THE DAYS OF JUNE--(_continued_).
The porter of the house in which we lived in the Rue de la Madeleine was
a man of very bad reputation in the neighbourhood, an old soldier, not
quite in his right mind, a drunkard, and a great good-for-nothing, who
spent at the wine-shop all the time which he did not employ in beating
his wife. This man might be said to be a Socialist by birth, or rather
by temperament.
The early successes of the insurrection had brought him to a state of
exaltation, and on the morning of the day of which I speak he visited
all the wine-shops around, and among other mischievous remarks of which
he delivered himself, he said that he would kill me when I came home in
the evening, if I came in at all. He even displayed a large knife which
he intended to use for the purpose. A poor woman who heard him ran in
great alarm to tell Madame de Tocqueville; and she, before leaving
Paris, sent me a note in which, after telling me of the facts, she
begged me not to come in that night, but to go to my father's house,
which was close by, he being away. This I determined to do; but when I
left the Assembly at midnight, I had not the energy to carry out my
intention. I was worn out with fatigue, and I did not know whether I
should find a bed prepared if I slept out. Besides, I had little faith
in the performance of murders proclaimed beforehand; and also I was
under the influence of the sort of listlessness that follows upon any
prolonged excitement. I accordingly went and knocked at my door, only
taking the precaution to load the pistols which, in those unhappy days,
it was common to carry. My man opened the door, I entered, and while he
was carefully pushing the bolts behind me, I asked him if all the
tenants had come home. He replied drily that they had all left Paris
that morning, and that we two were alone in the house. I should have
preferred another kind of _tete-a-tete_, but it was too late to go back;
I therefore looked him straight in the eyes and told him to walk in
front and show a light.
He stopped at a gate that led to the court-yard, and told me that he
heard a curious noise in the stables which alarmed him, begging me to go
with him to see what it was. As he spoke, he turned towards the stables.
All this began to seem very suspicious to me, but I thought that, as I
had gone so far, it was better to go on. I accordingly followed him,
carefully watching his movements, and making up my mind to kill him like
a dog at the first sign of treachery. As a matter of fact, we did hear a
very strange noise. It resembled the dull running of water or the
distant rumble of a carriage, although it obviously came from somewhere
quite near. I never learnt what it was; though it was true I did not
spend much time in trying to discover. I soon returned to the house and
made my companion bring me to my threshold, keeping my eyes on him the
whole time. I told him to open my door, and so soon as he had done so, I
took the candle from his hand and went in. It was not until I was almost
out of his sight that he brought himself to take off his hat and bow to
me. Had the man really intended to kill me, and seeing me on my guard,
with both hands in my pockets, did he reflect that I was better armed
than he, and that he would be well advised to abandon his design? I
thought at the time that the latter had never been very seriously
intended, and I think so still. In times of revolution, people boast
almost as much about the imaginary crimes they propose to commit as in
ordinary times they do of the good intentions they pretend to entertain.
I have always believed that this wretch would only have become dangerous
if the fortunes of the fight had seemed to turn against us; but they
leant, on the contrary, to our side, although they were still undecided;
and this was sufficient to assure my safety.
At dawn I heard some one in my room, and woke with a start: it was my
man-servant, who had let himself in with a private key of the apartment,
which he carried. The brave lad had just left the bivouac (I had
supplied him at his request with a National Guard's uniform and a good
gun), and he came to know if I had come home and if his services were
required. This one was certainly not a Socialist, either in theory or
temperament. He was not even tainted in the slightest degree with the
most general malady of the age, restlessness of mind, and even in other
times than ours it would have been difficult to find a man more
contented with his position and less sullen at his lot. Always very much
satisfied with himself, and tolerably satisfied with others, he
generally desired only that which was within his reach, and he generally
attained, or thought he attained, all that he desired; thus unwittingly
following the precepts which philosophers teach and never observe, and
enjoying by the gift of Nature that happy equilibrium between faculty
and desire which alone gives the happiness which philosophy promises us.
"Well, Eugene," I said, when I saw him, "how are affairs going on?"
