One day, or rather, one night, the moment having come to save society, the coup d'etat abruptly seizes the Demagogues, and finds that it holds by the collar, Whom? the Royalists.

They arrived at the barracks, formerly the barracks of the Royal Guard, and on the pediment of which is a carved escutcheon, whereon are still visible the traces of the three fleurs de lis effaced in 1830. They halted. The door was opened. "Why!" said M. de Broglie, "here we are."

At that moment a great placard posted on the barrack wall by the side of the door bore in big letters—

"REVISION OF THE CONSTITUTION."

It was the advertisement of a pamphlet, published two or three days previous to the coup d'etat, without any author's name, demanding the Empire, and was attributed to the President of the Republic.

The Representatives entered and the doors were closed upon them. The shouts ceased; the crowd, which occasionally has its meditative moments, remained for some time on the quay, dumb, motionless, gazing alternately at the closed gate of the Barracks, and at the silent front of the Palace of the Assembly, dimly visible in the misty December twilight, two hundred paces distant.

The two Commissaries of Police went to report their "success" to M. de Morny. M. de Morny said, "Now the struggle has begun. Excellent! These are the last Representatives who will be made prisoners."

[5] The Gerontes, or Gerontia, were the Elders of Sparta, who constituted the Senate.

[6] The "bureau" of the Assembly consists of the President, for the time being of the Assembly, assisted by six secretaries, whose duties mainly lie in deciding in what sense the Deputies have voted. The "bureau" of the Assembly should not be confounded with the fifteen "bureaux" of the Deputies, which answer to our Select Committees of the House of Commons, and are presided over by self-chosen Presidents.

[7] An allusion to the twenty-five francs a day officially payable to the members of the Assembly.



CHAPTER XIII.

LOUIS BONAPARTE'S SIDE-FACE

The minds of all these men, we repeat, were very differently affected.

The extreme Legitimist party, which represents the White of the flag, was not, it must be said, highly exasperated at the coup d'etat. Upon many faces might be read the saying of M. de Falloux: "I am so satisfied that I have considerable difficulty in affecting to be only resigned." The ingenuous spirits cast down their eyes—that is becoming to purity; more daring spirits raised their heads. They felt an impartial indignation which permitted a little admiration. How cleverly these generals have been ensnared! The Country assassinated,—it is a horrible crime; but they were enraptured at the jugglery blended with the parricide. One of the leaders said, with a sigh of envy and regret, "We do not possess a man of such talent." Another muttered, "It is Order." And he added, "Alas!" Another exclaimed, "It is a frightful crime, but well carried out." Some wavered, attracted on one side by the lawful power which rested in the Assembly, and on the other by the abomination which was in Bonaparte; honest souls poised between duty and infamy. There was a M. Thomines Desmazures who went as far as the door of the Great Hall of the Mairie, halted, looked inside, looked outside, and did not enter. It would be unjust not to record that others amongst the pure Royalists, and above all M. de Vatimesnil, had the sincere intonation and the upright wrath of justice.

Be it as it may, the Legitimist party, taken as a whole, entertained no horror of the coup d'etat. It feared nothing. In truth, should the Royalists fear Louis Bonaparte? Why?

Indifference does not inspire fear. Louis Bonaparte was indifferent. He only recognized one thing, his object. To break through the road in order to reach it, that was quite plain; the rest might be left alone. There lay the whole of his policy, to crush the Republicans, to disdain the Royalists.

Louis Bonaparte had no passion. He who writes these lines, talking one day about Louis Bonaparte with the ex-king of Westphalia, remarked, "In him the Dutchman tones down the Corsican."—"If there be any Corsican," answered Jerome.

Louis Bonaparte has never been other than a man who has lain wait for fortune, a spy trying to dupe God. He had that livid dreaminess of the gambler who cheats. Cheating admits audacity, but excludes anger. In his prison at Ham he only read one book, "The Prince." He belonged to no family, as he could hesitate between Bonaparte and Verhuell; he had no country, as he could hesitate between France and Holland.

This Napoleon had taken St. Helena in good part. He admired England. Resentment! To what purpose? For him on earth there only existed his interests. He pardoned, because he speculated; he forgot everything, because he calculated upon everything. What did his uncle matter to him? He did not serve him; he made use of him. He rested his shabby enterprise upon Austerlitz. He stuffed the eagle.

Malice is an unproductive outlay. Louis Bonaparte only possessed as much memory as is useful. Hudson Lowe did not prevent him from smiling upon Englishmen; the Marquis of Montchenu did not prevent him from smiling upon the Royalists.

He was a man of earnest politics, of good company, wrapped in his own scheming, not impulsive, doing nothing beyond that which he intended, without abruptness, without hard words, discreet, accurate, learned, talking smoothly of a necessary massacre, a slaughterer, because it served his purpose.

All this, we repeat, without passion, and without anger. Louis Bonaparte was one of those men who had been influenced by the profound iciness of Machiavelli.

It was through being a man of that nature that he succeeded in submerging the name of Napoleon by superadding December upon Brumaire.



CHAPTER XIV.

THE D'ORSAY BARRACKS

It was half-past three.

The arrested Representatives entered into the courtyard of the barracks, a huge parallelogram closed in and commanded by high walls. These walls are pierced by three tiers of windows, and posses that dismal appearance which distinguishes barracks, schools, and prisons.

This courtyard is entered by an arched portal which extends through all the breadth of the front of the main building. This archway, under which the guard-house has been made, is close on the side of the quay by large solid folding doors, and on one side of the courtyard by an iron grated gateway. They closed the door and the grated gateway upon the Representatives. They "set them at liberty" in the bolted and guarded courtyard.

"Let them stroll about," said an officer.

The air was cold, the sky was gray. Some soldiers, in their shirt-sleeves and wearing foraging caps, busy with fatigue duty, went hither and thither amongst the prisoners.

First M. Grimault and then M. Antony Thouret instituted a roll-call. The Representatives made a ring around them. Lherbette said laughingly, "This just suits the barracks. We look like sergeant-majors who have come to report." They called over the seven hundred and fifty names of the Representatives. To each name they answered "Absent" or "Present," and the secretary jotted down with a pencil those who were present. When the name of Morny was reached, some one cried out, "At Clichy!" At the name of Persigny, the same voice exclaimed, "At Poissy!" The inventor of these two jokes, which by the way are very poor, has since allied himself to the Second of December, to Morny and Persigny; he has covered his cowardice with the embroidery of a senator.

The roll-call verified the presence of two hundred and twenty Representatives, whose names were as follows:—

Le Duc de Luynes, d'Andigne de la Chasse, Antony Thouret, Arene, Audren de Kerdrel (Ille-et-Vilaine), Audren de Kerdrel (Morbihan), de Balzac, Barchou de Penhoen, Barillon, O. Barrot, Barthelemy Saint-Hilaire, Quentin Bauchard, G. deBeaumont, Bechard, Behaghel, de Belevze, Benoist-d'Azy, de Benardy, Berryer, de Berset, Basse, Betting de Lancastel, Blavoyer, Bocher, Boissie, de Botmillan, Bouvatier, le Duc de Broglie, de la Broise, de Bryas, Buffet, Caillet du Tertre, Callet, Camus de la Guibourgere, Canet, de Castillon, de Cazalis, Admiral Cecile, Chambolle, Chamiot, Champannet, Chaper, Chapot, de Charencey, Chasseigne, Chauvin, Chazant, de Chazelles, Chegaray, Comte de Coislin, Colfavru, Colas de la Motte, Coquerel, de Corcelles, Cordier, Corne, Creton, Daguilhon, Pujol, Dahirel, Vicomte Dambray, Marquis de Dampierre, de Brotonne, de Fontaine, de Fontenay, Vicomte de Seze, Desmars, de la Devansaye, Didier, Dieuleveult, Druet-Desvaux, A. Dubois, Dufaure, Dufougerais, Dufour, Dufournel, Marc Dufraisse, P. Duprat, Duvergier de Hauranne, Etienne, Vicomte de Falloux, de Faultrier, Faure (Rhone), Favreau, Ferre, des Ferres, Vicomte de Flavigny, de Foblant, Frichon, Gain, Gasselin, Germoniere, de Gicquiau, de Goulard, de Gouyon, de Grandville, de Grasset, Grelier-Dufougerais, Grevy, Grillon, Grimault, Gros, Guislier de la Tousche, Harscouet de Saint-Georges, Marquis d'Havrincourt, Hennequin, d'Hespel, Houel, Hovyn-Tranchere, Huot, Joret, Jouannet, de Keranflech, de Keratry, de Keridec, de Kermazec, de Kersauron Penendreff, Leo de Laborde, Laboulie, Lacave, Oscar Lafayette, Lafosse, Lagarde, Lagrenee Laime, Laine, Comte Lanjuinais, Larabit, de Larcy, J. de Lasteyrie, Latrade, Laureau, Laurenceau, General Marquis de Lauriston, de Laussat, Lefebvre de Grosriez, Legrand, Legros-Desvaux, Lemaire, Emile Leroux, Lesperut, de l'Espinoy, Lherbette, de Linsaval, de Luppe, Marechal, Martin de Villers, Maze-Saunay, Meze, Arnauld de Melun, Anatole de Melun, Merentie, Michaud, Mispoulet, Monet, Duc de Montebello, de Montigny, Moulin, Murat-Sistriere, Alfred Nettement, d'Olivier, General Oudinot, Duc de Reggio, Paillat, Duparc, Passy, Emile Pean, Pecoul, Casimir Perier, Pidoux, Pigeon, de Pioge, Piscatory, Proa, Prudhomme, Querhoent, Randoing, Raudot, Raulin, de Ravinel, de Remusat, Renaud, Rezal, Comte de Resseguier, Henri de Riancey, Rigal, de la Rochette, Rodat, de Roquefeuille des Rotours de Chaulieu, Rouget-Lafosse, Rouille, Roux-Carbonel, Saint-Beuve, de Saint-Germain, General Comte de Saint-Priest, Salmon (Meuse), Marquis Sauvaire-Barthelemy, de Serre, Comte de Sesmaisons, Simonot, de Staplande, de Surville, Marquis de Talhouet, Talon, Tamisier, Thuriot de la Rosiere, de Tinguy, Comte de Tocqueville, de la Tourette, Comte de Treveneue, Mortimer-Ternaux, de Vatimesnil, Baron de Vandoeuvre, Vernhette (Herault), Vernhette (Aveyron), Vezin, Vitet, Comte de Vogue.

