Kuruman
until September. Here he was detained by the breaking of a wheel.
The journey to Linyanti by the new route was very trying. Part of the
country was flooded, and they were wading all day, and forcing their way
through reeds with sharp edges "with hands all raw and bloody." "On
emerging from the swamps," says Livingstone, "when walking before the
wagon in the morning twilight, I observed a lioness about fifty yards
from me in the squatting way they walk when going to spring. She was
followed by a very large lion, but seeing the wagon she turned back."
It required all his tact to prevent guides and servants from deserting.
Everyone but himself was attacked by fever. "I would like," says his
journal, "to devote a portion of my life to the discovery of a remedy
for that terrible disease, the African fever. I would go into the parts
where it prevails most and try to discover if the natives have a remedy
for it. I must make many inquiries of the river people in this quarter."
Again in another key: "Am I on my way to die in Sebituane's country?
Have I seen the last of my wife and children, leaving this fair world
and knowing so little of it?"
February 4, 1853: "I am spared in health while all the company have been
attacked by fever. If God has accepted my service, my life is charmed
till my work is done. When that is finished, some simple thing will give
me my quietus. Death is a glorious event to one going to Jesus."
Their progress was tedious beyond all precedent. "We dug out several
wells, and each time had to wait a day or two till enough water flowed
in for our cattle to quench their thirst."
At last, however, at the end of May, he reached the Chobe River and was
again among his favorite Makololo. "He has dropped from the clouds," the
first of them said. They took the wagon to pieces and carried it across
on canoes lashed together, while they themselves swam and dived among
the oxen "more like alligators than men." Sekeletu, son of Sebituane,
was now chief, his elder sister Mamochishane having resigned in disgust
at the number of husbands she had to maintain as chieftainess. Poor
Mamochishane! After a short reign of a few months she had risen in the
assembly and "addressed her brother with a womanly gush of tears. 'I
have been a chief only because my father wished it. I would always have
preferred to be married and have a family like other women. You,
Sekeletu, must be chief, and build up our father's house.'"
On November 11, 1853, he left Linyanti, and arrived at Loanda on May 31,
1854. The first stages of the journey were to be by water, and Sekeletu
accompanied him to the Chobe, where he was to embark. They crossed five
branches before reaching the main stream, a wide and deep river full of
hippopotami. "The chief lent me his own canoe, and as it was broader
than usual I could turn about in it with ease. I had three muskets for
my people, and a rifle and double-barrelled shotgun for myself. My
ammunition was distributed through the luggage, that we might not be
left without a supply. Our chief hopes for food were in our guns. I
carried twenty pounds of beads worth forty shillings, a few biscuits, a
few pounds of tea and sugar, and about twenty pounds of coffee. One
small tin canister, about fifteen inches square, was filled with spare
shirts, trousers, and shoes, to be used when we reached civilized life,
another of the same size was stored with medicines, a third with books,
and a fourth with a magic lantern, which we found of much service. The
sextant and other instruments were carried apart. A bag contained the
clothes we expected to wear out in the journey, which, with a small tent
just sufficient to sleep in, a sheepskin mantle as a blanket, and a
horse rug as a bed, completed my equipment. An array of baggage would
have probably excited the cupidity of the tribes through whose country
we wished to pass."
The voyage up the Chobe, and the Zambesi after the junction of those
rivers, was prosperous but slow, in consequence of stoppages opposite
villages. "My man Pitsane knew of the generous orders of Sekeletu, and
was not disposed to allow them remain a dead letter." In the rapids,
"the men leaped into the water without the least hesitation to save the
canoes from being dashed against the obstructions or caught in eddies.
They must never be allowed to come broadside to the stream, for being
flat-bottomed they would at once be capsized and everything in them
lost." When free from fever he was delighted to note the numbers of
birds, several of them unknown, which swarmed on the river and its
banks, all carefully noted in his journal. One extract must suffice
here: "Whenever we step on shore a species of plover, a plaguy sort of
public-spirited individual, follows, flying overhead, and is most
persevering in its attempts to give warning to all animals to flee from
the approaching danger."