"Very well, sir, perfectly well!"
"What do you mean by very well? I can still hear the sound of cannon!"
"Yes, they are still fighting," he replied, "but every one says it will
end all right."
With that he took off his uniform, cleaned my boots, brushed my clothes,
and putting on his uniform again:
"If you don't require me any more, sir," said he, "and if you will
permit me, I will go back to the fighting."
He pursued this two-fold calling during four days and four nights, as
simply as I am writing it down; and I experienced a sort of reposeful
feeling, during these days filled with turmoil and hate, when I looked
at the young man's peaceful and contented face.
Before going to the Assembly, where I did not think there would be any
important measures to take, I resolved to make my way to the places
where the fighting was still going on, and where I heard the sound of
cannon. It was not that I was longing "to go and fight a bit," like
Goudchaux, but I wanted to judge for myself as to the state of things;
for, in my complete ignorance of war, I could not understand what made
the struggle last so long. Besides, shall I confess it, a keen curiosity
was piercing through all the feelings that filled my mind, and from time
to time dominated them. I went along a great portion of the boulevard
without seeing any traces of the battle, but there were plenty just
beyond the Porte Saint-Martin; one stumbled over the _debris_ left
behind by the retreating insurrection: broken windows, doors smashed in,
houses spotted by bullets or pierced by cannon-balls, trees cut down,
heaped-up paving-stones, straw mixed with blood and mud. Such were these
melancholy vestiges.
I thus reached the Chateau-d'Eau, around which were massed a number of
troops of different sorts. At the foot of the fountain was a piece of
cannon which was being discharged down the Rue Samson. I thought at
first that the insurgents were replying with cannon on their side, but I
ended by seeing that I was deceived by an echo which repeated with a
terrible crash the sound of our own gun. I have never heard anything
like it; one might have thought one's self in the midst of a great
battle. As a matter of fact, the insurgents were only replying with an
infrequent but deadly musketry fire.
It was a strange combat. The Rue Samson, as we know, is not a very long
one; at the end runs the Canal Saint-Martin, and behind the canal is a
large house facing the street. The street was absolutely deserted; there
was no barricade in sight, and the gun seemed to be firing at a target;
only from time to time a whiff of smoke issued from a few windows, and
proclaimed the presence of an invisible enemy. Our sharp-shooters,
posted along the walls, aimed at the windows from which they saw the
shots fired. Lamoriciere, mounted on a tall horse in full view of the
enemy, gave his commands amid the whirl of bullets. I thought he was
more excited and talkative than I had imagined a general ought to be in
such a juncture; he talked, shouted in a hoarse voice, gesticulated in a
sort of rage. It was easy to see by the clearness of his thoughts and
expressions that amid this apparent disorder he lost none of his
presence of mind; but his manner of commanding might have caused others
to lose theirs, and I confess I should have admired his courage more if
he had kept more quiet.
This conflict, in which one saw nobody before him, this firing, which
seemed to be aimed only at the walls, surprised me strangely. I should
never have pictured war to myself under this aspect. As the boulevard
seemed clear beyond the Chateau-d'Eau, I was unable to understand why
our columns did not pass further, nor why, if we wanted first to seize
the large house facing the street, we did not capture it at a run,
instead of remaining so long exposed to the deadly fire issuing from it.
Yet nothing was more easily explained: the boulevard, which I thought
clear from the Chateau-d'Eau onwards, was not so; beyond the bend which
it makes at this place, it was bristling with barricades, all the way to
the Bastille. Before attacking the barricades, we wanted to become
masters of the streets we left behind us, and especially to capture the
house facing the street, which, commanding the boulevard as it did,
would have impeded our communications. Finally, we did not take the
house by assault, because we were separated from it by the canal, which
I could not see from the boulevard. We confined ourselves, therefore, to
efforts to destroy it by cannon-shots, or at least to render it
untenable. This took a long time to accomplish, and after being
astonished in the morning that the fighting had not finished, I now
asked myself how at this rate it could ever finish. For what I was
witnessing at the Chateau-d'Eau was at the same time being repeated in
other forms in a hundred different parts of Paris.
