Esquiros addressed her: "Is this really M. Cournet's house?" said he.

"M. Cornet, without doubt," answered the good woman.

All was explained. We had asked for Cournet, the grocer had understood Cornet, the portress had understood Cornet. It chanced that M. Cornet lived there.

We shall see by and by what an extraordinary service chance had rendered us.

We went out, to the great relief of the poor portress, and we resumed our search. Xavier Durrieu succeeded in ascertaining our whereabouts, and extricated us from our difficulty.

A few moments afterwards we turned to the left, and we entered into a blind alley of considerable length and dimly lighted by an old oil lamp—one of those with which Paris was formerly lighted—then again to the left, and we entered through a narrow passage into a large courtyard encumbered with sheds and building materials. This time we had reached Cournet's.



CHAPTER XIX.

ONE FOOT IN THE TOMB

Cournet was waiting for us. He received us on the ground floor, in a parlor where there was a fire, a table, and some chairs; but the room was so small that a quarter of us filled it to overflowing, and the others remained in the courtyard. "It is impossible to deliberate here," said Bancel. "I have a larger room on the first floor," answered Cournet, "but it is a building in course of construction, which is not yet furnished, and where there is no fire."—"What does it matter?" they answered him. "Let us go up to the first floor."

We went up to the first floor by a steep and narrow wooden staircase, and we took possession of two rooms with very low ceilings, but of which one was sufficiently large. The walls were whitewashed, and a few straw-covered stools formed the whole of its furniture.

They called out to me, "Preside."

I sat down on one of the stools in the corner of the first room, with the fire place on my right and on my left the door opening upon the staircase. Baudin said to me, "I have a pencil and paper. I will act as secretary to you." He sat down on a stool next to me.

The Representatives and those present, amongst whom were several men in blouses, remained standing, forming in front of Baudin and myself a sort of square, backed by the two walls of the room opposite to us. This crowd extended as far as the staircase. A lighted candle was placed on the chimney-piece.

A common spirit animated this meeting. The faces were pale, but in every eye could be seen the same firm resolution. In all these shadows glistened the same flame. Several simultaneously asked permission to speak. I requested them to give their names to Baudin, who wrote them down, and then passed me the list.

The first speaker was a workman. He began by apologizing for mingling with the Representatives, he a stranger to the Assembly. The Representatives interrupted him. "No, no," they said, "the People and Representatives are all one! Speak—!" He declared that if he spoke it was in order to clear from all suspicion the honor of his brethren, the workmen of Paris; that he had heard some Representatives express doubt about them. He asserted that this was unjust, that the workmen realized the whole crime of M. Bonaparte and the whole duty of the People, that they would not be deaf to the appeal of the Republican Representatives, and that this would be clearly shown. He said all this, simply, with a sort of proud shyness and of honest bluntness. He kept his word. I found him the next day fighting on the Rambuteau barricade.

Mathieu (de la Drome) came in as the workman concluded. "I bring news," he exclaimed. A profound silence ensued.

As I have already said, we vaguely knew since the morning that the Right were to have assembled, and that a certain number of our friends had probably taken part in the meeting, and that was all. Mathieu (de la Drome) brought us the events of the day, the details of the arrests at their own houses carried out without any obstacle, of the meeting which had taken place at M. Daru's house and its rough treatment in the Rue de Bourgogne, of the Representatives expelled from the Hall of the Assembly, of the meanness of President Dupin, of the melting away of the High Court, of the total inaction of the Council of State, of the sad sitting held at the Mairie of the Tenth Arrondissement, of the Oudinot, fiasco, of the decree of the deposition of the President, and of the two hundred and twenty forcibly arrested and taken to the Quai d'Orsay. He concluded in a manly style: "The duty of the Left was increasing hourly. The morrow would probably prove decisive." He implored the meeting to take this into consideration.

A workman added a fact. He had happened in the morning to be in the Rue de Grenelle during the passage of the arrested members of the Assembly; he was there at the moment when one of the commanders of the Chasseurs de Vincennes had uttered these words, "Now it is the turn of those gentlemen—the Red Representatives. Let them look out for themselves!"

One of the editors of the Revolution, Hennett de Kesler, who afterwards became an intrepid exile, completed the information of Mathieu (de la Drome). He recounted the action taken by two members of the Assembly with regard to the so-called Minister of the Interior, Morny, and the answer of the said Morny: "If I find any of the Representatives behind the barricades, I will have them shot to the last man," and that other saying of the same witty vagabond respecting the members taken to the Quai d'Orsay, "These are the last Representatives who will be made prisoners." He told us that a placard was at that very moment being printed which declared that "Any one who should be found at a secret meeting would be immediately shot." The placard, in truth, appeared the next morning.

Baudin rose up. "The coup d'etat redoubles its rage," exclaimed he. "Citizens, let us redouble our energy!"

Suddenly a man in a blouse entered. He was out of breath. He had run hard. He told us that he had just seen, and he repeated, had seen with "his own eyes," in the Rue Popincourt, a regiment marching in silence, and wending its way towards the blind alley of No. 82, that we were surrounded, and that we were about to be attacked. He begged us to disperse immediately.

"Citizen Representatives," called out Cournet, "I have placed scouts in the blind alley who will fall back and warn us if the regiment penetrates thither. The door is narrow and will be barricaded in the twinkling of an eye. We are here, with you, fifty armed and resolute men, and at the first shot we shall be two hundred. We are provided with ammunition. You can deliberate calmly."

And as he concluded he raised his right arm, and from his sleeve fell a large poniard, which he had concealed, and with the other hand he rattled in his pocket the butts of a pair of pistols.

"Very well," said I, "let us continue."

Three of the youngest and most eloquent orators of the Left, Bancel, Arnauld (de l'Ariege) and Victor Chauffour delivered their opinions in succession. All three were imbued with this notion, that our appeal to arms not having yet been placarded, the different incidents of the Boulevarde du Temple and of the Cafe Bonvalet having brought about no results, none of our decrees, owing to the repressive measures of Bonaparte, having yet succeeded in appearing, while the events at the Mairie of the Tenth Arrondissement began to be spread abroad through Paris, it seemed as though the Right had commenced active resistance before the Left. A generous rivalry for the public safety spurred them on. It was delightful to them to know that a regiment ready to attack was close by, within a few steps, and that perhaps in a few moments their blood would flow.

Moreover, advice abounded, and with advice, uncertainty. Some illusions were still entertained. A workman, leaning close to me against the fireplace, said in a low voice to one of his comrades that the People must not be reckoned upon, and that if we fought "We should perpetrate a madness."

The incidents and events of the day had in some degree modified my opinion as to the course to be followed in this grave crisis. The silence of the crowd at the moment when Arnauld (de l'Ariege) and I had apostrophized the troops, had destroyed the impression which a few hours before the enthusiasm of the people on the Boulevard du Temple had left with me. The hesitation of Auguste had impressed me, the Society of Cabinet Makers appeared to shun us, the torpor of the Faubourg St. Antoine was manifest, the inertness of the Faubourg St. Marceau was not less so. I ought to have received notice from the engineer before eleven o'clock, and eleven o'clock was past. Our hopes died away one after another. Nevertheless, all the more reason, in my opinion, to astonish and awaken Paris by an extraordinary spectacle, by a daring act of life and collective power on the part of the Representatives of the Left, by the daring of an immense devotion.

It will be seen later on what a combination of accidental circumstances prevented this idea from being realized as I then purposed. The Representatives have done their whole duty. Providence perhaps has not done all on its side. Be it as it may, supposing that we were not at once carried off by some nocturnal and immediate combat, and that at the hour at which I was speaking we had still a "to-morrow," I felt the necessity of fixing every eye upon the course which should be adopted on the day which was about to follow.—I spoke.

I began by completely unveiling the situation. I painted the picture in four words: the Constitution thrown into the gutter; the Assembly driven to prison with the butt-end of a musket, the Council of State dispersed; the High Court expelled by a galley-sergeant, a manifest beginning of victory for Louis Bonaparte, Paris ensnared in the army as though in a net; bewilderment everywhere, all authority overthrown; all compacts annulled; two things only remained standing, the coup d'etat and ourselves.

"Ourselves! and who are we?"

"We are," said I, "we are Truth and Justice! We are the supreme and sovereign power, the People incarnate—Right!"

I continued,—

"Louis Bonaparte at every minute which elapses advances a step further in his crime. For him nothing is inviolable, nothing is sacred; this morning he violated the Palace of the Representatives of the Nation, a few hours later he laid violent hands on their persons; to-morrow, perhaps in a few moments, he will shed their blood. Well then! he marches upon us, let us march upon him. The danger grows greater, let us grow greater with the danger."

A movement of assent passed through the Assembly. I continued,—

"I repeat and insist. Let us show no mercy to this wretched Bonaparte for any of the enormities which his outrage contains. As he has drawn the wine—I should say the blood—he must drink it up. We are not individuals, we are the Nation. Each of us walks forth clothed with the Sovereignty of the people. He cannot strike our persons without rending that. Let us compel his volleys to pierce our sashes as well as our breasts. This man is on a road where logic grasps him and leads him to parricide. What he is killing in this moment is the country! Well, then! when the ball of Executive Power pierces the sash of Legislative Power, it is visible parricide! It is this that must be understood!"

"We are quite ready!" they cried out. "What measures would you advise us to adopt?"