But he was already weak with fever; was seized with giddiness whenever
he looked up quickly, and, if he could not catch hold of some support,
fell heavily--a bad omen for his chance of passing through the unknown
country ahead--but his purpose never faltered for a moment. On January
1, 1854, he was still on the river, but getting beyond Sekeletu's
territory and allies, to a region of dense forest, in the open glades of
which dwelt the Balonda, a powerful tribe, whose relations with the
Makololo were precarious. Each was inclined to raid on the other since
the Mambari and Portuguese half-castes had appeared with Manchester
goods. These excited the intense wonder and cupidity of both nations.
They listened to the story of cotton-mills as fairy dreams, exclaiming:
"How can iron spin, weave, and print? Truly ye are gods!" and were
already inclined to steal their neighbors' children--those of their own
tribe they never sold at this time--to obtain these wonders out of the
sea.
Happily Livingstone had brought back with him several Balonda children
who had been carried off by the Makololo. This, and his speeches to
Manenko, the chieftainess of the district and niece of Shinte, the head
chief of the Balonda, gained them a welcome. This Amazon was a strapping
young woman of twenty, who led their party through the forest at a pace
which tried the best walkers. She seems to have been the only native
whose will ever prevailed against Livingstone's.
He intended to proceed up to her uncle Shinte's town in canoes: she
insisted that they should march by land, and ordered her people to
shoulder his baggage in spite of him. "My men succumbed, and left me
powerless. I was moving off in high dudgeon to the canoes, when she
kindly placed her hand on my shoulder, and with a motherly look said,
'Now, my little man, just do as the rest have done.' My feeling of
annoyance of course vanished, and I went out to try for some meat. My
men, in admiration of her pedestrian powers, kept remarking, 'Manenko is
a soldier,' and we were all glad when she proposed a halt for the
night."
Shinte received them in his town, the largest and best laid out that
Livingstone had seen in Central Africa, on a sort of throne covered with
leopard-skin. The _kotla_, or place of audience, was one hundred yards
square. Though in the sweating stage of an intermittent fever,
Livingstone held his own with the chief, gave him an ox as "his mouth
was bitter from want of flesh," advised him to open a trade in cattle
with the Makololo, and to put down the slave-trade; and, after spending
more than a week with him, left amid the warmest professions of
friendship. Shinte found him a guide of his tribe, Intemese by name, who
was to stay by them till they reached the sea, and at a last interview
hung round his neck a conical shell of such value that two of them, so
his men assured him, would purchase a slave.
Soon they were out of Shinte's territory, and Intemese became the plague
of the party, though unluckily they could not dispense with him
altogether in crossing the great flooded plains of Lebala. They camped
at night on mounds, where they had to trench round each hut and use the
earth to raise their sleeping places. "My men turned out to work most
willingly, and I could not but contrast their conduct with that of
Intemese, who was thoroughly imbued with the slave spirit, and lied on
all occasions to save himself trouble." He lost the pontoon, too,
thereby adding greatly to their troubles.
They now came to the territory of another great chief, Katema, who
received them hospitably, sending food and giving them solemn audience
in his kotla surrounded by his tribe. A tall man of forty, dressed in a
snuff-brown coat with a broad band of tinsel down the arms, and a helmet
of beads and feathers. He carried a large fan with charms attached,
which he waved constantly during the audience, often laughing
heartily--"a good sign, for a man who shakes his sides with mirth is
seldom difficult to deal with."
"I am the great Moene Katema!" was his address; "I and my fathers have
always lived here, and there is my father's house. I never killed any of
the traders; they all come to me. I am the great Moene Katema, of whom
you have heard." On hearing Livingstone's object, he gave him three
guides, who would take him by a northern route, along which no traders
had passed, to avoid the plains, impassable from the floods. He accepted
Livingstone's present of a shawl, a razor, some beads and buttons, and a
powder-horn graciously, laughing at his apologies for its smallness, and
asking him to bring a coat from Loanda, as the one he was wearing was
old.