After this list of names may be read as follows in the shorthand report:—

"The roll-call having been completed, General Oudinot asked the Representatives who were scattered about in the courtyard to come round him, and made the following announcement to them,—

"'The Captain-Adjutant-Major, who has remained here to command the barracks, has just received an order to have rooms prepared for us, where we are to withdraw, as we are considered to be in custody. (Hear! hear!) Do you wish me to bring the Adjutant-Major here! (No, no; it is useless.) I will tell him that he had better execute his orders.' (Yes, yes, that is right.)"

The Representatives remained "penned" and "strolling" about in this yard for two long hours. They walked about arm in arm. They walked quickly, so as to warm themselves. The men of the Right said to the men of the Left, "Ah! if you had only voted the proposals of the Questors!" They also exclaimed: "Well, how about the invisible sentry!"[8] And they laughed. Then Marc Dufraisse answered, "Deputies of the People! deliberate in peace!" It was then the turn of the Left to laugh. Nevertheless, there was no bitterness. The cordiality of a common misfortune reigned amongst them.

They questioned his ex-ministers about Louis Bonaparte. They asked Admiral Cecile, "Now, really, what does this mean?" The Admiral answered by this definition: "It is a small matter." M. Vezin added, "He wishes History to call him 'Sire.'" "Poor Sire, then," said M. de Camas de la Guibourgere. M. Odilon Barrot exclaimed, "What a fatality, that we should have been condemned to employ this man!"

This said, these heights attained, political philosophy was exhausted, and they ceased talking.

On the right, by the side of the door, there was a canteen elevated a few steps above the courtyard. "Let us promote this canteen to the dignity of a refreshment room," said the ex-ambassador to China, M. de Lagrenee. They entered, some went up to the stove, others asked for a basin of soup. MM. Favreau, Piscatory, Larabit, and Vatimesnil took refuge in a corner. In the opposite corner drunken soldiers chatted with the maids of the barracks. M. de Keratry, bent with his eighty years, was seated near the stove on an old worm-eaten chair; the chair tottered; the old man shivered.

Towards four o'clock a regiment of Chasseurs de Vincennes arrived in the courtyard with their platters, and began to eat, singing, with loud bursts of merriment. M. de Broglie looked at them and said to M. Piscatory, "It is a strange spectacle to see the porringers of the Janissaries vanished from Constantinople reappearing at Paris!"

Almost at the same moment a staff officer informed the Representatives on behalf of General Forey that the apartments assigned to them were ready, and requested them to follow him. They were taken into the eastern building, which is the wing of the barracks farthest from the Palace of the Council of State; they were conducted to the third floor. They expected chambers and beds. They found long rooms, vast garrets with filthy walls and low ceilings, furnished with wooden tables and benches. These were the "apartments." These garrets, which adjoin each other, all open on the same corridor, a narrow passage, which runs the length of the main building. In one of these rooms they saw, thrown into a corner, side-drums, a big drum, and various instruments of military music. The Representatives scattered themselves about in these rooms. M. de Tocqueville, who was ill, threw his overcoat on the floor in the recess of a window, and lay down. He remained thus stretched upon the ground for several hours.

These rooms were warmed very badly by cast-iron stoves, shaped like hives. A Representative wishing to poke the fire, upset one, and nearly set fire to the wooden flooring.

The last of these rooms looked out on the quay. Antony Thouret opened a window and leaned out. Several Representatives joined him. The soldiers who were bivouacking below on the pavement, caught sight of them and began to shout, "Ah! there they are, those rascals at 'twenty-five francs a day,' who wish to cut down our pay!" In fact, on the preceding evening, the police had spread this calumny through the barracks that a proposition had been placed on the Tribune to lessen the pay of the troops. They had even gone so far as to name the author of this proposition. Antony Thouret attempted to undeceive the soldiers. An officer cried out to him, "It is one of your party who made the proposal. It is Lamennais!"

In about an hour and a half there were ushered into these rooms MM. Vallette, Bixio, and Victor Lefranc, who had come to join their colleagues and constitute themselves prisoners.

Night came. They were hungry. Several had not eaten since the morning. M. Howyn de Tranchere, a man of considerable kindness and devotion, who had acted as porter at the Mairie, acted as forager at the barracks. He collected five francs from each Representative, and they sent and ordered a dinner for two hundred and twenty from the Cafe d'Orsay, at the corner of the Quay, and the Rue du Bac. They dined badly, but merrily. Cookshop mutton, bad wine, and cheese. There was no bread. They ate as they best could, one standing, another on a chair, one at a table, another astride on his bench, with his plate before him, "as at a ball-room supper," a dandy of the Right said laughingly, Thuriot de la Rosiere, son of the regicide Thuriot. M. de Remusat buried his head in his hands. Emile Pean said to him, "We shall get over it." And Gustave de Beaumont cried out, addressing himself to the Republicans, "And your friends of the Left! Will they preserve their honor? Will there be an insurrection at least?" They passed each other the dishes and plates, the Right showing marked attention to the Left. "Here is the opportunity to bring about a fusion," said a young Legitimist. Troopers and canteen men waited upon them. Two or three tallow candles burnt and smoked on each table. There were few glasses. Right and Left drank from the same. "Equality, fraternity," exclaimed the Marquis Sauvaire-Barthelemy, of the Right. And Victor Hannequin answered him, "But not Liberty."

Colonel Feray, the son-in-law of Marshal Bugeaud, was in command at the barracks; he offered the use of his drawing-room to M. de Broglie and to M. Odilon Barrot, who accepted it. The barrack doors were opened to M. de Keratry, on account of his great age, to M. Dufaure, as his wife had just been confined, and to M. Etienne, on account of the wound which he had received that morning in the Rue de Bourgogne. At the same time there were added to the two hundred and twenty MM. Eugene Sue, Benoist (du Rhone), Fayolle, Chanay, Toupet des Vignes, Radoubt-Lafosse, Arbey, and Teillard-Laterisse, who up to that time had been detained in the new Palace of Foreign Affairs.

Towards eight o'clock in the evening, when dinner was over, the restrictions were a little relaxed, and the intermediate space between the door and the barred gate of the barracks began to be littered with carpet bags and articles of toilet sent by the families of the imprisoned Representatives.

The Representatives were summoned by their names. Each went down in turn, and briskly remounted with his cloak, his coverlet, or his foot-warmer. A few ladies succeeded in making their way to their husbands. M.M. Chambolle was able to press his son's hand through the bars.

Suddenly a voice called out, "Oho! We are going to spend the night here." Mattresses were brought in, which were thrown on the tables, on the floor, anywhere.

Fifty or sixty Representatives found resting-places on them. The greater number remained on their benches. Marc Dufraisse settled himself to pass the night on a footstool, leaning on a table. Happy was the man who had a chair.

Nevertheless, cordiality and gaiety did not cease to prevail. "Make room for the 'Burgraves!'" said smilingly a venerable veteran of the Right. A young Republican Representative rose, and offered him his mattress. They pressed on each offers of overcoats, cloaks, and coverlets.

"Reconciliation," said Chamiot, while offering the half of his mattress to the Duc de Luynes. The Duc de Luynes, who had 80,000 francs a year, smiled, and replied to Chamiot, "You are St. Martin, and I am the beggar."

M. Paillet, the well-known barrister, who belonged to the "Third Estate," used to say, "I passed the night on a Bonapartist straw mattress, wrapped in a burnouse of the Mountain, my feet in a Democratic and Socialist sheepskin, and my head in a Legitimist cotton nightcap." The Representatives, although prisoners in the barracks, could stroll about freely. They were allowed to go down into the courtyard. M. Cordier (of Calvados) came upstairs again, saying, "I have just spoken to the soldiers. They did not know that their generals had been arrested. They appeared surprised and discontented." This incident raised the prisoners' hopes.