"No half measures," answered I; "a deed of grandeur! To-morrow—if we leave here this night—let us all meet in the Faubourg St. Antoine."

They interposed, "Why the Faubourg St. Antoine?"

"Yes," resumed I, "the Faubourg St. Antoine! I cannot believe that the heart of the People has ceased to beat there. Let us all meet to-morrow in the Faubourg St. Antoine. Opposite the Lenoir Market there is a hall which was used by a club in 1848."

They cried out to me, "The Salle Roysin."

"That is it," said I, "The Salle Roysin. We who remain free number a hundred and twenty Republican Representatives. Let us install ourselves in this hall. Let us install ourselves in the fulness and majesty of the Legislative Power. Henceforward we are the Assembly, the whole of the Assembly! Let us sit there, deliberate there, in our official sashes, in the midst of the People. Let us summon the Faubourg St. Antoine to its duty, let us shelter there the National Representation, let us shelter there the popular sovereignty. Let us intrust the People to the keeping of the People. Let us adjure them to protect themselves. If necessary, let us order them!"

A voice interrupted me: "You cannot give orders to the People!"

"Yes!" I cried, "When it is a question of public safety, of the universal safety, when it is a question of the future of every European nationality, when it is a question of defending the Republic, Liberty, Civilization, the Revolution, we have the right—we, the Representatives of the entire nation—to give, in the name of the French people, orders to the people of Paris! Let us, therefore, meet to-morrow at this Salle Roysin; but at what time? Not too early in the morning. In broad day. It is necessary that the shops should be open, that people should be coming and going, that the population should be moving about, that there should be plenty of people in the streets, that they should see us, that they should recognize us, that the grandeur of our example should strike every eye and stir every heart. Let us all be there between nine and ten o'clock in the morning. If we cannot obtain the Salle Roysin we will take the first church at hand, a stable, a shed, some enclosure where we can deliberate; at need, as Michel de Bourges has said, we will hold our sittings in a square bounded by four barricades. But provisionally I suggest the Salle Roysin. Do not forget that in such a crisis there must be no vacuum before the nation. That alarms it. There must be a government somewhere, and it must be known. The rebellion at the Elysee, the Government at the Faubourg St. Antoine; the Left the Government, the Faubourg St. Antoine the citadel; such are the ideas which from to-morrow we must impress upon the mind of Paris. To the Salle Roysin, then! Thence in the midst of the dauntless throng of workmen of that great district of Paris, enclosed in the Faubourg as in a fortress, being both Legislators and Generals, multiplying and inventing means of defence and of attack, launching Proclamations and unearthing the pavements, employing the women in writing out placards while the men are fighting, we will issue a warrant against Louis Bonaparte, we will issue warrants against his accomplices, we will declare the military chiefs traitors, we will outlaw in a body all the crime and all the criminals, we will summon the citizens to arms, we will recall the army to duty, we will rise up before Louis Bonaparte, terrible as the living Republic, we will fight on the one hand with the power of the Law, and on the other with the power of the People, we will overwhelm this miserable rebel, and will rise up above his head both as a great Lawful Power and a great Revolutionary Power!"

While speaking I became intoxicated with my own ideas. My enthusiasm communicated itself to the meeting. They cheered me. I saw that I was becoming somewhat too hopeful, that I allowed myself to be carried away, and that I carried them away, that I presented to them success as possible, as even easy, at a moment when it was important that no one should entertain an illusion. The truth was gloomy, and it was my duty to tell it. I let silence be re-established, and I signed with my hand that I had a last word to say. I then resumed, lowering my voice,—

"Listen, calculate carefully what you are doing. On one side a hundred thousand men, seventeen harnessed batteries, six thousand cannon-mouths in the forts, magazines, arsenals, ammunition sufficient to carry out a Russian campaign; on the other a hundred and twenty Representatives, a thousand or twelve hundred patriots, six hundred muskets, two cartridges per man, not a drum to beat to arms, not a bell to sound the tocsin, not a printing office to print a Proclamation; barely here and there a lithographic press, and a cellar where a hand-bill can be hurriedly and furtively printed with the brush; the penalty of death against any one who unearths a paving stone, penalty of death against any one who would enlist in our ranks, penalty of death against any one who is found in a secret meeting, penalty of death against any one who shall post up an appeal to arms; if you are taken during the combat, death; if you are taken after the combat, transportation or exile; on the one side an army and a Crime; on the other a handful of men and Right. Such is this struggle. Do you accept it?"

A unanimous shout answered me, "Yes! yes!"

This shout did not come from the mouths, it came from the souls. Baudin, still seated next to me, pressed my hand in silence.

It was settled therefore at once that they should meet again on the next day, Wednesday, between nine and ten in the morning, at the Salle Roysin, that they should arrive singly or by little separate groups, and that they should let those who were absent know of this rendezvous. This done, there remained nothing more but to separate. It was about midnight.

One of Cournet's scouts entered. "Citizen Representatives," he said, "the regiment is no longer there. The street is free."

The regiment, which had probably come from the Popincourt barracks close at hand, had occupied the street opposite the blind alley for more than half an hour, and then had returned to the barracks. Had they judged the attack inopportune or dangerous at night in that narrow blind alley, and in the centre of this formidable Popincourt district, where the insurrection had so long held its own in June, 1848? It appeared certain that the soldiers had searched several houses in the neighborhood. According to details which we learned subsequently, we were followed after leaving No. 2, Quai Jemmapes, by an agent of police, who saw us enter the house where a M. Cornet was lodging, and who at once proceeded to the Prefecture to denounce our place of refuge to his chiefs. The regiment sent to arrest us surrounded the house, ransacked it from attic to cellar, found nothing, and went away.

This quasi-synonym of Cornet and Cournet lead misled the bloodhounds of the coup d'etat. Chance, we see, had interposed usefully in our affairs.

I was talking at the door with Baudin, and we were making some last arrangements, when a young man with a chestnut beard, dressed like a man of fashion, and possessing all the manners of one, and whom I had noticed while speaking, came up to me.

"Monsieur Victor Hugo," said he, "where are you going to sleep?"

Up to that moment I had not thought of this.

It was far from prudent to go home.

"In truth," I answered, "I have not the least idea."

"Will you come to my house?"

"I shall be very happy."

He told me his mane. It was M. de la R——. He knew my brother Abel's wife and family, the Montferriers, relations of the Chambaceres, and he lived in the Rue Caumartin. He had been a Prefect under the Provisional Government. There was a carriage in waiting. We got in, and as Baudin told me that he would pass the night at Cournet's, I gave him the address of M. do la R——, so that he could send for me if any notice of the movement came from the Faubourg St. Marceau or elsewhere. But I hoped for nothing more that night, and I was right.

About a quarter of an hour after the separation of the Representatives, and after we had left the Rue Popincourt, Jules Favre, Madier de Montajau, de Flotte, and Carnot, to whom we had sent word to the Rue des Moulins, arrived at Cournet's, accompanied by Schoelcher, by Charamaule, by Aubry (du Nord), and by Bastide. Some Representatives were still remaining at Cournet's. Several, like Baudin, were going to pass the night there. They told our colleagues what had been settled respecting my proposition, and of the rendezvous at the Salle Roysin; only it appears that there was some doubt regarding the hour agreed upon, and that Baudin in particular did not exactly remember it, and that our colleagues believed that the rendezvous, which had been fixed for nine o'clock in the morning, was fixed for eight.

This alteration in the hour, due to the treachery of memory for which no one can be blamed, prevented the realization of the plan which I had conceived of an Assembly holding its sittings in the Faubourg, and giving battle to Louis Bonaparte, but gave us as a compensation the heroic exploits of the Ste. Marguerite barricade.



CHAPTER XX.

THE BURIAL OF A GREAT ANNIVERSARY

Such was the first day. Let us look at it steadfastly. It deserves it. It is the anniversary of Austerlitz; the Nephew commemorates the Uncle. Austerlitz is the most brilliant battle of history; the Nephew set himself this problem—how to commit a baseness equal to this magnificence. He succeeded.

This first day, which will be followed by others, is already complete. Everything is there. It is the most terrible attempt at a thrust backwards that has ever been essayed. Never has such a crumbling of civilization been seen. All that formed the edifice is now in ruin; the soil is strewn with the fragments. In one night the inviolability of the Law, the Right of the Citizen, the Dignity of the Judge, and the Honor of the Soldier have disappeared. Terrible substitutions have taken place; there was the oath, there is pergury; there was the flag, there is a rag; there was the Army, there is a band of brigands; there was Justice, there is treason; there was a code of laws, there is the sabre; there was a Government, there is a crew of swindlers; there was France, there is a den of thieves. This called itself Society Saved.

It is the rescue of the traveller by the highwayman.

France was passing by, Bonaparte cried, "Stand and deliver!"

The hypocrisy which has preceded the Crime, equals in deformity the impudence which has followed it. The nation was trustful and calm. There was a sudden and cynical shock. History has recorded nothing equal to the Second of December. Here there was no glory, nothing but meanness. No deceptive picture. He could have declared himself honest; He declares himself infamous; nothing more simple. This day, almost unintelligible in its success, has proved that Politics possess their obscene side. Louis Bonaparte has shown himself unmasked.

Yesterday President of the Republic, to-day a scavenger. He has sworn, he still swears: but the tone has changed. The oath has become an imprecation. Yesterday he called himself a maiden, to-day he becomes a brazen woman, and laughs at his dupes. Picture to yourself Joan of Arc confessing herself to be Messalina. Such is the Second of December.