From this point troubles multiplied, and they began to be seriously
pressed for food. The big game had disappeared, and they were glad to
catch moles and mice. Every chief demanded a present for allowing them
to pass, and the people of the villages charged exorbitantly for all
supplies. On they floundered, however, through flooded forests. In
crossing the river Loka, Livingstone's ox got away from him, and he had
to strike out for the farther bank. "My poor fellows were dreadfully
alarmed, and about twenty of them made a simultaneous rush into the
water for my rescue, and just as I reached the opposite bank one seized
me by the arms and another clasped me round the body. When I stood up it
was most gratifying to see them all struggling toward me. Part of my
goods were brought up from the bottom when I was safe. Great was their
pleasure when they found I could swim like themselves, and I felt most
grateful to those poor heathens for the promptitude with which they
dashed in to my rescue." Farther on, the people tried to frighten them
with the account of the deep rivers they had yet to cross, but his men
laughed. "'We can all swim,' they said; 'who carried the white man
across the river but himself?' I felt proud of their praise."
On March 4th they reached the country of the Chiboques, a tribe in
constant contact with the slave-dealers. Next day their camp was
surrounded by the nearest chief and his warriors, evidently bent on
plunder. They paused when they saw Livingstone seated on his camp-stool,
with his double-barrelled gun across his knees, and his Makololos ready
with their javelins. The chief and his principal men sat down in front
at Livingstone's invitation to talk over the matter, and a palaver began
as to the fine claimed by the Chiboque. "The more I yielded, the more
unreasonable they became, and at every fresh demand a shout was raised,
and a rush made round us with brandished weapons. One young man even
made a charge at my head from behind, but I quickly brought round the
muzzle of my gun to his mouth and he retreated. My men behaved with
admirable coolness. The chief and his counsellors, by accepting my
invitation to be seated, had placed themselves in a trap, for my men had
quietly surrounded them and made them feel that there was no chance of
escaping their spears. I then said that as everything had failed to
satisfy them they evidently meant to fight; and if so, they must begin,
and bear the blame before God. I then sat silent for some time. It was
certainly rather trying, but I was careful not to seem flurried, and,
having four barrels ready for instant action, looked quietly at the
savage scene around." The palaver began again, and ended in the exchange
of an ox for a promise of food, in which he was wofully cheated. "It was
impossible to help laughing, but I was truly thankful that we had so far
gained our point as to be allowed to pass without shedding blood."
He now struck north to avoid the Chiboque, and made for the Portuguese
settlement of Cassange through dense forest and constant wet. Here
another fever fit came on, so violent that "I could scarcely, after some
hours' trial, get a lunar observation in which I could repose
confidence. Those who know the difficulties of making observations and
committing them all to paper will sympathize with me in this and many
similar instances."
At this crisis, when the goal was all but at hand, obstacles multiplied
till it seemed that after all it would never be reached. First his
riding ox, Sindbad--a beast "blessed with a most intractable temper,"
and a habit of bolting into the bush to get his rider combed off by a
climber, and then kicking at him--achieved a triumph in his weak state,
"when the bridle broke, and down I came backward on the crown of my
head, receiving as I fell a kick on the thigh. This last attack of fever
reduced me almost to a skeleton. The blanket which I used as a saddle,
being pretty constantly wet, caused extensive abrasion of the skin,
which was continually healing and getting sore again."
Then the guides missed their way and led them back into Chiboque
territory, where the demands of the chief of every village for "a man,
an ox, or a tusk," for permission to pass, began again. Worst of all,
signs of mutiny began to show themselves among the Batoka men of his
party, who threatened to turn back. He appeased them by giving them a
tired ox to be killed at the Sunday's halt. "Having thus, as I thought,
silenced their murmurs, I sank into a state of torpor, and was oblivious
of all their noise. On Sunday the mutineers were making a terrible din
in preparing the skin. I requested them twice to be more quiet as the
noise pained me, but, as they paid no attention to this civil request, I
put out my head and, repeating it, was answered by an impudent laugh.
Knowing that discipline would be at an end if this mutiny was not
quelled, and that our lives depended on vigorously upholding authority,
I seized a double-barrelled pistol and darted out with such a savage
aspect as to put them to precipitate flight. They gave no further
trouble." Every night now they had to build a stockade, and by day to
march in a compact body, knowing the forest to be full of enemies
dogging their path, for now they had nothing to give as presents, the
men having even divested themselves of all their copper ornaments to
appease the Chiboque harpies. "Nothing, however, disturbed us, and for
my part I was too ill to care much whether we were attacked or not."