Representative Michel Renaud of the Basses-Pyrenees, found several of his compatriots of the Basque country amongst the Chasseurs de Vincennes who occupied the courtyard. Some had voted for him, and reminded him of the fact. They added, "Ah! We would again vote for the 'Red' list." One of them, quite a young man, took him aside, and said to him. "Do you want any money, sir? I have a forty-sous piece in my pocket."

Towards ten o'clock in the evening a great hubbub arose in the courtyard. The doors and the barred gate turned noisily upon their hinges. Something entered which rumbled like thunder. They leaned out of window, and saw at the foot of the steps a sort of big, oblong chest, painted black, yellow, red, and green, on four wheels, drawn by post-horses, and surrounded by men in long overcoats, and with fierce-looking faces, holding torches. In the gloom, and with the help of imagination, this vehicle appeared completely black. A door could be seen, but no other opening. It resembled a great coffin on wheels. "What is that? Is it a hearse?" "No, it is a police-van." "And those people, are they undertakers?" "No, they are jailers." "And for whom has this come?"

"For you, gentlemen!" cried out a voice.

It was the voice of an officer; and the vehicle which had just entered was in truth a police-van.

At the same time a word of command was heard: "First squadron to horse." And five minutes afterwards the Lancers who were to escort the vehicle formed in line in the courtyard.

Then arose in the barracks the buzz of a hive of angry bees. The Representatives ran up and down the stairs, and went to look at the police-van close at hand. Some of them touched it, and could not believe their eyes. M. Piscatory met M. Chambolle, and cried out to him, "I am leaving in it!" M. Berryer met Eugene Sue, and they exchanged these words: "Where are you going?" "To Mount Valerien. And you?" "I do not know."

At half-past ten the roll-call of those who were to leave began. Police agents stationed themselves at a table between two candles in a parlor at the foot of the stairs, and the Representatives were summoned two by two. The Representatives agreed not to answer to their names, and to reply to each name which should be called out, "He is not here." But those "Burgraves" who had accepted the hospitality of Colonel Feray considered such petty resistance unworthy of them, and answered to the calling out of their names. This drew the others after them. Everybody answered. Amongst the Legitimists some serio-comic scenes were enacted. They who alone were not threatened insisted on believing that they were in danger. They would not let one of their orators go. They embraced him, and held him back, almost with tears, crying out, "Do not go away! Do you know where they are taking you? Think of the trenches of Vincennes!"

The Representatives, having been summoned two by two, as we have just said, filed in the parlor before the police agents, and then they were ordered to get into the "robbers' box." The stowage was apparently made at haphazard and promiscuously; nevertheless, later, by the difference of the treatment accorded to the Representatives in the various prisons, it was apparent that this promiscuous loading had perhaps been somewhat prearranged. When the first vehicle was full, a second, of a similar construction drew up. The police agents, pencil and pocket-book in hand, noted down the contents of each vehicle. These men knew the Representatives. When Marc Dufraisse, called in his turn, entered the parlor, he was accompanied by Benoist (du Rhone). "Ah! here is Marc Dufraisse," said the attendant who held the pencil. When asked for his name, Benoist replied "Benoist." "Du Rhone," added the police agent; and he continued, "for there are also Benoist d'Azy and Benoist-Champy."

The loading of each vehicle occupied nearly half an hour. The successive arrivals had raised the number of imprisoned Representatives to two hundred and thirty-two Their embarkation, or, to use the expression of M. de Vatimesnil, their "barrelling up," which began a little after ten in the evening, was not finished until nearly seven o'clock in the morning. When there were no more police-vans available omnibuses were brought in. These various vehicles were portioned off into three detachments, each escorted by Lancers. The first detachment left towards one o'clock in the morning, and was driven to Mont Valerien; the second towards five o'clock, and was driven to Mazas; the third towards half-past six, to Vincennes.

As this business occupied a long time, those who had not yet been called benefited by the mattresses and tried to sleep. Thus, from time to time, silence reigned in the upper rooms. In the midst of one of these pauses M. Bixio sat upright, and raising his voice, cried out, "Gentlemen, what do you think of 'passive obedience'?" An unanimous burst of laughter was the reply. Again, during one of these pauses another voice exclaimed,—

"Romieu will be a senator."

Emile Pean asked,—

"What will become of the Red Spectre?"

"He will enter the priesthood," answered Antony Thouret, "and will turn into the Black Spectre."

Other exclamations which the historians of the Second of December have spread abroad were not uttered. Thus, Marc Dufraisse never made the remark with which the men of Louis Bonaparte have wished to excuse their crimes: "If the President does not shoot all those among us who resist, he does not understand his business."

For the coup d'etat such a remark might be convenient; but for History it is false.

The interior of the police-vans was lighted while the Representatives were entering. The air-holes of each compartment were not closed. In this manner Marc Dufraisse through the aperture could see M. du Remusat in the opposite cell to his own. M. du Remusat had entered the van coupled with M. Duvergier de Hauranne.

"Upon my word, Monsieur Marc Dufraisse," exclaimed Duvergier de Hauranne when they jostled each other in the gangway of the vehicle, "upon my word, if any one had said to me, 'You will go to Marzas in a police-van,' I should have said, 'It is improbable;' but if they had added, 'You will go with Marc Dufraisse,' I should have said, 'It is impossible!'"

As soon as the vehicle was full, five or six policemen entered and stood in the gangway. The door was shut, the steps were thrown up, and they drove off.

When all the police-vans had been filled, there were still some Representatives left. As we have said, omnibuses were brought into requisition. Into these Representatives were thrust, one upon the other, rudely, without deference for either age or name. Colonel Feray, on horseback, superintended and directed operations. As he mounted the steps of the last vehicle but one, the Duc de Montebello cried out to him, "To-day is the anniversary of the battle of Austerlitz, and the son-in-law of Marshal Bugeaud compels the son of Marshal Lannes to enter a convict's van."

When the last omnibus was reached, there were only seventeen places for eighteen Representatives. The most active mounted first. Antony Thouret, who himself alone equalled the whole of the Right, for he had as much mind as Thiers and as much stomach as Murat; Antony Thouret, corpulent and lethargic, was the last. When he appeared on the threshold of the omnibus in all his hugeness, a cry of alarm arose;—Where was he going to sit?

Antony Thouret, noticing Berryer at the bottom of the omnibus, went straight up to him, sat down on his knees, and quietly said to him, "You wanted 'compression,' Monsieur Berryer. Now you have it."

[8] Michel de Bourges had thus characterized Louis Bonaparte as the guardian of the Republic against the Monarchical parties.



CHAPTER XV.

MAZAS

The police-vans, escorted as far as Mazas by Lancers, found another squadron of Lancers ready to receive them at Mazas. The Representatives descended from the vehicle one by one. The officer commanding the Lancers stood by the door, and watched them pass with a dull curiosity.

Mazas, which had taken the place of the prison of La Force, now pulled down, is a lofty reddish building, close to the terminus of the Lyons Railway, and stands on the waste land of the Faubourg St. Antoine. From a distance the building appears as though built of bricks, but on closer examination it is seen to be constructed of flints set in cement. Six large detached buildings, three stories high, all radiating from a rotunda which serves as the common centre, and touching each other at the starting-point, separated by courtyards which grow broader in proportion as the buildings spread out, pierced with a thousand little dormer windows which give light to the cells, surrounded by a high wall, and presenting from a bird's-eye point of view the drape of a fan—such is Mazas. From the rotunda which forms the centre, springs a sort of minaret, which is the alarm-tower. The ground floor is a round room, which serves as the registrar's office. On the first story is a chapel where a single priest says mass for all; and the observatory, where a single attendant keeps watch over all the doors of all the galleries at the same time. Each building is termed a "division." The courtyards are intersected by high walls into a multitude of little oblong walks.

As each Representative descended from the vehicle he was conducted into the rotunda where the registry office was situated. There his name was taken down, and in exchange for his name he was assigned a number. Whether the prisoner be a thief or a legislator, such is always the rule in this prison; the coup d'etat reduced all to a footing of equality. As soon as a Representative was registered and numbered, he was ordered to "file off." They said to him, "Go upstairs," or "Go on;" and they announced him at the end of the corridor to which he was allotted by calling out, "Receive number So-and-So." The jailer in that particular corridor answered, "Send him on." The prisoner mounted alone, went straight on, and on his arrival found the jailer standing near an open door. The jailer said, "Here it is, sir." The prisoner entered, the jailer shut the door, and they passed on to another.

The coup d'etat acted in a very different manner towards the various Representatives. Those whom it desired to conciliate, the men of the Bight, were placed in Vincennes; those whom it detested, the men of the Left, were placed in Mazas. Those at Vincennes had the quarters of M. Montpensier, which were expressly reopened for them; an excellent dinner, eaten in company; wax candles, fire, and the smiles and bows of the governor, General Courtigis.

This is how it treated those at Mazas.

A police-van deposited them at the prison. They were transferred from one box to another. At Mazas a clerk registered them, weighed them, measured them, and entered them into the jail book as convicts. Having passed through the office, each of them was conducted along a gallery shrouded in darkness, through a long damp vault to a narrow door which was suddenly opened. This reached, a jailer pushed the Representative in by the shoulders, and the door was shut.