Women are mixed up in this treason. It is an outrage which savors both of the boudoir and of the galleys. There wafts across the fetidness of blood an undefined scent of patchouli. The accomplices of this act of brigandage are most agreeable men—Romieu, Morny. Getting into debt leads one to commit crimes.

Europe was astounded. It was a thunder bolt from a thief. It must be acknowledged that thunder can fall into bad hands, Palmerston, that traitor, approved of it. Old Metternich, a dreamer in his villa at Rennweg, shook his head. As to Soult, the man of Austerlitz after Napoleon, he did what he ought to do, on the very day of the Crime he died, Alas! and Austerlitz also.



THE SECOND DAY—THE STRUGGLE.



CHAPTER I.

THEY COME TO ARREST ME

In order to reach the Rue Caumartin from the Rue Popincourt, all Paris has to be crossed. We found a great apparent calm everywhere. It was one o'clock in the morning when we reached M. de la R——'s house. The fiacre stopped near a grated door, which M. de la R—— opened with a latch-key; on the right, under the archway, a staircase ascended to the first floor of a solitary detached building which M. de la R—— inhabited, and into which he led me.

We entered a little drawing-room very richly furnished, lighted with a night-lamp, and separated from the bedroom by a tapestry curtain two-thirds drown. M. de la R—— went into the bedroom, and a few minutes afterwards came back again, accompanied by a charming woman, pale and fair, in a dressing-gown, her hair down, handsome, fresh, bewildered, gentle nevertheless, and looking at me with that alarm which in a young face confers an additional grace. Madame de la R—— had just been awakened by her husband. She remained a moment on the threshold of her chamber, smiling, half asleep, greatly astonished, somewhat frightened, looking by turns at her husband and at me, never having dreamed perhaps what civil war really meant, and seeing it enter abruptly into her rooms in the middle of the night under this disquieting form of an unknown person who asks for a refuge.

I made Madame de la R—— a thousand apologies, which she received with perfect kindness, and the charming woman profited by the incident to go and caress a pretty little girl of two years old who was sleeping at the end of the room in her cot, and the child whom she kissed caused her to forgive the refugee who had awakened her.

While chatting M. de la R—— lighted a capital fire in the grate, and his wife, with a pillow and cushions, a hooded cloak belonging to him, and a pelisse belonging to herself, improvised opposite the fire a bed on a sofa, somewhat short, and which we lengthened by means of an arm-chair.

During the deliberation in the Rue Popincourt, at which I had just presided, Baudin had lent me his pencil to jot down some names. I still had this pencil with me. I made use of it to write a letter to my wife, which Madame de la R—— undertook to convey herself to Madame Victor Hugo the next day. While emptying my pockets I found a box for the "Italiens," which I offered to Madame de la R——. On that evening (Tuesday, December 2d) they were to play Hernani.

I looked at that cot, these two handsome, happy young people, and at myself, my disordered hair and clothes, my boots covered with mud, gloomy thoughts in my mind, and I felt like an owl in a nest of nightingales.

A few moments afterwards M. and Madame de la R—— had disappeared into their bedroom, and the half-opened curtain was closed. I stretched myself, fully dressed as I was, upon the sofa, and this gentle nest disturbed by me subsided into its graceful silence.

One can sleep on the eve of a battle between two armies, but on the eve of a battle between citizens there can be no sleep. I counted each hour as it sounded from a neighboring church; throughout the night there passed down the street, which was beneath the windows of the room where I was lying, carriages which were fleeing from Paris. They succeeded each other rapidly and hurriedly, one might have imagined it was the exit from a ball. Not being able to sleep, I got up. I had slightly parted the muslin curtains of a window, and I tried to look outside; the darkness was complete. No stars, clouds were flying by with the turbulent violence of a winter night. A melancholy wind howled. This wind of clouds resembled the wind of events.

I watched the sleeping baby. I waited for dawn. It came. M. de la R—— had explained at my request in what manner I could go out without disturbing any one. I kissed the child's forehead, and left the room. I went downstairs, closing the doors behind me as gently as I could, so not to wake Madame de la R——. I opened the iron door and went out into the street. It was deserted, the shops were still shut, and a milkwoman, with her donkey by her side, was quietly arranging her cans on the pavement.

I have not seen M. de la R—— again. I learned since that he wrote to me in my exile, and that his letter was intercepted. He has, I believe, quitted France. May this touching page convey to him my kind remembrances.

The Rue Caumartin leads into the Rue St. Lazare. I went towards it. It was broad daylight. At every moment I was overtaken and passed by fiacres laden with trunks and packages, which were hastening towards the Havre railway station. Passers-by began to appear. Some baggage trains were mounting the Rue St. Lazare at the same time as myself. Opposite No. 42, formerly inhabited by Mdlle. Mars, I saw a new bill posted on the wall. I went up to it, I recognized the type of the National Printing Office, and I read,

"COMPOSITION OF THE NEW MINISTRY.

"Interior —M. de Morny. "War —The General of Division St. Arnaud. "Foreign Affairs —M. de Turgot. "Justice —M. Rouher. "Finance —M. Fould. "Marine —M. Ducos. "Public Works —M. Magne. "Public Instruction —M.H. Fortuol. "Commerce —M. Lefebre-Durufle."

I tore down the bill, and threw it into the gutter! The soldiers of the party who were leading the wagons watched me do it, and went their way.

In the Rue St. Georges, near a side-door, there was another bill. It was the "Appeal to the People." Some persons were reading it. I tore it down, notwithstanding the resistance of the porter, who appeared to me to be entrusted with the duty of protecting it.

As I passed by the Place Breda some fiacres had already arrived there. I took one. I was near home, the temptation was too great, I went there. On seeing me cross the courtyard the porter looked at me with a stupefied air. I rang the bell. My servant, Isidore, opened the door, and exclaimed with a great cry, "Ah! it is you, sir! They came during the night to arrest you." I went into my wife's room. She was in bed, but not asleep, and she told me what had happened.

She had gone to bed at eleven o'clock. Towards half-past twelve, during that species of drowsiness which resembles sleeplessness, she heard men's voices. It seemed to her that Isidore was speaking to some one in the antechamber. At first she did not take any notice, and tried to go to sleep again, but the noise of voices continued. She sat up, and rang the bell.

Isidore came in. She asked him,

"Is any one there?"

"Yes, madame."

"Who is it?"

"A man who wishes to speak to master."

"Your master is out."

"That is what I have told him, madame."

"Well, is not the gentleman going?"

"No, madame, he says that he urgently needs to speak to Monsieur Victor Hugo, and that he will wait for him."

Isidore had stopped on the threshold of the bedroom. While he spoke a fat, fresh-looking man in an overcoat, under which could be seen a black coat, appeared at the door behind him.

Madame Victor Hugo noticed this man, who was silently listening.

"Is it you, sir, who wish to speak to Monsieur Victor Hugo?"

"Yes, madame."

"But what is it about? Is it regarding politics?"

The man did not answer.

"As to politics," continued my wife, "what is happening?"

"I believe, madame, that all is at an end."

"In what sense?"

"In the sense of the President."

My wife looked fixedly at the man, and said to him,—

"You have come to arrest my husband, sir."

"It is true, madame," answered the man, opening his overcoat, which revealed the sash of a Commissary of Police.

He added after a pause, "I am a Commissary of Police, and I am the bearer of a warrant to arrest M. Victor Hugo. I must institute a search and look through the house."

"What is your name, sir?" asked Madame Victor Hugo.

"My name is Hivert."

"You know the terms of the Constitution?"

"Yes, madam."

"You know that the Representatives of the People are inviolable!"

"Yes, madame."

"Very well, sir," she said coldly, "you know that you are committing a crime. Days like this have a to-morrow; proceed."

The Sieur Hivert attempted a few words of explanation, or we should rather say justification; he muttered the word "conscience," he stammered the word "honor." Madame Victor Hugo, who had been calm until then, could not help interrupting him with some abruptness.

"Do your business, sir, and do not argue; you know that every official who lays a hand on a Representative of the People commits an act of treason. You know that in presence of the Representatives the President is only an official like the others, the chief charged with carrying out their orders. You dare to come to arrest a Representative in his own home like a criminal! There is in truth a criminal here who ought to be arrested—yourself!"

The Sieur Hivert looked sheepish and left the room, and through the half-open door my wife could see, behind the well-fed, well-clothed, and bald Commissary, seven or eight poor raw-boned devils, wearing dirty coats which reached to their feet, and shocking old hats jammed down over their eyes—wolves led by a dog. They examined the room, opened here and there a few cupboards, and went away—with a sorrowful air—as Isidore said to me.

The Commissary Hivert, above all, hung his head; he raised it, however, for one moment. Isidore, indignant at seeing these men thus hunt for his master in every corner, ventured to defy them. He opened a drawer and said, "Look and see if he is not in here!" The Commissary of Police darted a furious glance at him: "Lackey, take care!" The lackey was himself.

These men having gone, it was noticed that several of my papers were missing. Fragments of manuscripts had been stolen, amongst others one dated July, 1848, and directed against the military dictatorship of Cavaignac, and in which there were verses written respecting the Censorship, the councils of war, and the suppression of the newspapers, and in particular respecting the imprisonment of a great journalist—Emile de Girardin:—

"... O honte, un lansquenet Gauche, et parodiant Cesar dont il herite, Gouverne les esprits du fond de sa guerite!"