They struggled on, the Chiboque natives, now joined by bodies of
traders, opposing at every ford, Livingstone no longer wondering why
expeditions from the interior failed to reach the coast. "Some of my men
proposed to return home, and the prospect of being obliged to turn back
from the threshold of the Portuguese settlements distressed me
exceedingly. After using all my powers of persuasion, I declared that if
they now returned, I should go on alone, and returning into my little
tent, I lifted up my heart to Him who hears the sighing of the soul.
Presently the head man came in. 'Do not be disheartened,' he said, 'we
will never leave you. Wherever you lead, we will follow. Our remarks
were only made on account of the injustice of these people.' Others
followed, and with the most artless simplicity of manner told me to be
comforted. 'They were all my children; they knew no one but Sekeletu and
me, and would die for me: they had spoken in bitterness of spirit,
feeling they could do nothing.'"
On April 1st they gained the ridge which overlooks the valley of the
Quango and the Portuguese settlements on the farther bank. "The descent
is so steep that I was obliged to dismount, though so weak that I had to
be supported. Below us, at a depth of one thousand feet, lay the
magnificent valley of the Quango. The view of the Vale of Clyde, from
the spot where Mary witnessed the Battle of Langside, resembles in
miniature the glorious sight which was here presented to our view."
On the 4th they were close to the Quango, here one hundred fifty yards
broad, when they were stopped for the last time by a village chief and
surrounded by his men. The usual altercation ensued; Livingstone
refusing to give up his blanket--the last article he possessed except
his watch and instruments and Sekeletu's tusks, which had been
faithfully guarded--until on board the canoes in which they were to
cross. "I was trying to persuade my people to move on to the bank in
spite of them, when a young half-caste Portuguese sergeant of militia,
Cypriano di Abren, who had come across in search of beeswax, made his
appearance and gave the same advice." They marched to the bank--the
chief's men opening fire on them, but without doing any damage--made
terms with the ferrymen, with Cypriano's help, crossed the Quango, and
were at the end of their troubles.
Four days they stopped with Cypriano, who treated them royally, killing
an ox and stripping his garden to feast them, and sending them on to
Cassange with provisions of meal ground by his mother and her maids. "I
carried letters from the Chevalier du Prat of Cape Town, but I am
inclined to believe that my friend Cypriano was influenced by feelings
of genuine kindness excited by my wretched appearance."
At Cassange they were again most hospitably treated, and here, before
starting for Loanda, three hundred miles, they disposed of Sekeletu's
tusks, which sold for much higher prices than those given by Cape
traders. "Two muskets, three small barrels of powder, and English calico
and baize enough to clothe my whole party, with large bunches of beads,
were given for one tusk, to the great delight of my Makololos, who had
been used to get only one gun for two tusks. With another tusk we
purchased calico--the chief currency here--to pay our way to the coast.
The remaining two were sold for money to purchase a horse for Sekeletu
at Loanda." Livingstone was much struck both by the country he passed
through and the terms on which the Portuguese lived with the natives.
Most of them had families by native women, who were treated as European
children and provided for by their fathers. Half-caste clerks sat at
table with the whites, and he came to the conclusion that "nowhere in
Africa is there so much good-will between Europeans and natives as
here."
The dizziness produced by his twenty-seven attacks of fever on the road
made it all he could do to stick on Sindbad, who managed to give him a
last ducking in the Lombe. "The weakening effects of the fever were most
extraordinary. For instance, in attempting to take lunar observations I
could not avoid confusion of time and distance, neither could I hold the
instrument steady, nor perform a simple calculation." He rallied a
little in crossing a mountain range. As they drew near Loanda the hearts
of his men began to fail, and they hinted their doubts to him. "If you
suspect me you can return," he told them, "for I am as ignorant of
Loanda as you; but nothing will happen to you but what happens to me. We
have stood by one another hitherto, and will do so till the last."