The Representative, thus immured, found himself in a little, long, narrow, dark room. It is this which the prudent language of modern legislation terms a "cell." Here the full daylight of a December noon only produced a dusky twilight. At one end there was a door, with a little grating; at the other, close to the ceiling, at a height of ten or twelve feet, there was a loophole with a fluted glass window. This window dimmed the eye, and prevented it from seeing the blue or gray of the sky, or from distinguishing the cloud from the sun's ray, and invested the wan daylight of winter with an indescribable uncertainty. It was even less than a dim light, it was a turbid light. The inventors of this fluted window succeeded in making the heavens squint.

After a few moments the prisoner began to distinguish objects confusedly, and this is what he found: White-washed walls here and there turned green by various exhalations; in one corner a round hole guarded by iron bars, and exhaling a disgusting smell; in another corner a slab turning upon a hinge like the bracket seat of a fiacre, and thus capable of being used as a table; no bed; a straw-bottomed chair; under foot a brick floor. Gloom was the first impression; cold was the second. There, then, the prisoner found himself, alone, chilled, in this semi-darkness, being able to walk up and down the space of eight square feet like a caged wolf, or to remain seated on his chair like an idiot at Bicetre.

In this situation an ex-Republican of the Eve, who had become a member of the majority, and on occasions sided somewhat with the Bonapartists, M. Emile Leroux, who had, moreover, been thrown into Mazas by mistake, having doubtless been taken for some other Leroux, began to weep with rage. Three, four, five hours thus passed away. In the meanwhile they had not eaten since the morning; some of them, in the excitement caused by the coup d'etat had not even breakfasted. Hunger came upon them. Were they to be forgotten there? No; a bell rang in the prison, the grating of the door opened, and an arm held out to the prisoner a pewter porringer and a piece of bread.

The prisoner greedily seized the bread and the porringer. The bread was black and sticky; the porringer contained a sort of thick water, warm and reddish. Nothing can be compared to the smell of this "soup." As for the bread, it only smelt of mouldiness.

However great their hunger, most of the prisoners during the first moment threw down their bread on the floor, and emptied the porringer down the hole with the iron bars.

Nevertheless the stomach craved, the hours passed by, they picked up the bread, and ended by eating it. One prisoner went so far as to pick up the porringer and to attempt to wipe out the bottom with his bread, which he afterwards devoured. Subsequently, this prisoner, a Representative set at liberty in exile, described to me this dietary, and said to me, "A hungry stomach has no nose."

Meanwhile there was absolute solitude and profound silence. However, in the course of a few hours, M. Emile Leroux—he himself has told the fact to M. Versigny—heard on the other side of the wall on his right a sort of curious knocking, spaced out and intermittent at irregular intervals. He listened, and almost at the same moment on the other side of the wall to his left a similar rapping responded. M. Emile Leroux, enraptured—what a pleasure it was to hear a noise of some kind!—thought of his colleagues, prisoners like himself, and cried out in a tremendous voice, "Oh, oh! you are there also, you fellows!" He had scarcely uttered this sentence when the door of his cell was opened with a creaking of hinges and bolts; a man—the jailer—appeared in a great rage, and said to him,—

"Hold your tongue!"

The Representative of the People, somewhat bewildered, asked for an explanation.

"Hold your tongue," replied the jailer, "or I will pitch you into a dungeon."

This jailer spoke to the prisoner as the coup d'etat spoke to the nation.

M. Emile Leroux, with his persistent parliamentary habits, nevertheless attempted to insist.

"What!" said he, "can I not answer the signals which two of my colleagues are making to me?"

"Two of your colleagues, indeed," answered the jailer, "they are two thieves." And he shut the door, shouting with laughter.

They were, in fact, two thieves, between whom M. Emile Leroux was, not crucified, but locked up.

The Mazas prison is so ingeniously built that the least word can be heard from one cell to another. Consequently there is no isolation, notwithstanding the cellular system. Thence this rigorous silence imposed by the perfect and cruel logic of the rules. What do the thieves do? They have invented a telegraphic system of raps, and the rules gain nothing by their stringency. M. Emile Leroux had simply interrupted a conversation which had been begun.

"Don't interfere with our friendly patter," cried out his thief neighbor, who for this exclamation was thrown into the dungeon.

Such was the life of the Representatives at Mazas. Moreover, as they were in secret confinement, not a book, not a sheet of paper, not a pen, not even an hour's exercise in the courtyard was allowed to them.

The thieves also go to Mazas, as we have seen.

But those who know a trade are permitted to work; those who know how to read are supplied with books; those who know how to write are granted a desk and paper; all are permitted the hour's exercise required by the laws of health and authorized by the rules.

The Representatives were allowed nothing whatever. Isolation, close confinement, silence, darkness, cold, "the amount of ennui which engenders madness," as Linguet has said when speaking of the Bastille.

To remain seated on a chair all day long, with arms and legs crossed: such was the situation. But the bed! Could they lie down?

No.

There was no bed.

At eight o'clock in the evening the jailer came into the cell, and reached down, and removed something which was rolled up on a plank near the ceiling. This "something" was a hammock.

The hammock having been fixed, hooked up, and spread out, the jailer wished his prisoner "Good-night."

There was a blanket on the hammock, sometimes a mattress some two inches thick. The prisoner, wrapt in this covering, tried to sleep, and only succeeded in shivering.

But on the morrow he could at least remain lying down all day in his hammock?

Not at all.

At seven o'clock in the morning the jailer came in, wished the Representative "Good-morning," made him get up, and rolled up the hammock on its shelf near the ceiling.

But in this case could not the prisoner take down the authorized hammock, unroll it, hook it up, and lie down again?

Yes, he could. But then there was the dungeon.

This was the routine. The hammock for the night, the chair for the day.

Let us be just, however. Some obtained beds, amongst others MM. Thiers and Roger (du Nord). M. Grevy did not have one.

Mazas is a model prison of progress; it is certain that Mazas is preferable to the piombi of Venice, and to the under-water dungeon of the Chatelet. Theoretical philanthropy has built Mazas. Nevertheless, as has been seen, Mazas leaves plenty to be desired. Let us acknowledge that from a certain point of view the temporary solitary confinement of the law-makers at Mazas does not displease us. There was perhaps something of Providence in the coup d'etat. Providence, in placing the Legislators at Mazas, has performed an act of good education. Eat of your own cooking; it is not a bad thing that those who own prisons should try them.



CHAPTER XVI.

THE EPISODE OF THE BOULEVARD ST. MARTIN

When Charamaule and I reached No. 70, Rue Blanche, a steep lonely street, a man in a sort of naval sub-officer's uniform, was walking up and down before the door. The portress, who recognized us, called our attention to him. "Nonsense," said Charamaule, "a man walking about in that manner, and dressed after that fashion, is assuredly not a police spy."

"My dear colleague," said I, "Bedeau has proved that the police are blockheads."

We went upstairs. The drawing-room and a little ante-chamber which led to it were full of Representatives, with whom were mingled a good many persons who did not belong to the Assembly. Some ex-members of the Constituent Assembly were there, amongst others, Bastide and several Democratic journalists. The Nationale was represented by Alexander Rey and Leopold Duras, the Revolution by Xavier Durrieu, Vasbenter, and Watripon, the Avenement du Peuple by H. Coste, nearly all the other editors of the Avenement being in prison. About sixty members of the Left were there, and among others Edgar Quinet, Schoelcher, Madier de Montjau, Carnot, Noel Parfait, Pierre Lefranc, Bancel, de Flotte, Bruckner, Chaix, Cassal, Esquiros, Durand-Savoyat, Yvan, Carlos Forel, Etchegoyen, Labrousse, Barthelemy (Eure-et-Loire), Huguenin, Aubrey (du Nord), Malardier, Victor Chauffour, Belin, Renaud, Bac, Versigny, Sain, Joigneaux, Brives, Guilgot, Pelletier, Doutre, Gindrier, Arnauld (de l'Ariege), Raymond (de l'Isere), Brillier, Maigne, Sartin, Raynaud, Leon Vidal, Lafon, Lamargue, Bourzat, and General Rey.

All were standing. They were talking without order. Leopold Duras had just described the investment of the Cafe Bonvalet. Jules Favre and Baudin, seated at a little table between the two windows, were writing. Baudin had a copy of the Constitution open before him, and was copying Article 68.

When we entered there was silence, and they asked us, "Well, what news?"

Charamaule told them what had just taken place on the Boulevard du Temple, and the advice which he had thought right to give me. They approved his action.

"What is to be done?" was asked on every side. I began to speak.

"Let us go straight to the fact and to the point," said I. "Louis Bonaparte is gaining ground, and we are losing ground, or rather, we should say, he has as yet everything, and we have as yet nothing. Charamaule and I have been obliged to separate ourselves from Colonel Forestier. I doubt if he will succeed. Louis Bonaparte is doing all he can to suppress us, we must no longer keep in the background. We must make our presence felt. We must fan this beginning of the flame of which we have seen the spark on the Boulevard du Temple. A proclamation must be made, no matter by whom it is printed, or how it is placarded, but it is absolutely necessary, and that immediately. Something brief, rapid, and energetic. No set phrases. Ten lines—an appeal to arms! We are the Law, and there are occasions when the Law should utter a war-cry. The Law, outlawing the traitor, is a great and terrible thing. Let us do it."