As the insurgents had no artillery, the conflict did not possess the
horrible aspect which it must have when the battle-field is ploughed by
cannon balls. The men who were struck down before me seemed transfixed
by an invisible shaft: they staggered and fell without one's seeing at
first anything but a little hole made in their clothes. In the cases of
this kind which I witnessed, I was struck less by the sight of physical
pain than by the picture of moral anguish. It was indeed a strange and
frightful thing to see the sudden change of features, the quick
extinction of the light in the eyes in the terror of death.
After a certain period, I saw Lamoriciere's horse sink to the ground,
shot by a bullet; it was the third horse the General had had killed
under him since the day before yesterday. He sprang lightly to the
ground, and continued bellowing his raging instructions.
I noticed that on our side the least eager were the soldiers of the
Line. They were weakened and, as it were, dulled by the remembrance of
February, and did not yet seem quite certain that they would not be told
the next day that they had done wrong. The liveliest were undoubtedly
the Gardes Mobiles of whom we had felt so uncertain; and, in spite of
the event, I maintain that we were right, at the time; for it wanted but
little for them to decide against us instead of taking our side. Until
the end, they plainly showed that it was the fighting they loved rather
than the cause for which they fought.
All these troops were raw and very subject to panic: I myself was a
judge and almost a victim of this. At a street corner close to the
Chateau-d'Eau was a large house in process of building. Some insurgents,
who doubtless entered from behind across the court-yards, had taken up
their position there, unknown to us; suddenly they appeared on the roof,
and fired a great volley at the troops who filled the boulevard, and who
did not expect to find the enemy posted so close at hand. The sound of
their muskets reverberating with a great crash against the opposite
houses gave reason to dread that a surprise of the same kind was taking
place on that side. Immediately the most incredible confusion prevailed
in our column: artillery, cavalry, and infantry were mingled in a
moment, the soldiers fired in every direction, without knowing what they
were doing, and tumultuously fell back sixty paces. This retreat was so
disorderly and so impetuous that I was thrown against the wall of the
houses facing the Rue du Faubourg-du-Temple, knocked down by the
cavalry, and so hard pressed that I left my hat on the field, and very
nearly left my body there. It was certainly the most serious danger I
ran during the days of June. This made me think that it is not all
heroism in the game of war. I have no doubt but that accidents of this
kind often happen to the very best troops; no one boasts about them, and
they are not mentioned in the despatches.
It was now that Lamoriciere became sublime. He had till then kept his
sword in the scabbard: he now drew it, and ran up to his soldiers, his
features distorted with the most magnificent rage; he stopped them with
his voice, seized them with his hands, even struck them with the pummel
of his sword, turned them, brought them back, and, placing himself at
their head, forced them to pass at the trot through the fire in the Rue
du Faubourg-du-Temple in order to take the house from which the firing
had come. This was done in a moment, and without striking a blow: the
enemy had disappeared.
The combat resumed its dull aspect and lasted some time longer, until
the enemy's fire was at length extinguished, and the street occupied.
Before commencing the next operation, there was a moment's pause:
Lamoriciere went to his head-quarters, a wine-shop on the boulevard near
the Porte Saint-Martin, and I was at last able to consult him on the
state of affairs.
"How long do you think," I asked, "that all this will last?"
"Why, how can I tell?" he replied. "That depends on the enemy, not on
us."
He then showed me on the map all the streets we had already captured and
were occupying, and all those we had still to take, adding, "If the
insurgents choose to defend themselves on the ground they still hold as
they have done on that which we have won from them, we may still have a
week's fighting before us, and our loss will be enormous, for we lose
more than they do: the first side to lose its moral courage will be the
first to be beaten."
I next reproached him with exposing himself so rashly, and, as I
thought, so uselessly.
"What will you have me do?" said he. "Tell Cavaignac to send generals
able and willing to second me, and I will keep more in the background;
but you always have to expose yourself when you have only yourself to
rely on."