The first view of the sea staggered the Makololo. "We were marching
along with our father," they said, "believing what the ancients had told
us, that the world had no end; but all at once the world said to us: 'I
am finished; there is no more for me.'"
The fever had produced chronic dysentery, which was so depressing that
Livingstone entered Loanda in deep melancholy, doubting the reception he
might get from the one English gentleman, Mr. Gabriel, the commissioner
for the suppression of the slave-trade. He was soon undeceived. Mr.
Gabriel received him most kindly, and, seeing the condition he was in,
gave up to him his own bed. "Never shall I forget the luxurious pleasure
I enjoyed in feeling myself again on a good English bed after six
months' sleeping on the ground. I was soon asleep; and Mr. Gabriel
coming in almost immediately after, rejoiced in the soundness of my
repose."
(1851) THE COUP D'ÉTAT OF LOUIS NAPOLEON, Alexis de Tocqueville
By his astounding act of December 2, 1851, known as the _coup d'état_,
Charles Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, commonly called Louis Napoleon,
practically assumed imperial power, and on the first anniversary of that
_coup d'état_ he was officially proclaimed Emperor of the French under
the title of Napoleon III. He was the son of Louis Bonaparte, King of
Holland--a brother of Napoleon I--and was born in Paris, April 20, 1808.
From 1815 to 1830 he lived in exile. In 1836 he made an unsuccessful
attempt to organize a revolution among the French soldiers at Strasburg.
Four years later he tried to seize the throne of France; but failing in
this attempt, he was imprisoned in the fortress of Ham until 1846, when
he escaped to England. During his confinement he continued in his
writings a Bonapartist propaganda. He had addressed himself particularly
to the workingmen, and this class won a victory in the Revolution of
February, 1848. After the fall of Louis Philippe in that year, Napoleon
was elected to the National Assembly, largely by the votes of the
working classes, and on June 13, 1848, took his seat. In December he was
elected President of the Republic by an immense majority.
Although he was regarded as possessing a rather dull intellect, and as
being, partly for that reason, a "safe" man for the presidential office,
Napoleon soon proved his capacity for intrigue and for cajoling the
people. By intervening in behalf of Pope Pius IX, whom revolutionists
had driven from Rome, he gained the support of the clergy. Napoleon's
troops restored Pius IX (1850) to the papal throne. The President's aims
at supremacy were approved by the French monarchists, and he used all
means to increase his popularity, placing only his adherents in office.
When the Assembly, composed of seven hundred sixty members, undertook to
restrict the suffrage, which was "universal," Napoleon opposed the
change. He thus appeared to be the champion of the people against the
legislative body. As his term was to expire on May 2, 1852, and as he
was ineligible for a second term, although he knew that a majority of
the people favored his continuance in office, he saw no way to
accomplish that except by force. He therefore determined to use force,
and the method he adopted was that of the _coup d'état_. The success of
that stroke insured all that he aimed at. In December, 1851, by an
almost unanimous vote he was elected President for ten years. All his
"ideas" and purposes were embodied in a new constitution, and before the
end of 1852 the question of restoring the empire was submitted to the
people; and by the plebiscite of November, in that year, an enormous
majority of the voters elected him Emperor.
No account of the _coup d'état_,--the most striking and effective in
this series of dramatic events--surpasses in authenticity or interest
that of De Tocqueville. The famous author of _Democracy in America_, and
of equally celebrated works of French history, became Vice-President of
the National Assembly in 1849. As a member of that body he was justified
in saying of his story of the _coup d'état_, "I merely relate, as an
actual witness, the things I saw with my eyes and heard with my ears."
The first step taken by Napoleon in this affair was the arrest of the
opposition leaders of the Assembly in their beds, on the pretext of a
conspiracy against him in that body. De Tocqueville describes what
followed.
When the representatives of the people learned on the morning of
December 2, 1851, that several of their colleagues were arrested, they
ran to the Assembly. The doors were guarded by the Chasseurs de
Vincennes, a corps of troops recently returned from Africa and long
accustomed to the violence of Algerine dominion, and, moreover,
stimulated by a donation of five francs distributed to every soldier who
was in Paris that day. The Representatives, nevertheless, presented
themselves to go in, having at their head one of their Vice-Presidents,
M. Daru. This gentleman was violently struck by the soldiers, and the
Representatives who accompanied him were driven back at the point of the
bayonet. Three of them, M. de Talhouet, Étienne, and Duparc, were
slightly wounded. Several others had their clothes pierced. Such was the
beginning.