They interrupted me with "Yes, that is right, a proclamation!"

"Dictate! dictate!"

"Dictate," said Baudin to me, "I will write."

I dictated:-

"TO THE PEOPLE.

"Louis Napoleon Bonaparte is a traitor.

"He has violated the Constitution.

"He is forsworn.

"He is an outlaw—"

They cried out to me on every side,—

"That is right! Outlaw him."

"Go on."

I resumed the dictation. Baudin wrote,—

"The Republican Representatives refer the People and the Army to Article 68—"

They interrupted me: "Quote it in full."

"No," said I, "it would be too long. Something is needed which can be placarded on a card, stuck with a wafer, and which can be read in a minute. I will quote Article 110. It is short and contains the appeal to arms."

I resumed,—

"The Republican Representatives refer the People and the Army to Article 68 and to Article 110, which runs thus—'The Constituent Assembly confides the existing Constitution and the Laws which it consecrates to the keeping and the patriotism of all Frenchmen.'

"The People henceforward and for ever in possession of universal suffrages and who need no Prince for its restitution, will know how to chastise the rebel.

"Let the People do its duty. The Republican Representatives are marching at its head.

"Vive la Republique! To Arms!"

They applauded.

"Let us all sign," said Pelletier.

"Let us try to find a printing-office without delay," said Schoelcher, "and let the proclamation be posted up immediately."

"Before nightfall—the days are short," added Joigneaux.

"Immediately, immediately, several copies!" called out the Representatives.

Baudin, silent and rapid, had already made a second copy of the proclamation.

A young man, editor of the provincial Republican journal, came out of the crowd, and declared that, if they would give him a copy at once, before two hours should elapse the Proclamation should be posted at all the street corners in Paris.

I asked him,—

"What is your name?"

He answered me,—

"Milliere."

Milliere. It is in this manner that this name made its first appearance in the gloomy days of our History. I can still see that pale young man, that eye at the same time piercing and half closed, that gentle and forbidding profile. Assassination and the Pantheon awaited him. He was too obscure to enter into the Temple, he was sufficiently deserving to die on its threshold. Baudin showed him the copy which he had just made.

Milliere went up to him.

"You do not know me," said he; "my name is Milliere; but I know you, you are Baudin."

Baudin held out his hand to him.

I was present at the handshaking between these two spectres.

Xavier Durrieu, who was editor of the Revolution made the same offer as Milliere.

A dozen Representatives took their pens and sat down, some around a table, others with a sheet of paper on their knees, and called out to me,—

"Dictate the Proclamation to us."

I had dictated to Baudin, "Louis Napoleon Bonaparte is a traitor." Jules Favre requested the erasure of the word Napoleon, that name of glory fatally powerful with the People and with the Army, and that there should be written, "Louis Bonaparte is a traitor."

"You are right," said I to him.

A discussion followed. Some wished to strike out the word "Prince." But the Assembly was impatient. "Quick! quick!" they cried out. "We are in December, the days are short," repeated Joigneaux.

Twelve copies were made at the same time in a few minutes. Schoelcher, Rey, Xavier Durrieu, and Milliere each took one, and set out in search of a printing office.

As they went out a man whom I did not know, but who was greeted by several Representatives, entered and said, "Citizens, this house is marked. Troops are on the way to surround you. You have not a second to lose."

Numerous voices were raised,—

"Very well! Let them arrest us!"

"What does it matter to us?"

"Let them complete their crime."

"Colleagues," said I, "let us not allow ourselves to be arrested. After the struggle, as God pleases; but before the combat,—No! It is from us that the people are awaiting the initiative. If we are taken, all is at an end. Our duty is to bring on the battle, our right is to cross swords with the coup d'etat. It must not be allowed to capture us, it must seek us and not find us. We must deceive the arm which it stretches out against us, we must remain concealed from Bonaparte, we must harass him, weary him, astonish him, exhaust him, disappear and reappear unceasingly, change our hiding-place, and always fight him, be always before him, and never beneath his hand. Let us not leave the field. We have not numbers, let us have daring."

They approved of this. "It is right," said they, "but where shall we go?"

Labrousse said,—

"Our former colleague of the Constituent Assembly, Beslay, offers us his house."

"Where does he live?"

"No. 33, Rue de la Cerisaie, in the Marais."

"Very well," answered I, "let us separate. We will meet again in two hours at Beslay's, No. 33, Rue de la Cerisaie."

All left; one after another, and in different directions. I begged Charamaule to go to my house and wait for me there, and I walked out with Noel Parfait and Lafon.

We reached the then still uninhabited district which skirts the ramparts. As we came to the corner of the Rue Pigalle, we saw at a hundred paces from us, in the deserted streets which cross it, soldiers gliding all along the houses, bending their steps towards the Rue Blanche.

At three o'clock the members of the Left rejoined each other in the Rue de la Cerisaie. But the alarm had been given, and the inhabitants of these lonely streets stationed themselves at the windows to see the Representatives pass. The place of meeting, situated and hemmed in at the bottom of a back yard, was badly chosen in the event of being surrounded: all these disadvantages were at once perceived, and the meeting only lasted a few seconds. It was presided over by Joly; Xavier Durrieu and Jules Gouache, who were editors of the Revolution, also took part, as well as several Italian exiles, amongst others Colonel Carini and Montanelli, ex-Minister of the Grand Duke of Tuscany. I liked Montanelli, a gentle and dauntless spirit.

Madier de Montjau brought news from the outskirts. Colonel Forestier, without losing and without taking away hope, told them of the obstacles which he had encountered in his attempts to call together the 6th Legion. He pressed me to sign his appointment as Colonel, as well as Michel de Bourges; but Michel de Bourges was absent, and besides, neither Michel de Bourges nor I had yet at drat time the authority from the Left. Nevertheless, under this reservation I signed his appointment. The perplexities were becoming more and more numerous. The Proclamation was not yet printed, and the evening was closing in. Schoelcher explained the difficulties: all the printing offices closed and guarded; an order placarded that whoever should print an appeal to arms world be immediately shot; the workmen terrified; no money. A hat was sent round, and each threw into it what money he had about him. They collected in this manner a few hundred francs.

Xavier Durrieu, whose fiery courage never flagged for a single moment, reiterated that he would undertake the printing, and promised that by eight o'clock that evening there should be 40,000 copies of the Proclamation. Time pressed. They separated, after fixing as a rendezvous the premises of the Society of Cabinet-makers in the Rue de Charonne, at eight o'clock in the evening, so as to allow time for the situation to reveal itself. As we went out and crossed the Rue Beautreillis I saw Pierre Leroux coming up to me. He had taken no part in our meetings. He said to me,—

"I believe this struggle to be useless. Although my point of view is different from yours, I am your friend. Beware. There is yet time to stop. You are entering into the catacombs. The catacombs are Death."

"They are also Life," answered I.

All the same, I thought with joy that my two sons were in prison, and that this gloomy duty of street fighting was imposed upon me alone.

There yet remained five hours until the time fixed for the rendezvous. I wished to go home, and once more embrace my wife and daughter before precipitating myself into that abyss of the "unknown" which was there, yawning and gloomy, and which several of us were about to enter, never to return.

Arnauld (de l'Ariege) gave me his arm. The two Italian exiles, Carini aril Montanelli, accompanied me.

Montanelli took my hands and said to me, "Right will conquer. You will conquer. Oh! that this time France may not be selfish as in 1848, and that she may deliver Italy." I answered him, "She will deliver Europe."

Those were our illusions at that moment, but this, however, does not prevent them from being our hopes to-day. Faith is thus constituted; shadows demonstrate to it the light.

There is a cabstand before the front gate of St. Paul. We went there. The Rue St. Antoine was alive with that indescribable uneasy swarming which precedes those strange battles of ideas against deeds which are called Revolutions. I seemed to catch, in this great working-class district, a glimpse of a gleam of light which, alas, died out speedily. The cabstand before St. Paul was deserted. The drivers had foreseen the possibility of barricades, and had fled.

Three miles separated Arnauld and myself from our houses. It was impossible to walk there through the middle of Paris, without being recognized at each step. Two passers-by extricated us from our difficulty. One of them said to the other, "The omnibuses are still running on the Boulevards."

We profited by this information, and went to look for a Bastille omnibus. All four of us got in.

I entertained at heart, I repeat, wrongly or rightly, a bitter reproach for the opportunity lost during the morning. I said to myself that on critical days such moments come, but do not return. There are two theories of Revolution: to arouse the people, or to let them come of themselves. The first theory was mine, but, through force of discipline, I had obeyed the second. I reproached myself with this. I said to myself, "The People offered themselves, and we did not accept them. It is for us now not to offer ourselves, but to do more, to give ourselves."

Meanwhile the omnibus had started. It was full. I had taken my place at the bottom on the left; Arnauld (de l'Ariege) sat next to me, Carini opposite, Montanelli next to Arnauld. We did not speak; Arnauld and myself silently exchanged that pressure of hands which is a means of exchanging thoughts.