M. Thiers then came up, threw himself on Lamoriciere's neck, and told
him he was a hero. I could not help smiling at this effusion, for there
was no love lost between them: but a great danger is like wine, it makes
men affectionate.
I left Lamoriciere in M. Thiers' arms, and returned to the Assembly: it
was growing late, and besides, I know no greater fool than the man who
gets his head broken in battle out of curiosity.
The rest of the day was spent as the day before: the same anxiety in the
Assembly, the same feverish inaction, the same firmness. Volunteers
continued to enter Paris; every moment we were told of some tragic event
or illustrious death. These pieces of news saddened, but animated and
fortified, the Assembly. Any member who ventured to propose to enter
into negociations with the insurgents was met with yells of rage.
In the evening I decided to go myself to the Hotel de Ville, in order
there to obtain more certain news of the results of the day. The
insurrection, after alarming me by its extreme violence, now alarmed me
by its long duration. For who could foresee the effect which the sight
of so long and uncertain a conflict might produce in some parts of
France, and especially in the great manufacturing towns, such as Lyons?
As I went along the Quai de la Ferraille, I met some National Guards
from my neighbourhood, carrying on litters several of their comrades and
two of their officers wounded. I observed, in talking with them, with
what terrible rapidity, even in so civilized a century as our own, the
most peaceful minds enter, as it were, into the spirit of civil war, and
how quick they are, in these unhappy times, to acquire a taste for
violence and a contempt for human life. The men with whom I was talking
were peaceful, sober artisans, whose gentle and somewhat sluggish
natures were still further removed from cruelty than from heroism. Yet
they dreamt of nothing but massacre and destruction. They complained
that they were not allowed to use bombs, or to sap and mine the streets
held by the insurgents, and they were determined to show no more
quarter; already that morning I had almost seen a poor devil shot before
my eyes on the boulevards, who had been arrested without arms in his
hands, but whose mouth and hands were blackened by a substance which
they supposed to be, and which no doubt was, powder. I did all I could
to calm these rabid sheep. I promised them that we should take terrible
measures the next day. Lamoriciere, in fact, had told me that morning
that he had sent for shells to hurl behind the barricades; and I knew
that a regiment of sappers was expected from Douai, to pierce the walls
and blow up the besieged houses with petards. I added that they must not
shoot any of their prisoners, but that they should kill then and there
anyone who made as though to defend himself. I left my men a little more
contented, and, continuing my road, I could not help examining myself
and feeling surprised at the nature of the arguments I had used, and the
promptness with which, in two days, I had become familiarized with those
ideas of inexorable destruction which were naturally so foreign to my
character.
As I passed in front of the little streets at the entrance to which, two
days before, I had seen such neat and solid barricades being built, I
noticed that the cannon had considerably upset those fine works,
although some traces remained.
I was received by Marrast, the Mayor of Paris. He told me that the Hotel
de Ville was clear for the present, but that the insurgents might try in
the night to recapture the streets from which we had driven them. I
found him less tranquil than his bulletins. He took me to a room in
which they had laid Bedeau, who was dangerously wounded on the first
day. This post at the Hotel de Ville was a very fatal one for the
generals who commanded there. Bedeau almost lost his life. Duvivier and
Negrier, who succeeded him, were killed. Bedeau believed he was but
slightly hurt, and thought only of the situation of affairs:
nevertheless, his activity of mind struck me as ill-omened, and alarmed
me.
The night was well advanced when I left the Hotel de Ville to go to the
Assembly. I was offered an escort, which I refused, not thinking I
should require it; but I regretted it more than once on the road. In
order to prevent the insurgent districts from receiving reinforcements,
provisions, or communications from the other parts of the town, in which
there were so many men prepared to embrace the same cause, it had very
properly been resolved absolutely to prohibit circulation in any of the
streets. Everyone was stopped who left his house without a pass or an
escort. I was constantly stopped on my way and made to show my medal. I
was aimed at more than ten times by those inexperienced sentries, who
spoke every imaginable brogue; for Paris was filled with provincials,
who had come from every part of the country, many of them for the first
time.