Driven from the doors of the Assembly, the Deputies retired to the
_mairie_ of the Tenth Arrondissement. They were already assembled to the
number of about three hundred when the troops arrived, blocked up the
approaches, and prevented a greater number of Representatives from
entering the apartment, though no one at that time was prevented from
leaving it.
Who then were those Representatives assembled at the _mairie_ of the
Tenth Arrondissement, and what did they do there? Every shade of opinion
was represented in this extemporaneous Assembly. But four-fifths of its
members belonged to the different conservative parties which had
constituted the majority. This Assembly was presided over by two of its
Vice-Presidents, M. Vitet and M. Benoist d'Azy. M. Daru was arrested in
his own house; the Fourth Vice-President, the illustrious General
Bedeau, had been seized that morning in his bed, and handcuffed like a
robber. As for the President, M. Dupin, he was absent, which surprised
no one. Besides its Vice-Presidents, the Assembly was accompanied by its
secretaries, its ushers, and even its phonographer who preserved for
posterity the records of this last and memorable sitting. The Assembly,
thus constituted, began by voting a decree in the following terms:
"In pursuance of article sixty-eight of the constitution, viz., the
President of the Republic, the ministers, the agents, and depositaries
of public authority are responsible, each in what concerns himself
respectively, for all the acts of the Government and the Administration:
any measure by which the President of the Republic dissolves the
National Assembly, prorogues it, or places obstacles in the exercise of
its powers is a crime of high treason.
"By this act alone, the President is deprived of all authority; the
citizens are bound to withhold their obedience, the executive power
passes in full right to the National Assembly. The judges of the High
Court of Justice will meet immediately, under pain of forfeiture; they
will convoke the juries in the place which they will select to proceed
to the judgment of the President and his accomplices; they will nominate
the magistrates charged to fulfil the duties of public ministers.
"And seeing that the National Assembly is prevented by violence from
exercising its powers, it decrees as follows, viz.: Louis Napoleon
Bonaparte is deprived of all authority as President of the Republic. The
citizens are enjoined to withhold their obedience. The executive power
has passed in full right to the National Assembly. The judges of the
High Court of Justice are enjoined to meet immediately, under pain of
forfeiture, to proceed to the judgment of the President and his
accomplices; consequently, all the officers and functionaries of power
and of public authority are bound to obey all requisitions made in the
name of the National Assembly, under pain of forfeiture and of high
treason.
"Done and decreed unanimously in public sitting, this second day of
December, 1851."
After this first decree was voted, another was unanimously passed,
naming General Oudinot commander of the public forces, and M. Tamisier
was joined with him as chief of the staff. The choice of these two
officers, each having distinct shades of political opinion, showed that
the Assembly was animated by one common spirit.
These decrees had hardly been signed by all the members present, and
deposited in a place of safety, when a band of soldiers, headed by their
officers, sword in hand, appeared at the door, without, however, daring
to enter the apartment. The Assembly awaited them in perfect silence.
The President alone raised his voice, read the decrees which had just
been passed to the soldiers, and ordered them to retire. The poor
fellows, ashamed of the part they were compelled to play, hesitated. The
officers, pale and undecided, declared that they should go for further
orders. They retired, contenting themselves with blockading the passages
leading to the apartment. The Assembly, not being able to go out,
ordered the windows to be opened, and caused the decrees to be read to
the people and the troops in the street below, especially that decree
which, in pursuance of the sixty-eighth article of the constitution,
declared the deposition and impeachment of Louis Napoleon.
Soon, however, the soldiers reappeared at the door, preceded this time
by two _commissaires de police_. These men entered the room and, amid
the unbroken silence and total immobility of the Assembly, summoned the
Representatives to disperse. The President ordered them to retire
themselves. One of the _commissaires_ was agitated and faltered; the
other broke out in invectives. The President said to him: "Sir, we are
here the lawful authority and sole representatives of law and of right.