These manuscripts are lost.

The police might come back at any moment, in fact they did come back a few minutes after I had left. I kissed my wife; I would not wake my daughter, who had just fallen asleep, and I went downstairs again. Some affrighted neighbors were waiting for me in the courtyard. I cried out to them laughingly, "Not caught yet!"

A quarter of an hour afterwards I reached No. 10, Rue des Moulins. It was not then eight o'clock in the morning, and thinking that my colleagues of the Committee of Insurrection had passed the night there, I thought it might be useful to go and fetch them, so that we might proceed all together to the Salle Roysin.

I found only Madame Landrin in the Rue des Moulins. It was thought that the house was denounced and watched, and my colleagues had changed their quarters to No. 7, Rue Villedo, the house of the ex-Constituent Leblond, legal adviser to the Workmen's Association. Jules Favre had passed the night there. Madame Landrin was breakfasting. She offered me a place by her side, but time pressed. I carried off a morsel of bread, and left.

At No. 7, Rue Villedo, the maid-servant who opened the door to me ushered me into a room where were Carnot, Michel de Bourges, Jules Favre, and the master of the house, our former colleague, Constituent Leblond.

"I have a carriage downstairs," I said to them; "the rendezvous is at the Salle Roysin in the Faubourg St. Antoine; let us go."

This, however, was not their opinion. According to them the attempts made on the previous evening in the Faubourg St. Antoine had revealed this portion of the situation; they sufficed; it was useless to persist; it was obvious that the working-class districts would not rise; we must turn to the side of the tradesmen's districts, renounce our attempt to rouse the extremities of the city, and agitate the centre. We were the Committee of Resistance, the soul of the insurrection; if we were to go to the Faubourg St. Antoine, which was occupied by a considerable force, we should give ourselves up to Louis Bonaparte. They reminded me of what I myself had said on the subject the previous evening in the Rue Blanche. We must immediately organize the insurrection against the coup d'etat and organize it in practicable districts, that is to say, in the old labyrinths of the streets St. Denis and St. Martin; we must draw up proclamations, prepare decrees, create some method of publicity; they were waiting for important communications from Workmen's Associations and Secret Societies. The great blow which I wished to strike by our solemn meeting at the Salle Roysin would prove a failure; they thought it their duty to remain where they were; and the Committee being few in number, and the work to be done being enormous, they begged me not to leave them.

They were men of great hearts and great courage who spoke to me; they were evidently right; but for myself I could not fail to go to the rendezvous which I myself had fixed. All the reasons which they had given me were good, nevertheless I could have opposed some doubts, but the discussion would have taken too much time, and the hour drew nigh. I did not make any objections, and I went out of the room, making some excuse. My hat was in the antechamber, my fiacre was waiting for me, and I drove off to the Faubourg St. Antoine.

The centre of Paris seemed to have retained its everyday appearance. People came and went, bought and sold, chatted and laughed as usual. In the Rue Montorgueil I heard a street organ. Only on nearing the Faubourg St. Antoine the phenomenon which I had already noticed on the previous evening became more and more apparent; solitude reigned, and a certain dreary peacefulness.

We reached the Place de la Bastille.

My driver stopped.

"Go on," I said to him.



CHAPTER II.

FROM THE BASTILLE TO THE RUE DE COTTE

The Place de la Bastille was at the same time empty and filled. Three regiments in battle array were there; not one passer-by.

Four harnessed batteries were drawn up at the foot of the column. Here and there knots of officers talked together in a low voice,—sinister men.

One of these groups, the principal, attracted my attention. That one was silent, there was no talking. There were several men on horseback; one in front of the others, in a general's uniform, with a hat surmounted with black feathers, behind this man were two colonels, and behind the colonels a party of aides-de-camp and staff officers. This lace-trimmed company remained immovable, and as though pointing like a dog between the column and the entrance to the Faubourg. At a short distance from this group, spread out, and occupying the whole of the square, were the regiments drawn up and the cannon in their batteries.

"My driver again stopped.

"Go on," I said; "drive into the Faubourg."

"But they will prevent us, sir."

"We shall see."

The truth was that they did not prevent us.

The driver continued on his way, but hesitatingly, and at a walking pace. The appearance of a fiacre in the square had caused some surprise, and the inhabitants began to come out of their houses. Several came up to my carriage.

We passed by a group of men with huge epaulets. These men, whose tactics we understood later on, did not even appear to see us.

The emotion which I had felt on the previous day before a regiment of cuirassiers again seized me. To see before me the assassins of the country, at a few steps, standing upright, in the insolence of a peaceful triumph, was beyond my strength: I could not contain myself. I drew out my sash. I held it in my hand, and putting my arm and head out of the window of the fiacre, and shaking the sash, I shouted,—

"Soldiers! Look at this sash. It is the symbol of Law, it is the National Assembly visible. Where there this sash is there is Right. Well, then, this is what Right commands you. You are being deceived. Go back to your duty. It is a Representative of the People who is speaking to you, and he who represents the People represents the army. Soldiers, before becoming soldiers you have been peasants, you have been workmen, you have been and you are still citizens. Citizens, listen to me when I speak to you. The Law alone has the right to command you. Well, to-day the law is violated. By whom? By you. Louis Bonaparte draws you into a crime. Soldiers, you who are Honor, listen to me, for I am Duty. Soldiers, Louis Bonaparte assassinates the Republic. Defend it. Louis Bonaparte is a bandit; all his accomplices will follow him to the galleys. They are there already. He who is worthy of the galleys is in the galleys. To merit fetters is to wear them. Look at that man who is at your head, and who dares to command you. You take him for a general, he is a convict."

The soldiers seemed petrified.

Some one who was there (I thank his generous, devoted spirit) touched my arm, and whispered in my ear, "You will get yourself shot."

But I did not heed, and I listened to nothing. I continued, still waving my sash,—"You, who are there, dressed up like a general, it is you to whom I speak, sir. You know who I am, I am a Representative of the People, and I know who you are. I have told you you are a criminal. Now, do you wish to know my name? This is it."

And I called out my name to him.

And I added,—

"Now tell me yours."

He did not answer.

I continued,—

"Very well, I do not want to know your name as a general, I shall know your number as a galley slave."

The man in the general's uniform hung his head, the others were silent. I could read all their looks, however, although they did not raise their eyes. I saw them cast down, and I felt that they were furious. I had an overwhelming contempt for them, and I passed on.

What was the name of this general? I did not know then, and I do not know now.

One of the apologies for the coup d'etat in relating this incident, and characterizing it as "an insensate and culpable provocation," states that "the moderation shown by the military leaders on this occasion did honor to General ——:" We leave to the author of this panegyric the responsibility of that name and of this eulogium.

I entered the Rue de Faubourg St. Antoine.

My driver, who now knew my name, hesitated no longer, and whipped up his horse. These Paris coachmen are a brave and intelligent race.

As I passed the first shops of the main street nine o'clock sounded from the Church St. Paul.

"Good," I said to myself, "I am in time."

The Faubourg presented an extraordinary aspect. The entrance was guarded, but not closed, by two companies of infantry. Two other companies were drawn up in echelons farther on, at short distances, occupying the street, but leaving a free passage. The shops, which were open at the end of the Faubourg, were half closed a hundred yards farther up. The inhabitants, amongst whom I noticed numerous workmen in blouses, were talking together at their doors, and watching the proceedings. I noticed at each step the placards of the coup d'etat untouched.

Beyond the fountain which stands at the corner of the Rue de Charonne the shops were closed. Two lines of soldiers extended on either side of the street of the Faubourg on the kerb of the pavement; the soldiers were stationed at every five paces, with the butts of their muskets resting on their hips, their chests drawn in, their right hand on the trigger, ready to bring to the present, keeping silence in the attitude of expectation. From that point a piece of cannon was stationed at the mouth of each of the side streets which open out of the main road of the Faubourg. Occasionally there was a mortar. To obtain a clear idea of this military arrangement one must imagine two rosaries, extending along the two sides of the Faubourg St. Antoine, of which the soldiers should form the links and the cannon the beads.

Meanwhile my driver became uneasy. He turned round to me and said, "It looks as though we should find barricades out there, sir; shall we turn back?"

"Keep on," I replied.

He continued to drive straight on.

Suddenly it became impossible to do so. A company of infantry ranged three deep occupied the whole of the street from one pavement to the other. On the right there was a small street. I said to the driver,—

"Take that turning."

He turned to the right and then to the left. We turned into a labyrinth of streets.

Suddenly I heard a shot.

The driver asked me,—

"Which way are we to go, sir?"

"In the direction in which you hear the shots."

We were in a narrow street; on my left I saw the inscription above a door, "Grand Lavoir," and on my right a square with a central building, which looked like a market. The square and the street were deserted. I asked the driver,—

"What street are we in?"

"In the Rue de Cotte."

"Where is the Cafe Roysin?"

"Straight before us."

"Drive there."

He drove on, but slowly. There was another explosion, this time close by us, the end of the street became filled with smoke; at the moment we were passing No. 22, which has a side-door above which I read, "Petit Lavoir."

Suddenly a voice called out to the driver, "Stop!"

The driver pulled up, and the window of the fiacre being down, a hand was stretched towards mine. I recognized Alexander Rey.