When I arrived, the sitting was over, but the Palace was still in a
great state of excitement. A rumour had got abroad that the workmen of
the Gros-Caillou were about to take advantage of the darkness to seize
upon the Palace itself. Thus the Assembly, which, after three days'
fighting, had carried the conflict into the heart of the districts
occupied by its enemies, was trembling for its own quarters. The rumour
was void of foundation; but nothing could better show the character of
this war, in which the enemy might always be one's own neighbour, and
in which one was never certain of not having his house sacked while
gaining a victory at a distance. In order to secure the Palace against
all surprise, barricades were hurriedly erected at the entrance to all
the streets leading up to it. When I saw that there was only a question
of a false rumour, I went home to bed.
I shall say no more of the June combats. The recollections of the two
last days merge into and are lost in those of the first. As is known,
the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, the last citadel of the civil war, did not
lay down its arms until the Monday--that is to say, on the fourth day
after the commencement of the conflict; and it was not until the morning
of that day that the volunteers from la Manche were able to reach Paris.
They had hurried as fast as possible, but they had come more than eighty
leagues across a country in which there were no railways. They were
fifteen hundred in number. I was touched at recognizing among them many
landlords, lawyers, doctors and farmers who were my friends and
neighbours. Almost all the old nobility of the country had taken up arms
on this occasion and formed part of the column. It was the same over
almost the whole of France. From the petty squire squatting in his den
in the country to the useless, elegant sons of the great houses--all had
at that moment remembered that they had once formed part of a warlike
and governing class, and on every side they gave the example of vigour
and resolution: so great is the vitality of those old bodies of
aristocracy. They retain traces of themselves even when they appear to
be reduced to dust, and spring up time after time from the shades of
death before sinking back for ever.
It was in the midst of the days of June that the death occurred of a man
who perhaps of all men in our day best preserved the spirit of the old
races: M. de Chateaubriand, with whom I was connected by so many family
ties and childish recollections. He had long since fallen into a sort of
speechless stupor, which made one sometimes believe that his
intelligence was extinguished. Nevertheless, while in this condition, he
heard a rumour of the Revolution of February, and desired to be told
what was happening. They informed him that Louis-Philippe's government
had been overthrown. He said, "Well done!" and nothing more. Four months
later, the din of the days of June reached his ears, and again he asked
what that noise was. They answered that people were fighting in Paris,
and that it was the sound of cannon. Thereupon he made vain efforts to
rise, saying, "I want to go to it," and was then silent, this time for
ever; for he died the next day.
Such were the days of June, necessary and disastrous days. They did not
extinguish revolutionary ardour in France, but they put a stop, at least
for a time, to what may be called the work appertaining to the
Revolution of February. They delivered the nation from the tyranny of
the Paris workmen and restored it to possession of itself.
Socialistic theories continued to penetrate into the minds of the people
in the shape of envious and greedy desires, and to sow the seed of
future revolutions; but the socialist party itself was beaten and
powerless. The Montagnards, who did not belong to it, felt that they
were irrevocably affected by the blow that had struck it. The moderate
Republicans themselves did not fail to be alarmed lest this victory had
led them to a slope which might precipitate them from the Republic, and
they made an immediate effort to stop their descent, but in vain.
Personally I detested the Mountain, and was indifferent to the Republic;
but I adored Liberty, and I conceived great apprehensions for it
immediately after these days. I at once looked upon the June fighting as
a necessary crisis, after which, however, the temper of the nation would
undergo a certain change. The love of independence was to be followed by
a dread of, and perhaps a distaste for, free institutions; after such an
abuse of liberty a return of this sort was inevitable. This retrograde
movement began, in fact, on the 27th of June. At first very slow and
invisible, as it were, to the naked eye, it grew swifter, impetuous,
irresistible. Where will it stop? I do not know. I believe we shall have
great difficulty in not rolling far beyond the point we had reached
before February, and I foresee that all of us, Socialists, Montagnards
and Liberal Republicans, will fall into common discredit until the
private recollections of the Revolution of 1848 are removed and effaced,
and the general spirit of the times shall resume its empire.