We know that we cannot oppose to you material force, but we will leave
this chamber only under constraint. We will not disperse. Seize us and
convey us to prison."
"All, all!" exclaimed the members of the Assembly. After much hesitation
the _commissaires de police_ decided to act. They caused each of the two
Presidents to be seized by the collar. The whole body then rose, and,
arm in arm, two and two, they followed the Presidents, who were led off.
In this order they reached the street, and were marched across the city,
without knowing whither they were going.
Care had been taken to circulate a report among the crowd and the troops
that a meeting of Socialist and Red Republican Deputies had been
arrested. But when the people beheld among those who were thus dragged
through the mud of Paris on foot, like a gang of malefactors, men the
most illustrious by their talents and their virtues--ex-ministers,
ex-ambassadors, generals, admirals, great orators, great writers,
surrounded by the bayonets of the line--a shout was raised, "_Vive
l'Assemblée nationale!_" The Representatives were attended by these
shouts until they reached the barracks of the Quai d'Orsay, where they
were shut up.
Night was coming on, and it was wet and cold. Yet the Assembly was left
two hours in the open air, as if the Government did not deign to
remember its existence. The Representatives here made their last
roll-call in presence of their phonographer, who had followed them. The
number present was two hundred eighteen, to whom were added about twenty
more in the course of the evening, consisting of members who had
voluntarily caused themselves to be arrested. Almost all the men known
to France and to Europe, who formed the majority of the Legislative
Assembly, were gathered in this place. Few were wanting, except those
who, like M. Molé, had not been suffered to reach their colleagues.
There were present, among others, the Duc de Broglie, who had come,
though ill; the father of the House, the venerable Kératry, whose
physical strength was inferior to his moral courage, and whom it was
necessary to seat in a straw chair in the barrack yard; Odilon Barrot,
Dufaure, Berryer, Rémusat, Duvergier de Hauranne, Gustave de Beaumont,
De Tocqueville, De Falloux, Lanjuinais, Admiral Lainé and Admiral
Cécille, Generals Oudinot and Lauriston, the Due de Luynes, the Due de
Montebello; twelve ex-ministers, nine of whom had served under Louis
Napoleon himself; eight members of the Institute--all men who had
struggled for three years to defend society and to resist the demagogic
faction.
When two hours had elapsed this assemblage was driven into barrack-rooms
upstairs, where most of them spent the night, without fire and almost
without food, stretched upon the boards. It only remained to carry off
to prison these honorable men, guilty of no crime but the defence of the
laws of their country. For this purpose the most distressing and
ignominious means were selected. The cellular vans, in which convicts
are conveyed to prison, were brought up. In these vehicles were shut up
the men who had served and honored their country, and they were conveyed
like three bands of criminals, some to the fortress of Mont Valerien,
some to the prison Mazas in Paris, and the remainder to Vincennes. The
indignation of the public compelled the Government two days afterward to
release the greater number of them; some remained in confinement, unable
to obtain either their liberty or a trial.
The treatment inflicted upon the generals arrested in the morning of
December 2d was still more disgraceful. Cavaignac, Lamoricière, Bedeau,
Changarnier, the conquerors of Africa, were shut up in these infamous
cellular vans, which are always inconvenient and become almost
intolerable on a lengthened journey. In this manner they were conveyed
to Ham--that is, they were made to perform more than a day's journey.
Cavaignac, who had saved Paris and France in the days of
June--Cavaignac, the competitor of Louis Napoleon at the last elections,
shut up for a day and a night in the cell of a felon! I leave it to
every honest man and every generous heart to comment on such facts. Such
were the indignities offered to eminent men.
Let me now review the series of general crimes. The liberty of the press
is destroyed to an extent unheard of even in the time of the empire.
Most of the journals are suppressed, those which appear cannot say a
word on politics or even publish any news. But this is by no means all.