As the omnibus proceeded towards the centre of Paris the crowd became denser on the Boulevard. As the omnibus entered into the cutting of the Porte St. Martin a regiment of heavy cavalry arrived in the opposite direction. In a few seconds this regiment passed by the side of us. They were cuirassiers. They filed by at a sharp trot and with drawn swords. The people leaned over from the height of the pavements to see them pass. Not a single cry. On the one side the people dejected, on the other the soldiers triumphant. All this stirred me.

Suddenly the regiment halted. I do not know what obstruction momentarily impeded its advance in this narrow cutting of the Boulevard in which we were hemmed in. By its halt it stopped the omnibus. There were the soldiers. We had them under our eyes, before us, at two paces distance, their horses touching the horses of our vehicle, these Frenchmen who had become Mamelukes, these citizen soldiers of the Great Republic transformed into supporters of the degraded Empire. From the place where I sat I almost touched them; I could no longer restrain myself.

I lowered the window of the omnibus. I put out my head, and, looking fixedly at the dense line of soldiers which faced me, I called out, "Down with Louis Bonaparte. Those who serve traitors are traitors!"

Those nearest to me turned their heads towards me and looked at me with a tipsy air; the others did not stir, and remained at "shoulder arms," the peaks of their helmets over their eyes, their eyes fixed upon the ears of their horses.

In great affairs there is the immobility of statues; in petty mean affairs there is the immobility of puppets.

At the shout which I raised Arnauld turned sharply round. He also had lowered his window, and he was leaning half out of the omnibus, with his arms extended towards the soldiers, and he shouted, "Down with the traitors!"

To see him thus with his dauntless gesture, his handsome head, pale and calm, his fervent expression, his beard and his long chestnut hair, one seemed to behold the radiant and fulminating face of an angry Christ.

The example was contagious and electrical.

"Down with the traitors!" shouted Carini and Montanelli.

"Down with the Dictator! Down with the traitors!" repeated a gallant young man with whom we were not acquainted, and who was sitting next to Carini.

With the exception of this young man, the whole omnibus seemed seized with terror!

"Hold your tongues!" exclaimed these poor frightened people; "you will cause us all to be massacred." One, still more terrified, lowered the window, and began to shout to the soldiers, "Long live Prince Napoleon! Long live the Emperor!"

There were five of us, and we overpowered this cry by our persistent protest, "Down with Louis Bonaparte! Down with the traitors!"

The soldiers listened in gloomy silence. A corporal turned with a threatening air towards us, and shook his sword. The crowd looked on in bewilderment.

What passed within me at that moment? I cannot tell! I was in a whirlwind. I had at the same time yielded to a calculation, finding the opportunity good, and to a burst of rage, finding the encounter insolent.

A woman cried out to us from the pavement, "You will get yourselves cut to pieces." I vaguely imagined that some collision was about to ensue, and that, either from the crowd or from the Army, the spark would fly out. I hoped for a sword-cut from the soldiers or a shout of anger from the people. In short I had obeyed rather an instinct than an idea.

But nothing came of it, neither the sword-cut nor the shout of anger. The soldiers did not bestir themselves and the people maintained silence. Was it too late? Was it too soon?

The mysterious man of the Elysee had not foreseen the event of an insult to his name being thrown in the very face of the soldiers. The soldiers had no orders. They received them that evening. This was seen on the morrow.

In another moment the regiment broke into a gallop, and the omnibus resumed its journey. As the cuirassiers filed past us Arnauld (de l'Ariege), still leaning out of the vehicle, continued to shout in their ears, for as I have just said, their horses touched us, "Down with the Dictator! Down with the traitors!"

We alighted in the Rue Lafitte. Carini, Montanelli, and Arnauld left me, and I went on alone towards the Rue de la Tour d'Auvergne. Night was coming on. As I turned the corner of the street a man passed close by me. By the light of a street lamp I recognized a workman at a neighboring tannery, and he said to me in a low tone, and quickly, "Do not return home. The police surround your house."

I went back again towards the Boulevard, through the streets laid out, but not then built, which make a Y under my windows behind my house. Not being able to embrace my wife and daughter, I thought over what I could do during the moments which remained to me. A remembrance came into my mind.



CHAPTER XVII.

THE REBOUND OF THE 24TH JUNE, 1848, ON THE 2D DECEMBER, 1851

On Sunday, 26th June, 1848, that four days' combat, that gigantic combat so formidable and so heroic on both sides, still continued, but the insurrection had been overcome nearly everywhere, and was restricted to the Faubourg St. Antoine. Four men who had been amongst the most dauntless defenders of the barricades of the Rue Pont-aux-Choux, of the Rue St. Claude, and of the Rue St. Louis in the Marais, escaped after the barricades had been taken, and found safe refuge in a house, No. 12, Rue St. Anastase. They were concealed in an attic. The National Guards and the Mobile Guards were hunting for them, in order to shoot them. I was told of this. I was one of the sixty Representatives sent by the Constituent Assembly into the middle of the conflict, charged with the task of everywhere preceding the attacking column, of carrying, even at the peril of their lives, words of peace to the barricades, to prevent the shedding of blood, and to stop the civil war. I went into the Rue St. Anastase, and I saved the lives of those four men.

Amongst those men there was a poor workman of the Rue de Charonne, whose wife was being confined at that very moment, and who was weeping. One could understand, when hearing his sobs and seeing his rags, how he had cleared with a single bound these three steps—poverty, despair, rebellion. Their chief was a young man, pale and fair, with high cheek bones, intelligent brow, and an earnest and resolute countenance. As soon as I set him free, and told him my name, he also wept. He said to me, "When I think that an hour ago I knew that you were facing us, and that I wished that the barrel of my gun had eyes to see and kill you!" He added, "In the times in which we live we do not know what may happen. If ever you need me, for whatever purpose, come." His name was Auguste, and he was a wine-seller in the Rue de la Roquette.

Since that time I had only seen him once, on the 26th August, 1819, on the day when I held the corner of Balzac's pall. The funeral possession was going to Pere la Chaise. Auguste's shop was on the way. All the streets through which the procession passed were crowded. Auguste was at his door with his young wife and two or three workmen. As I passed he greeted me.

It was this remembrance which came back to my mind as I descended the lonely streets behind my house; in the presence of the 2d of December I thought of him. I thought that he might give me information about the Faubourg St. Antoine, and help us in rousing the people. This young man had at once given me the impression of a soldier and a leader. I remembered the words which he had spoken to me, and I considered it might be useful to see him. I began by going to find in the Rue St. Anastase the courageous woman who had hidden Auguste and his three companions, to whom she had several times since rendered assistance. I begged her to accompany me. She consented.

On the way I dined upon a cake of chocolate which Charamaule had given me.

The aspects of the boulevards, in coming down the Italiens towards the Marais, had impressed rue. The shops were open everywhere as usual. There was little military display. In the wealthy quarters there was much agitation and concentration of troops; but on advancing towards the working-class neighborhoods solitude reigned paramount. Before the Cafe Turc a regiment was drawn up. A band of young men in blouses passed before the regiment singing the "Marseillaise." I answered them by crying out "To Arms!" The regiment did not stir. The light shone upon the playbills on an adjacent wall; the theatres were open. I looked at the trees as I passed. They were playing Hernani at the Theatre des Italiens, with a new tenor named Guasco.

The Place de la Bastille was frequented, as usual, by goers and comers, the most peaceable folk in the world. A few workmen grouped round the July Column, and, chatting in a low voice, were scarcely noticeable. Through the windows of a wine shop could be seen two men who were disputing for and against the coup d'etat. He who favored it wore a blouse, he who attacked it wore a cloth coat. A few steps further on a juggler had placed between four candles his X-shaped table, and was displaying his conjuring tricks in the midst of a crowd, who were evidently thinking only of the juggler. On looking towards the gloomy loneliness of the Quai Mazas several harnessed artillery batteries were dimly visible in the darkness. Some lighted torches here and there showed up the black outline of the cannons.

I had some trouble in finding Auguste's door in the Rue de la Roquette. Nearly all the shops were shut, thus making the street very dark. At length, through a glass shop-front I noticed a light which gleamed on a pewter counter. Beyond the counter, through a partition also of glass and ornamented with white curtains, another light, and the shadows of two or three men at table could be vaguely distinguished. This was the place.

I entered. The door on opening rang a bell. At the sound, the door of the glazed partition which separated the shop from the parlor opened, and Auguste appeared.

He knew me at once, and came up to me.

"Ah, Sir," said he, "it is you!"

"Do you know what is going on?" I asked him.

"Yes, sir."

This "Yes, sir," uttered with calmness, and even with a certain embarrassment, told me all. Where I expected an indignant outcry I found this peaceable answer. It seemed to me that I was speaking to the Faubourg St. Antoine itself. I understood that all was at an end in this district, and that we had nothing to expect from it. The people, this wonderful people, had resigned themselves. Nevertheless, I made an effort.

"Louis Bonaparte betrays the Republic," said I, without noticing that I raised my voice.

He touched my arm, and pointing with his finger to the shadows which were pictured on the glazed partition of the parlor, "Take care, sir; do not talk so loudly."