This daring man was pale.

"Go no further," said he; "all is at an end."

"What do you mean, all at an end?"

"Yes, they must have anticipated the time appointed; the barricade is taken: I have just come from it. It is a few steps from here straight before us."

And he added,—

"Baudin is killed."

The smoke rolled away from the end of the street.

"Look," said Alexander Rey to me.

I saw, a hundred steps before us, at the junction of the Rue de Cotte and the Rue Ste. Marguerite, a low barricade which the soldiers were pulling down. A corpse was being borne away.

It was Baudin.



CHAPTER III.

THE ST. ANTOINE BARRICADE

This is what had happened.

During that same night, and as early as four o'clock in the morning, De Flotte was in the Faubourg St. Antoine. He was anxious, in case any movement took place before daylight, that a Representative of the People should be present, and he was one of those who, when the glorious insurrection of Right should burst forth, wished to unearth the paving-stones for the first barricade.

But nothing was stirring. De Flotte, alone in the midst of this deserted and sleeping Faubourg, wandered from street to street throughout the night.

Day breaks late in December. Before the first streaks of dawn De Flotte was at the rendezvous opposite the Lenoir Market.

This spot was only weakly guarded. The only troops in the neighborhood were the post itself of the Lenoir Market, and another post at a short distance which occupied the guard-house at the corner of the Faubourg and the Rue de Montreuil, close to the old Tree of Liberty planted in 1793 by Santerre. Neither of these posts were commanded by officers.

De Flotte reconnoitred the position. He walked some time up and down the pavement, and then seeing no one coming as yet, and fearing to excite attention, he went away, and returned to the side-streets of the Faubourg.

For his part Aubry (du Nord) got up at five o'clock. Having gone home in the middle of the night, on his return from the Rue Popincourt, he had only taken three hours' rest. His porter told him that some suspicious persons had inquired for him during the evening of the 2d, and that they had been to the house opposite, No. 12 of the same street, Rue Racine, to arrest Huguenin. This determined Aubry to leave his house before daylight.

He walked to the Faubourg St. Antoine. As he reached the place of rendezvous he met Cournet and the others from the Rue Popincourt. They were almost immediately joined by Malardier.

It was dawn. The Faubourg was solitary. They walked along wrapt in thought and speaking in a low voice. Suddenly an impetuous and singular procession passed them.

They looked round. It was a detachment of Lancers which surrounded something which in the dim light they recognized to be a police-van. The vehicle rolled noiselessly along the macadamized road.

They were debating what this could mean, when a second and similar group appeared, then a third, and then a fourth. Ten police vans passed in this manner, following each other very closely, and almost touching.

"Those are our colleagues!" exclaimed Aubry (du Nord).

In truth the last batch of the Representatives, prisoners of the Quai d'Orsay, the batch destined for Vincennes, was passing through the Faubourg. It was about seven o'clock in the morning. Some shops were being opened and were lighted inside, and a few passers-by came out of the houses.

Three carriages defiled one after the other, closed, guarded, dreary, dumb; no voice came out, no cry, no whisper. They were carrying off in the midst of swords, of sabres, and of lances, with the rapidity and fury of the whirlwind, something which kept silence; and that something which they were carrying off, and which maintained this sinister silence, was the broken Tribune, the Sovereignty of the Assemblies, the supreme initiative whence all civilization is derived; it was the word which contains the future of the world, it was the speech of France!

A last carriage arrived, which by some chance had been delayed. It was about two or three hundred yards behind the principal convoy, and was only escorted by three Lancers. It was not a police-van, it was an omnibus, the only one in the convoy. Behind the conductor, who was a police agent, there could distinctly be seen the Representatives heaped up in the interior. It seemed easy to rescue them.

Cournet appealed to the passers-by; "Citizens," he cried, "these are your Representatives, who are being carried off! You have just seen them pass in the vans of convicts! Bonaparte arrests them contrary to every law. Let us rescue them! To arms!"

A knot formed of men in blouses and of workmen going to work. A shout came from the knot, "Long live the Republic!" and some men rushed towards the vehicle. The carriage and the Lancers broke into a gallop.

"To arms!" repeated Cournet.

"To arms!" repeated the men of the people.

There was a moment of impulse. Who knows what might have happened? It would have been a singular accident if the first barricade against the coup d'etat had been made with this omnibus, which, after having aided in the crime, would this have aided in the punishment. But at the moment when the people threw themselves on the vehicle they saw several of the Representative-prisoners which it contained sign to them with both hands to refrain. "Eh!" said a workman, "they do not wish it!"

A second repeated, "They do not wish for liberty!"

Another added, "They did not wish us to have it, they do not wish it for themselves."

All was said, and the omnibus was allowed to pass on. A moment afterwards the rear-guard of the escort came up and passed by at a sharp trots and the group which surrounded Aubry (du Nord), Malardier, and Cournet dispersed.

The Cafe Roysin had just opened. It may be remembered that the large hall of this cafe had served for the meeting of a famous club in 1848. It was there, it may also be remembered, that the rendezvous had been settled.

The Cafe Roysin is entered by a passage opening out upon the street, a lobby of some yards in length is next crossed, and then comes a large hall, with high windows, and looking-glasses on the walls, containing in the centre several billiard-tables, some small marble-topped tables, chairs, and velvet-covered benches. It was this hall, badly arranged, however, for a meeting where we could have deliberated, which had been the hall of the Roysin Club. Cournet, Aubry, and Malardier installed themselves there. On entering they did not disguise who they were; they were welcomed, and shown an exit through the garden in case of necessity.

De Flotte had just joined them.

Eight o'clock was striking when the Representatives began to arrive. Bruckner, Maigne, and Brillier first, and then successively Charamaule, Cassal, Dulac, Bourzat, Madier de Montjau, and Baudin. Bourzat, on account of the mud, as was his custom, wore wooden shoes. Whoever thought Bourzat a peasant would be mistaken. He rather resembled a Benedictine monk. Bourzat, with his southern imagination, his quick intelligence, keen, lettered, refined, possesses an encyclopedia in his head, and wooden shoes on his feet. Why not? He is Mind and People. The ex-Constituent Bastide came in with Madier de Montjau. Baudin shook the hands of all with warmth, but he did not speak. He was pensive. "What is the matter with you, Baudin?" asked Aubry (du Nord). "Are you mournful?" "I?" said Baudin, raising his head, "I have never been more happy."

Did he feel himself already chosen? When we are so near death, all radiant with glory, which smiles upon us through the gloom, perhaps we are conscious of it.

A certain number of men, strangers to the Assembly, all as determined as the Representatives themselves, accompanied them and surrounded them.

Cournet was the leader. Amongst them there were workmen, but no blouses. In order not to alarm the middle classes the workmen had been requested, notably those employed by Derosne and Cail, to come in coats.

Baudin had with him a copy of the Proclamation which I had dictated to him on the previous day. Cournet unfolded it and read it. "Let us at once post it up in the Faubourg," said he. "The People must know that Louis Bonaparte is outlawed." A lithographic workman who was there offered to print it without delay. All the Representatives present signed it, and they added my name to their signatures. Aubry (du Nord) headed it with these words, "National Assembly." The workman carried off the Proclamation, and kept his word. Some hours afterwards Aubry (du Nord), and later on a friend of Cournet's named Gay, met him in the Faubourg du Temple paste-pot in hand, posting the Proclamation at every street corner, even next to the Maupas placard, which threatened the penalty of death to any one who should be found posting an appeal to arms. Groups read the two bills at the same time. We may mention an incident which ought to be noted, a sergeant of the line, in uniform, in red trousers, accompanied him and protected him. He was doubtless a soldier who had lately left the service.

The time fixed on the preceding evening for the general rendezvous was from nine to ten in the morning. This hour had been chosen so that there should be time to give notice to all the members of the Left; it was expedient to wait until the Representatives should arrive, so that the group should the more resemble an Assembly, and that its manifestation should have more authority on the Faubourg.

Several of the Representatives who had already arrived had no sash of office. Some were made hastily in a neighboring house with strips of red, white, and blue calico, and were brought to them. Baudin and De Flotte were amongst those who girded on these improvised sashes.

Meanwhile it was not yet nine o'clock, when impatience already began to be manifested around them.[9]

Many shared this glorious impatience.

Baudin wished to wait.

"Do not anticipate the hour," said he; "let us allow our colleagues time to arrive."

But they murmured round Baudin, "No, begin, give the signal, go outside. The Faubourg only waits to see your sashes to rise. You are few in number, but they know that your friends will rejoin you. That is sufficient. Begin."

The result proved that this undue haste could only produce a failure. Meanwhile they considered that the first example which the Representatives of the People ought to set was personal courage. The spark must not be allowed to die out. To march the first, to march at the head, such was their duty. The semblance of any hesitation would have been in truth more disastrous than any degree of rashness.

Schoelcher is of an heroic nature, he has the grand impatience of danger.

"Let us go," he cried; "our friends will join us, let us go outside."

They had no arms.

"Let us disarm the post which is over there," said Schoelcher.

They left the Salle Roysin in order, two by two, arm in arm. Fifteen or twenty men of the people escorted them. They went before them, crying, "Long live the Republic! To arms!"

Some children preceded and followed them, shouting, "Long live the Mountain!"

