What had to be determined before the Assembly and the country was upon
whom devolved the heavy responsibility for the painful days of June. The
Executive Committee was then in power; ought it not to have foreseen and
provided against the insurrection? General Cavaignac, Minister of
War, and, moreover, invested with dictatorial powers by the National
Assembly, had alone issued orders.
Had he issued them in time? Could he not have crushed the riot at the
outset instead of permitting it to gain strength, spread and develop
into an insurrection? And, finally, had not the repression which
followed victory been unnecessarily bloody, if not inhuman?
As the time for rendering an account approached Cavaignac became
thoughtful and his ill-humour was manifest even in the Chamber.
One day Crémieux took his seat on the ministerial bench, whence he
approved with an occasional “Hear! Hear!” the remarks of the orator who
occupied the tribune. The speaker chanced to belong to the Opposition.
“Monsieur Crémieux,” said Cavaignac, “you are making a good deal of
noise.”
“What does that matter to you?” replied Crémieux.
“It matters that you are on the ministerial bench.”
“Do you want me to leave it?”
“Well--”
Cremieux rose and quitted his bench, saying as he did so:
“General, you compel me to leave the Cabinet, and it was through me that
you entered it.”
Crémieux, in point of fact, had, as a member of the Provisional
Government, had Cavaignac appointed Minister of War.
During the three days that preceded the debate, which had been fixed for
the 25th, the Chamber was very nervous and uneasy. Cavaignac’s friends
secretly trembled and sought to make others tremble. They said: “You
will see!” They affected assurance. Jules Favre having alluded in the
tribune to the “great and solemn debate” which was to take place, they
burst into a laugh. M. Coquerel, the Protestant pastor, happening
to meet Cavaignac in the lobby, said to him: “Keep yourself in hand,
General!” “In a quarter of an hour,” replied Cavaignac with flashing
eyes, “I shall have swept these wretches away!” These wretches were
Lamartine, Gamier-Pages, and Arago. There was some doubt about Arago,
however. It was said that he was rallying to Cavaignac. Meanwhile
Cavaignac had conferred the cross of the Legion of Honour upon the
Bishop of Quimper, the Abbé Legraverand, who had accepted it.
“A cross for a vote,” was the remark made in the Chamber. And these
reversed roles, a general giving a cross to a bishop, caused much
amusement.
In reality we are in the midst of a quarrel over the presidency. The
candidates are shaking their fists at each other. The Assembly hoots,
growls, murmurs, stamps its feet, crushes one, applauds the other.
This poor Assembly is a veritable _fille a soldats_, in love with a
trooper. For the time being it is Cavaignac.
Who will it be to-morrow?
General Cavaignac proved himself to be clever, and occasionally even
eloquent. His defence partook more of the character of an attack.
Frequently he appeared to me to be sincere because he had for so long
excited my suspicion. The Assembly listened to him for nearly three
hours with rapt attention. Throughout it was evident that he possessed
its confidence. Its sympathy was shown every moment, and sometimes it
manifested a sort of love for him.
Cavaignac, tall and supple, with his short frock-coat, his military
collar, his heavy moustache, his bent brow, his brusque language, broken
up by parentheses, and his rough gestures, was at times at once as
fierce as a soldier and as passionate as a tribune. Towards the
middle of his discourse he became an advocate, which, as far as I
was concerned, spoiled the man; the harangue became a speech for the
defence. But at its conclusion he roused himself again with a sort of
real indignation. He pounded on the desk with his fist and overturned
the glass of water, much to the consternation of the ushers, and in
terminating he said:
“I have been speaking for I know not how long; I will speak again all
the evening, all night, all day to-morrow, if necessary, and it will no
longer be as an advocate, but as a soldier, and you will listen to me!”
The whole Assembly applauded him enthusiastically.
M. Barthélemy Saint Hilaire, who attacked Cavaignac, was an orator cold,
rigid, somewhat dry and by no means equal to the task, his anger being
without fierceness and his hatred without passion. He began by reading
a memoir, which always displeases assemblies. The Assembly, which was
secretly ill-disposed and angry, was eager to crush him. It only wanted
pretexts; he furnished it with motives. The grave defect in his memoir
was that serious accusations were built upon petty acts, a surcharge
that caused the whole system to bend. This little pallid man who
continually raised one leg behind him and leaned forward with his two
hands on the edge of the tribune as though he were gazing down into a
well, made those who did not hiss laugh. Amid the uproar of the Assembly
he affected to write at considerable length in a copybook, to dry the
ink by sprinkling powder upon it, and with great deliberation to pour
the powder back into the powder-box, thus finding means to increase the
tumult with his calmness. When M. Barthélemy Saint Hilaire descended
from the tribune, Cavaignac had only been attacked. He had not then
replied, yet was already absolved.
M. Garnier-Pagès, tried Republican and honest man, but with a substratum
of vanity and an emphatic manner, succeeded M. Barthélemy Saint Hilaire.
The Assembly tried to crush him, too, but he rose again amid murmurs.
He reminded his hearers of his past, invoked recollections of the Salle
Voisin, compared the henchmen of Cavaignac to the henchmen of Guizot,
bared his breast “which had braved the poignards of the Red Republic,”
and ended by resolutely attacking the general, with too few facts and
too many words, but fairly and squarely, taking him, so to speak, as the
Bible urges that the bull be taken, by the horns.
Garnier-Pages propped up the accusation that had almost been laid low.
He brought the personal pronoun much too frequently into the discussion;
he acted ill-advisedly, for everybody’s personality ought to have been
effaced in view of the seriousness of the debate and the anxiety of the
country. He turned to all sides with a sort of disconsolate fury;
he summoned Arago to intervene, Ledru-Rollin to speak, Lamartine to
explain. All three remained silent, thus failing in their duty and
destiny.
The Assembly, however, pursued Garnier-Pages with its hooting, and when
he said to Cavaignac: “You wanted to throw us down,” it burst into a
laugh, at the sentiment as well as at the expression. Garnier-Pages
gazed at the laughing house with an air of despair.
From all sides came shouts of: “The closure!”
The Assembly had reached a state in which it would not listen and could
no longer hear.