"What!" I exclaimed, "you have come to this—you dare not speak, you dare not utter the name of 'Bonaparte' aloud; you barely mumble a few words in a whisper here, in this street, in the Faubourg St. Antoine, where, from all the doors, from all the windows, from all the pavements, from all the very stones, ought to be heard the cry, 'To arms.'"

Auguste demonstrated to me what I already saw too clearly, and what Girard had shadowed forth in the morning—the moral situation of the Faubourg—that the people were "dazed"—that it seemed to all of them that universal suffrage was restored; that the downfall of the law of the 31st of May was a good thing.

Here I interrupted him.

"But this law of the 31st of May, it was Louis Bonaparte who instigated it, it was Rouher who made it, it was Baroche who proposed it, and the Bonapartists who voted it. You are dazzled by a thief who has taken your purse, and who restores it to you!"

"Not I," said Auguste, "but the others."

And he continued, "To tell the whole truth, people did not care much for the Constitution, they liked the Republic, but the Republic was maintained too much by force for their taste. In all this they could only see one thing clearly, the cannons ready to slaughter them—they remembered June, 1848—there were some poor people who had suffered greatly—Cavaignac had done much evil—women clung to the men's blouses to prevent them from going to the barricades—nevertheless, with all this, when seeing men like ourselves at their head, they would perhaps fight, but this hindered them, they did not know for what." He concluded by saying, "The upper part of the Faubourg is doing nothing, the lower end will do better. Round about here they will fight. The Rue de la Roquette is good, the Rue de Charonne is good; but on the side of Pere la Chaise they ask, 'What good will that do us?' They only recognize the forty sous of their day's work. They will not bestir themselves; do not reckon upon the masons." He added, with a smile, "Here we do not say 'cold as a stone,' but 'cold as a mason'"—and he resumed, "As for me, if I am alive, it is to you that I owe my life. Dispose of me. I will lay down my life, and will do what you wish."

While he was speaking I saw the white curtain of the glazed partition behind him move a little. His young wife, uneasy, was peeping through at us.

"Ah! my God," said I to him, "what we want is not the life of one man but the efforts of all."

He was silent. I continued,—

"Listen to me, Auguste, you who are good and intelligent. So, then, the Faubourgs of Paris—which are heroes even when they err—the Faubourgs of Paris, for a misunderstanding, for a question of salary wrongly construed, for a bad definition of socialism, rose in June, 1848, against the Assembly elected by themselves, against universal suffrage, against their own vote; and yet they will not rise in December, 1851, for Right, for the Law, for the People, for Liberty, for the Republic. You say that there is perplexity, and that you do not understand; but, on the contrary, it was in June that all was obscure, and it is to-day that everything is clear!"

While I was saying these last words the door of the parlor was softly opened, and some one came in. It was a young man, fair as Auguste, in an overcoat, and wearing a workman's cap. I started. Auguste turned round and said to me, "You can trust him."

The young man took off his cap, came close up to me, carefully turning his back on the glazed partition, and said to me in a low voice, "I know you well. I was on the Boulevard du Temple to-day. We asked you what we were to do; you said, 'We must take up arms.' Well, here they are!"

He thrust his hands into the pockets of his overcoat and drew out two pistols.

Almost at the same moment the bell of the street door sounded. He hurriedly put his pistols back into his pockets. A man in a blouse came in, a workman of some fifty years. This man, without looking at any one, without saying anything, threw down a piece of money on the counter. Auguste took a small glass and filled it with brandy, the man drank it off, put down the glass upon the counter and went away.

When the door was shut: "You see," said Auguste to me, "they drink, they eat, they sleep, they think of nothing. Such are they all!"

The other interrupted him impetuously: "One man is not the People!"

And turning towards me,—

"Citizen Victor Hugo, they will march forward. If all do not march, some will march. To tell the truth, it is perhaps not here that a beginning should be made, it is on the other side of the water."

And suddenly checking himself,—"After all, you probably do not know my name."

He took a little pocket-book from his pocket, tore out a piece of paper, wrote on it his name, and gave it to me. I regret having forgotten that name. He was a working engineer. In order not to compromise him, I burnt this paper with many others on the Saturday morning, when I was on the point of being arrested.

"It is true, sir," said Auguste, "you must not judge badly of the Faubourg. As my friend has said, it will perhaps not be the first to begin; but if there is a rising it will rise."

I exclaimed, "And who would you have erect if the Faubourg St. Antoine be prostrate! Who will be alive if the people be dead!"

The engineer went to the street door, made certain that it was well shut, then came back, and said,—

"There are many men ready and willing. It is the leaders who are wanting. Listen, Citizen Victor Hugo, I can say this to you, and," he added, lowering his voice, "I hope for a movement to-night."

"Where?"

"On the Faubourg St. Marceau."

"At what time?"

"At one o'clock."

"How do you know it?"

"Because I shall be there."

He continued: "Now, Citizen Victor Hugo, if a movement takes place to-night in the Faubourg St. Marceau, will you head it? Do you consent?"

"Yes."

"Have you your scarf of office?"

I half drew it out of my pocket. His eyes glistened with joy.

"Excellent," said he. "The Citizen has his pistols, the Representative his scarf. All are armed."

I questioned him. "Are you sure of your movement for to-night?"

He answered me, "We have prepared it, and we reckon to be there."

"In that case," said I, "as soon as the first barricade is constructed I will be behind it. Come and fetch me."

"Where?"

"Wherever I may be."

He assured me that if the movement should take place during the night he would know it at half-past ten that evening at the latest, and that I should be informed of it before eleven o'clock. We settled that in whatever place I might be at that hour I would send word to Auguste, who undertook to let him know.

The young woman continued to peep out at us. The conversation was growing prolonged, and might seem singular to the people in the parlor. "I am going," said I to Auguste.

I had opened the door, he took my hand, pressed it as a woman might have done, and said to me in a deeply-moved tone, "You are going: will you come back?"

"I do not know."

"It is true," said he. "No one knows what is going to happen. Well, you are perhaps going to be hunted and sought for as I have been. It will perhaps be your turn to be shot, and mine to save you. You know the mouse may sometimes prove useful to the lion. Monsieur Victor Hugo, if you need a refuge, this house is yours. Come here. You will find a bed where you can sleep, and a man who will lay down his life for you."

I thanked him by a hearty shake of the hand, and I left. Eight o'clock struck. I hastened towards the Rue de Charonne.



CHAPTER XVIII.

THE REPRESENTATIVES HUNTED DOWN

At the corner of the Rue de Faubourg St. Antoine before the shop of the grocer Pepin, on the same spot where the immense barricade of June, 1848, was erected as high as the second story, the decrees of the morning had been placarded. Some men were inspecting them, although it was pitch dark, and they could not read them, and an old woman said, "The 'Twenty-five francs' are crushed—so much the better!"

A few steps further I heard my name pronounced. I turned round. It was Jules Favre, Bourzat, Lafon, Madier de Montjau, and Michel de Bourges, who were passing by. I took leave of the brave and devoted woman who had insisted upon accompanying me. A fiacre was passing. I put her in it, and then rejoined the five Representatives. They had come from the Rue de Charonne. They had found the premises of the Society of Cabinet Makers closed. "There was no one there," said Madier de Montjau. "These worthy people are beginning to get together a little capital, they do not wish to compromise it, they are afraid of us. They say, 'coups d'etat are nothing to us, we shall leave them alone!'"

"That does not surprise me," answered I, "a society is shopkeeper."

"Where are we going?" asked Jules Favre.

Lafon lived two steps from there, at No. 2, Quai Jemmapes. He offered us the use of his rooms. We accepted, and took the necessary measures to inform the members of the Left that we had gone there.

A few minutes afterwards we were installed in Lafon's rooms, on the fourth floor of an old and lofty house. This house had seen the taking of the Bastille.

This house was entered by a side-door opening from the Quai Jemmapes upon a narrow courtyard a few steps lower than the Quai itself. Bourzat remained at this door to warn us in case of any accident, and to point out the house to those Representatives who might come up.

In a few moments a large number of us had assembled, and we again met—all those of the morning, with a few added. Lafon gave up his drawing-room to us, the windows of which overlooked the back yard. We organized a sort of "bureau," and we took our places, Jules Favre, Carnot, Michel, and myself, at a large table, lighted by two candles, and placed before the fire. The Representatives and the other people present sat around on chairs and sofas. A group stood before the door.

Michel de Bourges, on entering, exclaimed, "We have come to seek out the people of the Faubourg St. Antoine. Here we are. Here we must remain."

These words were applauded.

They set forth the situation—the torpor of the Faubourgs, no one at the Society of Cabinet Makers, the doors closed nearly everywhere. I told them what I had seen and heard in the Rue de la Roquette, the remarks of the wine-seller, Auguste, on the indifference of the people, the hopes of the engineer, and the possibility of a movement during the night in the Faubourg St. Marceau. It was settled that on the first notice that might be given I should go there.

Nevertheless nothing was yet known of what had taken place during the day. It was announced that M. Havin, Lieutenant-Colonel of the 5th Legion of the National Guard, had ordered the officers of his Legion to attend a meeting.

Some Democratic writers came in, amongst whom were Alexander Rey and Xavier Durrieu, with Kesler, Villiers, and Amable Lemaitre of the Revolution; one of these writers was Milliere.