The entrances of the closed shops were half opened. A few men appeared at the doors, a few women showed themselves at the windows. Knots of workmen going to their work watched them pass. They cried, "Long live our Representatives! Long live the Republic!"

Sympathy was everywhere, but insurrection nowhere. The procession gathered few adherents on the way.

A man who was leading a saddled horse joined them. They did not know this man, nor whence this horse came. It seemed as if the man offered his services to any one who wished to fly. Representative Dulac ordered this man to be off.

In this manner they reached the guard-house of the Rue de Montrenil. At their approach the sentry gave the alarm, and the soldiers came out of the guard-house in disorder.

Schoelcher, calm, impassive, in ruffles and a white tie, clothed, as usual, in black, buttoned to the neck in his tight frock coat, with the intrepid and brotherly air of a Quaker, walked straight up to them.

"Comrades," he said to them, "we are the Representatives of the People, and come in the name of the people to demand your arms for the defence of the Constitution and of the Laws!"

The post allowed itself to be disarmed. The sergeant alone made any show of resistance, but they said to him, "You are alone," and he yielded. The Representatives distributed the guns and the cartridges to the resolute band which surrounded them.

Some soldiers exclaimed, "Why do you take away our muskets! We would fight for you and with you!"

The Representatives consulted whether they should accept this offer. Schoelcher was inclined to do so. But one of them remarked that some Mobile Guards had made the same overtures to the insurgents of June, and had turned against the Insurrection the arms which the Insurrection had left them.

The muskets therefore were not restored.

The disarming having been accomplished, the muskets were counted; there were fifteen of them.

"We are a hundred and fifty," said Cournet, "we have not enough muskets."

"Well, then," said Schoelcher, "where is there a post?"

"At the Lenoir Market."

"Let us disarm it."

With Schoelcher at their head and escorted by fifteen armed men the Representatives proceeded to the Lenoir Market. The post of the Lenoir Market allowed themselves to be disarmed even more willingly than the post in the Rue de Montreuil. The soldiers turned themselves round so that the cartridges might be taken from their pouches.

The muskets were immediately loaded.

"Now," exclaimed De Flotte, "we have thirty guns, let us look for a street corner, and raise a barricade."

There were at that time about two hundred combatants.

They went up the Rue de Montreuil.

After some fifty steps Schoelcher said, "Where are we going? We are turning our backs on the Bastille. We are turning our backs upon the conflict."

They returned towards the Faubourg.

They shouted, "To arms!" They Where answered by "Long live our Representatives!" But only a few young men joined them. It was evident that the breeze of insurrection was not blowing.

"Never mind," said De Flotte, "let us begin the battle. Let us achieve the glory of being the first killed."

As they reached the point where the Streets Ste. Marguerite and de Cotte open out and divide the Faubourg, a peasant's cart laden with dung entered the Rue Ste. Marguerite.

"Here," exclaimed De Flotte.

They stopped the dung-cart, and overturned it in the middle of the Faubourg St. Antoine.

A milkwoman came up.

They overturned the milk-cart.

A baker was passing in his bread-cart. He saw what was being done, attempted to escape, and urged his horse to a gallop. Two or three street Arabs—those children of Paris brave as lions and agile as cats—sped after the baker, ran past his horse, which was still galloping, stopped it, and brought back the cart to the barricade which had been begun.

They overturned the bread-cart.

An omnibus came up on the road from the Bastille.

"Very well!" said the conductor, "I see what is going on."

He descended with a good grace, and told his passengers to get down, while the coachman unharnessed his horses and went away shaking his cloak.

They overturned the omnibus.

The four vehicles placed end to end barely barred the street of the Faubourg, which in this part is very wide. While putting them in line the men of the barricade said,—

"Let us not injure the carts more than we can help."

This formed an indifferent barricade, very low, too short, and which left the pavements free on either side.

At this moment a staff officer passed by followed by an orderly, saw the barricade, and fled at a gallop.

Schoelcher calmly inspected the overturned vehicles. When he reached the peasant's cart, which made a higher heap than the others, he said, "that is the only good one."

The barricade grew larger. They threw a few empty baskets upon it, which made it thicker and larger without strengthening it.

They were still working when a child came up to them shouting, "The soldiers!"

In truth two companies arrived from the Bastille, at the double, through the Faubourg, told off in squads at short distances apart, and barring the whole of the street.

The doors and the windows were hastily closed.

During this time, at a corner of the barricade, Bastide, impassive, was gravely telling a story to Madier de Montjau. "Madier," said he, "nearly two hundred years ago the Prince de Conde, ready to give battle in this very Faubourg St. Antoine, where we now are, asked an officer who was accompanying him, 'Have you ever seen a battle lost?'—'No, sire.' 'Well, then, you will see one now.'—Madier, I tell you to-day,—you will speedily see a barricade taken."

In the meanwhile those who were armed had assumed their places for the conflict behind the barricade.

The critical moment drew nigh.

"Citizens," cried Schoelcher, "do not fire a shot. When the Army and the Faubourgs fight, the blood of the People is shed on both sides. Let us speak to the soldiers first."

He mounted on one of the baskets which heightened the barricade. The other Representatives arranged themselves near him on the omnibus. Malardier and Dulac were on his right. Dulac said to him, "You scarcely know me, Citizen Schoelcher, but I love you. Let me have the charge of remaining by your side. I only belong to the second rank in the Assembly, but I want to be in the first rank of the battle."

At this moment some men in blouses, those whom the Second of December had enlisted, appeared at the corner of the Rue Ste. Marguerite, close to the barricade, and shouted, "Down with the 'Twenty-five francs!'"

Baudin who had already selected his post for the combat, and who was standing on the barricade, looked fixedly at these men, and said to them,—

"You shall see how one can die for 'twenty-five francs!'"

There was a noise in the street. Some few doors which had remained half opened were closed. The two attacking columns had arrived in sight of the barricade. Further on could be seen confusedly other lines of bayonets. They were those which had barred my passage.

Schoelcher, raising his arm with authority, signed to the captain, who commanded the first squad, to halt.

The captain made a negative sign with his sword. The whole of the Second of December was in these two gestures. The Law said, "Halt!" The Sabre answered, "No!"

The two companies continued to advance, but slowly, and keeping at the same distance from each other.

Schoelcher came down from the barricade into the street. De Flotte, Dulac, Malardier, Brillier, Maigne, and Bruckner followed him.

Then was seen a grand spectacle.

Seven Representatives of the People, armed only with their sashes, that is to say, majestically clothed with Law and Right, advanced in the street beyond the barricade, and marched straight to the soldiers, who awaited them with their guns pointed at them.

The other Representatives who had remained at the barricade made their last preparations for resistance. The combatants maintained an intrepid bearing. The Naval Lieutenant Cournet towered above them all with his tall stature. Baudin, still standing on the overturned omnibus, leaned half over the barricade.

On seeing the Representatives approach, the soldiers and their officers were for the moment bewildered. Meanwhile the captain signed to the Representatives to stop.

They stopped, and Schoelcher said in an impressive voice,—

"Soldiers! we are the Representatives of the Sovereign People, we are your Representatives, we are the Elect of Universal Suffrage. In the name of the Constitution, in the name of Universal Suffrage, in the name of the Republic, we, who are the National Assembly, we, who are the Law, order you to join us, we summon you to obey. We ourselves are your leaders. The Army belongs to the People, and the Representatives of the People are the Chiefs of the Army. Soldiers! Louis Bonaparte violates the Constitution, we have outlawed him. Obey us."

The officer who was in command, a captain named Petit, did not allow him to finish.

"Gentlemen," he said, "I have my orders. I belong to the People. I am a Republican as you are, but I am only an instrument."

"You know the Constitution?" said Schoelcher.

"I only know my instructions."

"There is an instruction above all other instructions," continued Schoelcher, "obligatory upon the Soldier as upon the Citizen—the Law."

He turned again towards the soldiers to harangue them, but the captain cried out to him,—

"Not another word! You shall not go on! If you add one word, I shall give the order to fire."

"What does that matter to us?" said Schoelcher.

At this moment an officer arrived on horseback. It was the major of the regiment. He whispered for a moment to the captain.

"Gentlemen! Representatives!" continued the captain, waving his sword, "withdraw, or I shall fire."

"Fire!" shouted De Flotte.

The Representatives—strange and heroic copy of Fontenoy—took off their hats, and faced the muskets.

Schoelcher alone kept his hat on his head, and waited with his arms crossed.

"Fix bayonets," said the captain. And turning towards the squads, "Charge!"

"Vive la Republique!" cried out the Representatives.

The bayonets were lowered, the companies moved forward, the soldiers came on at the double upon the motionless Representatives.

It was a terrible and superb moment.

The seven Representatives saw the bayonets at their breasts without a word, without a gesture, without one step backwards. But the hesitation which was not in their soul was in the heart of the soldiers.

The soldiers felt distinctly that this was a double stain upon their uniform—the outrage upon the Representatives of the People—which was treason, and the slaughter of unarmed men, which was cowardice. Now treason and cowardice are two epaulets to which a general sometimes becomes reconciled, the soldier—never.

When the bayonets were so close to the Representatives that they touched their breasts, they turned aside of their own accord, and the soldier's by an unanimous movement passed between the Representatives without doing them any harm. Schoelcher alone had his coat pierced in two places, and in his opinion this was awkwardness instead of intention. One of the soldiers who faced him wished to push him away from the captain, and touched him with his bayonet. The point encountered the book of the addresses of the Representatives, which Schoelcher had in his pocket, and only pierced his clothing.