The Government has stuck up a list of persons who are formed into a
"consultative commission." Its object is to induce France to believe
that the Executive is not abandoned by every man of respectability and
consideration among us. More than half the persons on this list have
refused to belong to the commission; most of them regard the insertion
of their names as dishonor. I may quote, among others, M. Léon Faucher,
M. Portalis, First President of the Court of Cassation, and the Duc de
Albuféra, as those best known. Not only does the Government decline to
publish the letters in which these gentlemen refuse their consent, but
even their names are not withdrawn from the list which dishonors them.
The names are still retained in spite of their repeated remonstrances. A
day or two ago, one of them, M. Joseph Perier, driven to desperation by
this excess of tyranny, rushed into the street to strike out his own
name, with his own hands, from the public placards, taking the
passers-by to witness that it had been placed there by a lie.
Such is the state of the public journals. Let us now see the condition
of personal liberty. I say again that personal liberty is more trampled
on than ever it was in the time of the empire. A decree of the new power
gives the _préfets_ the right to arrest, in their respective
departments, whomsoever they please; and the _préfets_, in their turn,
send blank warrants of arrest, which are literally _lettres de cachet_,
to the _sobs-préfets_ under their orders. The Provisional Government of
the Republic never went so far. Human life is as little respected as
human liberty. I know that war has its dreadful necessities, but the
disturbances which have recently occurred in Paris have been put down
with a barbarity unprecedented in our civil contests; and when we
remember that this torrent of blood has been shed to consummate the
violation of all law, we cannot but think that sooner or later it will
fall back upon the heads of those who shed it. As for the appeal of the
people, to whom Louis Napoleon affects to submit his claims, never was a
more odious mockery offered to a nation. The people is called upon to
express its opinion, yet not only is public discussion suppressed, but
even the knowledge of facts. The people is asked its opinion, but the
first measure taken to obtain it is to establish military terrorism
throughout the country, and to threaten with deprivation every public
agent that does not approve in writing what has been done.
Such is the condition in which we stand. Force overturning law,
trampling on the liberty of the press and of the person, deriding the
popular will, in whose name the Government pretends to act. France torn
from the alliance of free nations to be classed with the despotic
monarchies of the Continent--such is the result of this _coup d'état_.
The army refused to submit to the decree of the captive Assembly
impeaching the President of the Republic; but the High Court of Justice
obeyed it. The five judges composing it, sitting in the midst of Paris
enslaved and in the face of martial law, dared to assemble at the Palace
of Justice, and to issue a process beginning criminal proceedings
against Louis Napoleon, charged with high treason by the law, though
already triumphant in the streets. I subjoin the text of this memorable
edict:
"The High Court of Justice, considering the sixty-eighth article of the
constitution, considering that printed placards, beginning with the
words 'The President of the Republic,' and bearing at the end the
signatures of Louis Napoleon Bonaparte and De Moony, Minister of the
Interior, which placards announce among other things, the dissolution of
the National Assembly, have this day been affixed to the walls of Paris;
that this fact of the dissolution of the Assembly by the President of
the Republic would fall under the case provided for by the sixty-eighth
article of the constitution, and render the convocation of the High
Court of Justice imperative, by the terms of that article declares that
the High Court is constituted, and names M. Renouard, counsellor of the
Court of Cassation, to fill the duties of public accuser; and to fill
those of _greffier_, M. Bernard, _Greffier-en-chef_ of the Court of
Cassation; and, to proceed further in pursuance of the terms of the said
sixty-eighth article of the constitution, adjourns until to-morrow,
December 3d, at the hour of noon.
"Done and deliberated in the Council Chamber. Present, M. Hardouin,
President; M. Pataille, M. Moreau, M. de la Palme, and M. Cauchy,
judges, this second day of December, 1851."
After this textual extract from the minutes of the High Court of Justice
there is the following entry: "(1) A _procès-verbal_ announcing the
arrival of a _commissaire de police_, who called upon the High Court to
separate. (2) A _procès-verbal_ of a second sitting held on the morrow,
the third day of December (when the Assembly was in prison), at which M.
Renouard accepts the functions of public prosecutor, charged to proceed
against Louis Napoleon, after which the High Court, being no longer able
to sit, adjourned to a day to be fixed hereafter."
(1851) DISCOVERY OF GOLD IN AUSTRALIA, Edward Jenks