Milliere had a large bleeding wound above his eye-brow; that same morning on leaving us, as he was carrying away one of the copies of the Proclamation which I had dictated, a man had thrown himself upon him to snatch it from him. The police had evidently already been informed of the Proclamation, and lay in wait for it; Milliere had a hand-to-hand struggle with the police agent, and had overthrown him, not without bearing away this gash. However, the Proclamation was not yet printed. It was nearly nine o'clock in the evening and nothing had come. Xavier Durrieu asserted that before another hour elapsed they should have the promised forty thousand copies. It was hoped to cover the walls of Paris with them during the night. Each of those present was to serve as a bill-poster.

There were amongst us—an inevitable circumstance in the stormy confusion of the first moments—a good many men whom we did not know. One of these men brought in ten or twelve copies of the appeal to arms. He asked me to sign them with my own hand, in order, he said, that he might be able to show my signature to the people—"Or to the police," whispered Baudin to me smiling. We were not in a position to take such precautions as these. I gave this man all the signatures that he wanted.

Madier de Montjau began to speak. It was of consequence to organize the action of the Left, to impress the unity of impulse upon the movement which was being prepared; to create a centre for it, to give a pivot to the insurrection, to the Left a direction, and to the People a support. He proposed the immediate formation of a committee representing the entire Left in all its shades, and charged with organizing and directing the insurrection.

All the Representatives cheered this eloquent and courageous man. Seven members were proposed. They named at once Carnot, De Flotte, Jules Favre, Madier de Montjau, Michel de Bourges, and myself; and thus was unanimously formed this Committee of Insurrection, which at my request was called a Committee of Resistance; for it was Louis Bonaparte who was tire insurgent. For ourselves, the were the Republic. It was desired that one workman-Representative should be admitted into the committee. Faure (du Rhone) was nominated. But Faure, we learned later on, had been arrested that morning. The committee then was, it fact, composed of six members.

The committee organized itself during the sitting. A Committee of Permanency was formed from amongst it, and invested with the authority of decreeing "urgency" in the name of all the Left, of concentrating all news, information, directions, instructions, resources, orders. This Committee of Permanency was composed of four members, who were Carnot, Michel de Bourges, Jules Favre, and myself. De Flotte and Madier de Montjau were specially delegated, De Flotte for the left bank of the river and the district of the schools, Madier for the Boulevards and the outskirts.

These preliminary operations being terminated, Lafon took aside Michel de Bourges and myself, and told us that the ex-Constituent Proudhon had inquired for one of us two, that he had remained downstairs nearly a quarter of an hour, and that he had gone away, saying that he would wait for us in the Place de la Bastille.

Proudhon, who was at that time undergoing a term of three years' imprisonment at St. Pelagie for an offence against Louis Bonaparte, was granted leave of absence from tine to time. Chance willed it that one of these liberty days had fallen on the 2d of December.

This is an incident which one cannot help noting. On the 2d of December Proudhon was a prisoner by virtue of a lawful sentence, and at the same moment at which they illegally imprisoned the inviolable Representatives, Proudhon, whom they could have legitimately detained, was allowed to go out. Proudhon had profited by his liberty to come and find us.

I knew Proudhon from having seen him at the Conciergerie, where my two sons were shut up, and my two illustrious friends, Auguste Vacquerie and Paul Meurice, and those gallant writers, Louis Jourdan, Erdan, and Suchet. I could not help thinking that on that day they would assuredly not have given leave of absence to these men.

Meanwhile Xavier Durrieu whispered to me, "I have just left Proudhon. He wishes to see you. He is waiting for you down below, close by, at the entrance to the Place. You will find him leaning on the parapet of the canal."

"I am going," said I.

I went downstairs.

I found in truth, at the spot mentioned, Proudhon, thoughtful, leaning with his two elbows on the parapet. He wore that broad-brimmed hat in which I had often seen him striding alone up and down the courtyard of the Conciergerie.

I went up to him.

"You wish to speak to me."

"Yes," and he shook me by the hand.

The corner where we were standing was lonely. On the left there was the Place de la Bastille, dark and gloomy; one could see nothing there, but one could feel a crowd; regiments were there in battle array; they did not bivouac, they were ready to march; the muffled sound of breathing could be heard; the square was full of that glistening shower of pale sparks which bayonets give forth at night time. Above this abyss of shadows rose up black and stark the Column of July.

Proudhon resumed,—

"Listen. I come to give you a friendly warning. You are entertaining illusions. The People are ensnared in this affair. They will not stir. Bonaparte will carry them with him. This rubbish, the restitution of universal suffrage, entraps the simpletons. Bonaparte passes for a Socialist. He has said, 'I will be the Emperor of the Rabble.' It is a piece of insolence. But insolence has a chance of success when it has this at its service."

And Proudhon pointed with his finger to the sinister gleam of the bayonets. He continued,—

"Bonaparte has an object in view. The Republic has made the People. He wishes to restore the Populace. He will succeed and you will fail. He has on his side force, cannons, the mistake of the people, and the folly of the Assembly. The few of the Left to which you belong will not succeed in overthrowing the coup d'etat. You are honest, and he has this advantage over you—that he is a rogue. You have scruples, and he has this advantage over you—that he has none. Believe me. Resist no longer. The situation is without resources. We must wait; but at this moment fighting would be madness. What do you hope for?"

"Nothing," said I.

"And what are you going to do?"

"Everything."

By the tone of my voice he understood that further persistence was useless.

"Good-bye," he said.

We parted. He disappeared in the darkness. I have never seen him since.

I went up again to Lafon's rooms.

In the meantime the copies of the appeal to arms did not come to hand. The Representatives, becoming uneasy, went up and downstairs. Some of them went out on the Quai Jemmapes, to wait there and gain information about them. In the room there was a sound of confused talking the members of the Committee, Madier de Montjau, Jules Favre, and Carnot, withdrew, and sent word to me by Charamaule that they were going to No. 10, Rue des Moulins, to the house of the ex-Constituent Landrin, in the division of the 5th Legion, to deliberate more at their ease, and they begged me to join them. But I thought I should do better to remain. I had placed myself at the disposal of the probable movement of the Faubourg St. Marceau. I awaited the notice of it through Auguste. It was most important that I should not go too far away; besides, it was possible that if I went away, the Representatives of the Left, no longing seeing a member of the committee amongst them, would disperse without taking any resolution, and I saw in this more than one disadvantage.

Time passed, no Proclamations. We learned the next day that the packages had been seized by the police. Cournet, an ex-Republican naval officer who was present, began to speak. We shall see presently what sort of a man Cournet was, and of what an energetic and determined nature he was composed. He represented to us that as we had been there nearly two hours the police would certainly end by being informed of our whereabouts, that the members of the Left had an imperative duty—to keep themselves at all costs at the head of the People, that the necessity itself of their situation imposed upon them the precaution of frequently changing their place of retreat, and he ended by offering us, for our deliberation, his house and his workshops, No. 82, Rue Popincourt, at the bottom of a blind alley, and also in the neighborhood of the Faubourg St. Antoine.

This offer was accepted. I sent to inform Auguste of our change of abode, and of Cournet's address. Lafon remained on the Quai Jemmapes in order to forward on the Proclamations as soon as they arrived, and we set out at once.

Charamaule undertook to send to the Rue des Moulins to tell the other members of the committee that we would wait for them at No. 82, Rue Popincourt.

We walked, as in the morning, in little separate groups. The Quai Jemmapes skirts the left bank of the St. Martin Canal; we went up it. We only met a few solitary workmen, who looked back when we had passed, and stopped behind us with an air of astonishment. The night was dark. A few drops of rain were falling.

A little beyond the Rue de Chemin Vert we turned to the right and reached the Rue Popincourt. There all was deserted, extinguished, closed, and silent, as in the Faubourg St. Antoine. This street is of great length. We walked for a long time; we passed by the barracks. Cournet was no longer with us; he had remained behind to inform some of his friends, and we were told to take defensive measures in case his house was attacked. We looked for No. 82. The darkness was such that we could not distinguish the numbers on the houses. At length, at the end of the street, on the right, we saw a light; it was a grocer's shop, the only one open throughout the street. One of us entered, and asked the grocer, who was sitting behind his counter, to show us M. Cournet's house. "Opposite," said the grocer, pointing to an old and low carriage entrance which could be seen on the other side of the street, almost facing his shop.

We knocked at this door. It was opened. Baudin entered first, tapped at the window of the porter's lodge, and asked "Monsieur Cournet?"—An old woman's voice answered, "Here."

The portress was in bed; all in the house sleeping. We went in.

Having entered, and the gate being shut behind us, we found ourselves in a little square courtyard which formed the centre of a sort of a two-storied ruin; the silence of a convent prevailed, not a light was to be seen at the windows; near a shed was seen a low entrance to a narrow, dark, and winding staircase. "We have made some mistake," said Charamaule; "it is impossible that it can be here."

Meanwhile the portress, hearing all these trampling steps beneath her doorway, had become wide awake, had lighted her lamp, and we could see her in her lodge, her face pressed against the window, gazing with alarm at sixty dark phantoms, motionless, and standing in her courtyard.