A soldier said to De Flotte, "Citizen, we do not wish to hurt you."

Nevertheless a soldier came up to Bruckner and pointed his gun at him.

"Well," said Bruckner, "fire."

The soldier, touched, lowered his arm, and shook Bruckner's hand.

It was singular that, notwithstanding the order given by the officers, the two companies successively came up to the Representatives, charged with the bayonet, and turned aside. Instructions may order, but instinct prevails; instructions may be crime, but instinct is honor. Major P—— said afterwards, "They had told us that we should have to deal with brigands, we had to deal with heroes."

Meanwhile those on the barricade were growing uneasy, and seeing their colleagues surrounded, and wishing to succor them, they fired a musket shot. This unfortunate shot killed a soldier between De Flotte and Schoelcher.

The officer who commanded the second attacking squad passed close to Schoelcher as the poor soldier fell. Schoelcher pointed out the fallen man to the officer, and said to him, "Lieutenant, look!"

The officer answered by a gesture of despair,—

"What would you have us do?"

The two companies replied to the shot by a general volley, and rushed to the assault of the barricade, leaving behind them the seven Representatives astounded at being still alive.

The barricade replied by a volley, but it could not hold out. It was carried.

Baudin was killed.

He had remained standing in his position on the omnibus. Three balls reached him. One struck him in the right eye and penetrated into the brain. He fell. He never regained consciousness. Half-an-hour afterwards he was dead. His body was taken to the Ste. Marguerite Hospital.

Bourzat, who was close to Baudin, with Aubry (du Nord), had his coat pierced by a ball.

We must again remark a curious incident,—the soldiers made no prisoner on this barricade. Those who defended it dispersed through the streets of the Faubourg, or took refuge in the neighboring houses. Representative Maigne, pushed by some affrighted women behind a door, was shut in with one of the soldiers who had just taken the barricade. A moment afterwards the soldier and the Representative went out together. The Representatives could freely leave this first field of battle.

At this solemn moment of the struggle a last glimmer of Justice and of Right still flickered, and military honesty recoiled with a sort of dread anxiety before the outrage upon which they were entering. There is the intoxication of good, and there is an intoxication of evil: this intoxication later on drowned the conscience of the Army.

The French Army is not made to commit crimes. When the struggle became prolonged, and ferocious orders of the day had to be executed, the soldiers must have been maddened. They obeyed not coldly, which would have been monstrous, but with anger, and this History will invoke as their excuse; and with many, perhaps, despair was at the root of their anger.

The fallen soldier had remained on the ground. It was Schoelcher who raised him. A few women, weeping, but brave, came out of a house. Some soldiers came up. They carried him, Schoelcher holding his head, first to a fruiterer's shop, then to the Ste. Marguerite Hospital, where they had already taken Baudin.

He was a conscript. The ball had entered his side. Through his gray overcoat buttoned to the collar, could be seen a hole stained with blood. His head had sunk on his shoulder, his pale countenance, encircled by the chinstrap of his shako, had no longer any expression, the blood oozed out of his mouth. He seemed barely eighteen years old. Already a soldier and still a boy. He was dead.

This poor soldier was the first victim of the coup d'etat. Baudin was the second.

Before being a Republican Baudin had been a tutor. He came from that intelligent and brave race of schoolmasters ever persecuted, who have fallen from the Guizot Law into the Falloux Law, and from the Falloux Law into the Dupanloup Law. The crime of the schoolmaster is to hold a book open; that suffices, the Church condemns him. There is now, in France, in each village, a lighted torch—the schoolmaster—and a mouth which blows upon it—the cure. The schoolmasters of France, who knew how to die of hunger for Truth and for Science, were worthy that one of their race should be killed for Liberty.

The first time that I saw Baudin was at the Assembly on January 13, 1850. I wished to speak against the Law of Instruction. I had not put my name down; Baudin's name stood second. He offered me his turn. I accepted, and I was able to speak two days afterwards, on the 15th.

Baudin was one of the targets of Sieur Dupin, for calls to order and official annoyances. He shared this honor with the Representatives Miot and Valentin.

Baudin ascended the Tribune several times. His mode of speaking, outwardly hesitating, was energetic in the main. He sat on the crest of the Mountain. He had a firm spirit and timid manners. Thence there was in his constitution an indescribable embarrassment, mingled with decision. He was a man of middle height. His face ruddy and full, his broad chest, his wide shoulders announced the robust man, the laborer-schoolmaster, the peasant-thinker. In this he resembled Bourzat. Baudin leaned his head on his shoulder, listened with intelligence, and spoke with a gentle and grave voice. He had the melancholy air and the bitter smile of the doomed.

On the evening of the Second of December I had asked him, "How old are you?" He had answered me, "Not quite thirty-three years."

"And you?" said he.

"Forty-nine."

And he replied,—

"To-day we are of the same age."

He thought in truth of that to-morrow which awaited us, and in which was hidden that "perhaps" which is the great leveller.

The first shots had been fired, a Representative had fallen, and the people did not rise! What bandage had they on their eyes, what weight had they on their hearts? Alas! the gloom which Louis Bonaparte had known how to cast over his crime, far from lifting, grew denser. For the first time in the sixty years, that the Providential era of Revolutions had been open, Paris, the city of intelligence, seemed not to understand!

On leaving the barricade of the Rue Ste. Marguerite, De Flotte went to the Faubourg St. Marceau, Madier de Montjau went to Belleville, Charamaule and Maigne proceeded to the Boulevards. Schoelcher, Dulac, Malardier, and Brillier again went up the Faubourg St. Antoine by the side streets which the soldiers had not yet occupied. They shouted, "Vive la Republique!" They harangued the people on the doorsteps: "Is it the Empire that you want?" exclaimed Schoelcher. They even went as far as to sing the "Marseillaise." People took off their hats as they passed and shouted "Long live the Representatives!" But that was all.

They were thirsty and weary. In the Rue de Reuilly a man came out of a door with a bottle in his hand, and offered them drink.

Sartin joined them on the way. In the Rue de Charonne they entered the meeting-place of the Association of Cabinet Makers, hoping to find there the committee of the association in session. There was no one there. But nothing discouraged them.

As they reached the Place de la Bastille, Dulac said to Schoelcher, "I will ask permission to leave you for an hour or two, for this reason: I am alone in Paris with my little daughter, who is seven years old. For the past week she has had scarlet fever. Yesterday, when the coup d'etat burst forth, she was at death's door. I have no one but this child in the world. I left her this morning to come with you, and she said to me, 'Papa, where are you going?' As I am not killed, I will go and see if she is not dead."

Two hours afterwards the child was still living, and we were holding a permanent sitting at No. 15, Rue Richelieu, Jules Favre, Carnot, Michel de Bourges, and myself, when Dulac entered, and said to us, "I have come to place myself at your disposal."

[9] "There was also a misunderstanding respecting the appointed time. Some made a mistake, and thought it was nine o'clock. The first arrivals impatiently awaited their colleagues. They were, as we have said, some twelve or fifteen in number at half-past eight. 'Time is being lost,' exclaimed one of them who had hardly entered; 'let us gird on our sashes; let us show the Representatives to the People, let us join it in raising barricades.' We shall perhaps save the country, at all events we shall save the honor of our party. 'Come, let us to the barricades!' This advice was immediately and unanimously acclaimed: one alone, Citizen Baudin, interposed the forcible objection, 'we are not sufficiently numerous to adopt such a resolution.' But he spiritedly joined in the general enthusiasm, and with a calm conscience, after having reserved the principle, he was not the last to gird on his sash."—SCHOELCHER, Histoire des Crimes du 2d Decembre, pp. 130-131.



CHAPTER IV.

THE WORKMEN'S SOCIETIES ASK US FOR THE ORDER TO FIGHT

In presence of the fact of the barricade of the Faubourg St. Antoine so heroically constructed by the Representatives, so sadly neglected by the populace, the last illusions, even mine, should have been dispersed. Baudin killed, the Faubourg cold. Such things spoke aloud. It was a supreme, manifest, absolute demonstration of that fact, the inaction of the people, to which I could not resign myself—a deplorable inaction, if they understood, a self-treason, if they did not understand, a fatal neutrality in every case, a calamity of which all the responsibility, we repeat, recoiled not upon the people but upon those who in June, 1848, after having promised them amnesty, had refused it, and who had unhinged the great soul of the people of Paris by breaking faith with them. What the Constituent Assembly had sown the Legislative Assembly harvested. We, innocent of the fault, had to submit to the consequence.

The spark which we had seen flash for an instant through the crowd—Michel de Bourges from the height of Bonvalet's balcony, myself from the Boulevard du Temple—this spark seemed extinguished. Maigne firstly, then Brillier, then Bruckner, later on Charmaule, Madier de Montjau, Bastide, and Dulac came to report to us what had passed at the barricade of St. Antoine, the motives which had decided the Representatives present not to await the hour appointed for the rendezvous, and Baudin's death. The report which I made myself of what I had seen, and which Cassal and Alexander Rey completed by adding new circumstances, enabled us to ascertain the situation. The Committee could no longer hesitate: I myself renounced the hopes which I had based upon a grand manifestation, upon a powerful reply to the coup d'etat, upon a sort of pitched battle waged by the guardians of the Republic against the banditti of the Elysee. The Faubourgs failed us; we possessed the lever—Right, but the mass to be raised, the People, we did not possess. There was nothing more to hope for, as those two great orators, Michel de Bourges and Jules Favre, with their keen political perception, had declared from the first, save a slow long struggle, avoiding decisive engagements, changing quarters, keeping Paris on the alert, saying to each, It is not at an end; leaving time for the departments to prepare their resistance, wearying the troops out, and in which struggle the Parisian people, who do not long smell powder with impunity, would perhaps ultimately take fire. Barricades raised everywhere, barely defended, re-made immediately, disappearing and multiplying themselves at the same time, such was the strategy indicated by the situation. The Committee adopted it, and sent orders in every direction to this effect. At that moment we were sitting at No. 15, Rue Richelieu, at the house of our colleague Grevy, who had been arrested in the Tenth Arrondissement on the preceding day, who was at Mazas. His brother had offered us his house for our deliberations. The Representatives, our natural emissaries, flocked around us, and scattered themselves throughout Paris, with our instructions to organize resistance at every point. They were the arms and the Committee was the soul. A certain number of ex-Constituents, intrepid men, Garnier-Pages, Marie, Martin (de Strasbourg), Senart, formerly President of the Constituent Assembly, Bastide, Laissac, Landrin, had joined the Representatives on the preceding day. They established, therefore, in all the districts where it was possible Committees of Permanence in connection with us, the Central Committee, and composed either of Representatives or of faithful citizens. For our watchword we chose "Baudin."

Towards noon the centre of Paris began to grow agitated.

Our appeal to arms was first seen placarded on the Place de la Bourse and the Rue Montmartre. Groups pressed round to read it, and battled with the police, who endeavored to tear down the bills. Other lithographic placards contained in two parallel columns the decree of deposition drawn up by the Right at the Mairie of the Tenth Arrondissement, and the decree of outlawry voted by the Left. There were distributed, printed on gray paper in large type, the judgment of the High Court of Justice, declaring Louis Bonaparte attainted with the Crime of High Treason, and signed "Hardouin" (President), "Delapalme," "Moreau" (of the Seine), "Cauchy," "Bataille" (Judges). This last name was thus mis-spelt by mistake, it should read "Pataille."

At that moment people generally believed, and we ourselves believed, in this judgment, which, as we have seen, was not the genuine judgment.

At the same time they posted in the populous quarters, at the corner of every street, two Proclamations. The first ran thus:—

"TO THE PEOPLE.

"ARTICLE III.[10]

"The Constitution is confided to the keeping and to the patriotism of French citizens. Louis NAPOLEON is outlawed.

"The State of Siege is abolished.

"Universal suffrage is re-established.

"LONG LIVE THE REPUBLIC.

"To ARMS!

"For the United Mountain.

"The Delegate, VICTOR HUGO."

The second ran thus:—

"INHABITANTS OF PARIS.

"The National Guards and the People of the Departments are marching on Paris to aid you in seizing the TRAITOR, Louis Napoleon BONAPARTE.

"For the Representatives of the People,

"VICTOR HUGO, President.

"SCHOELCHER, Secretary."

This last placard, printed on little squares of paper, was distributed abroad, says an historian of the coup d'etat, by thousands of copies.

For their part the criminals installed in the Government offices replied by threats: the great white placards, that is to say, the official bills, were largely multiplied. On one could be read:—

"WE, PREFECT OF THE POLICE,

"Decree as follows:—

"ARTICLE I. All meetings are rigorously prohibited. They will be immediately dispersed by force.

"ARTICLE II. All seditious shouts, all reading in public, all posting of political documents not emanating from a regularly constituted authority, are equally prohibited.

"ARTICLE III. The agents of the Public Police will enforce the execution of the present decree.

"Given at the Prefecture of Police, December 3, 1851.

"DE MAUPAS, Prefect of Police.

"Seen and approved,

"DE MORNY, Minister of the Interior."

On another could be read,—

"THE MINISTER OF WAR,

"By virtue of the Law on the State of Siege,

"Decrees:—

"Every person taken constructing or defending a barricade, or carrying arms, WILL BE SHOT.

"General of Division,

"Minister of war,

"DE SAINT-ARNAUD."

We reproduce this Proclamation exactly, even to the punctuation. The words "Will be shot" were in capital letters in the placards signed "De Saint-Arnaud."

The Boulevards were thronged with an excited crowd. The agitation increasing in the centre reached three Arrondissements, the 6th, 7th, and the 12th. The district of the schools began to disorderly. The Students of Law and of Medicine cheered De Flotte on the Place de Pantheon. Madier de Montjau, ardent and eloquent, went through and aroused Belleville. The troops, growing more numerous every moment, took possession of all the strategical points of Paris.

At one o'clock, a young man was brought to us by the legal adviser of the Workmen's Societies, the ex-Constituent Leblond, at whose house the Committee had deliberated that morning. We were sitting in permanence, Carnot, Jules Favre, Michel de Bourges, and myself. This young man, who had an earnest mode of speaking and an intelligent countenance, was named King. He had been sent to us by the Committee of the Workmen's Society, from whom he was delegated. "The Workmen's Societies," he said to us, "place themselves at the disposal of the Committee of Legal Insurrection appointed by the Left. They can throw into the struggle five or six thousand resolute men. They will manufacture powder; as for guns, they will be found." The Workmen's Society requested from us an order to fight signed by us. Jules Favre took a pen and wrote,—"The undersigned Representatives authorize Citizen King and his friends to defend with them, and with arms in their hands, Universal Suffrage, the Republic, the Laws." He dated it, and we all four signed it. "That is enough," said the delegate to us, "you will hear of us."

Two hours afterwards it was reported to us that the conflict had begun. They were fighting in the Rue Aumaire.

[10] A typographical error—it should read "Article LXVIII." On the subject of this placard the author of this book received the following letter. It does honor to those who wrote it:—

"CITIZEN VICTOR HUGO,—We know that you have made an appeal to arms. We have not been able to obtain it. We replace it by these bills which we sign with your name. You will not disown us. When France is in danger your name belongs to all; your name is a Public Power.

"FELIX BONY.

"DABAT."



CHAPTER V.

BAUDINS'S CORPSE

With regard to the Faubourg St. Antoine, we had, as I said, lost nearly all hope, but the men of the coup d'etat had not lost all uneasiness. Since the attempts at rising and the barricades of the morning a rigorous supervision had been organized. Any one who entered the Faubourg ran the risk of being examined, followed, and upon the slightest suspicion, arrested. The supervision was nevertheless sometimes at fault. About two o'clock a short man, with an earnest and attentive air, crossed the Faubourg. A sergent de ville and a police agent in plain clothes barred his passage. "Who are you?" "You seem a passenger." "Where are you going?" "Over there, close by, to Bartholome's, the overseer of the sugar manufactory.—" They search him. He himself opened his pocket-book; the police agents turned out the pockets of his waistcoat and unbuttoned his shirt over his breast; finally the sergent de ville said gruffly, "Yet I seem to have seen you here before this morning. Be off!" It was the Representative Gindrier. If they had not stopped at the pockets of his waistcoat—and if they had searched his great-coat, they would have found his sash there—Gindrier would have been shot.

Not to allow themselves to be arrested, to keep their freedom for the combat—such was the watchword of the members of the Left. That is why we had our sashes upon us, but not outwardly visible.

Gindrier had had no food that day; he thought he would go home, and returned to the new district of the Havre Railway Station, where he resided. In the Rue de Calais, which is a lonely street running from Rue Blanche to the Rue de Clichy, a fiacre passed him. Gindrier heard his name called out. He turned round and saw two persons in a fiacre, relations of Baudin, and a man whom he did not know. One of the relations of Baudin, Madame L——, said to him, "Baudin is wounded!" She added, "They have taken him to the St. Antoine Hospital. We are going to fetch him. Come with us." Gindrier got into the fiacre. The stranger, however, was an emissary of the Commissary of Police of the Rue Ste. Marguerite St. Antoine. He had been charged by the commissary of Police to go to Baudin's house, No, 88, Rue de Clichy, to inform the family. Having only found the women at home he had confined himself to telling them that Representative Baudin was wounded. He offered to accompany them, and went with them in the fiacre. They had uttered the name of Gindrier before him. This might have been imprudent. They spoke to him; he declared that he would not betray the Representative, and it was settled that before the Commissary of Police Gindrier should assume to be a relation, and be called Baudin.

The poor women still hoped. Perhaps the wound was serious, but Baudin was young, and had a good constitution. "They will save him," said they. Gindrier was silent. At the office of the Commissary of Police the truth was revealed.—"How is he?" asked Madame L—— on entering. "Why?" said the Commissary, "he is dead." "What do you mean? Dead!" "Yes; killed on the spot."

This was a painful moment. The despair of these two women who had been so abruptly struck to the heart burst forth in sobs. "Ah, infamous Bonaparte!" cried Madame L——. "He has killed Baudin. Well, then, I will kill him. I will be the Charlotte Corday of this Marat."

Gindrier claimed the body of Baudin. The Commissary of Police only consented to restore it to the family on exacting a promise that they would bury it at once, and without any ostentation, and that they would not exhibit it to the people. "You understand," he said, "that the sight of a Representative killed and bleeding might raise Paris." The coup d'etat made corpses, but did not wish that they should be utilized.

On these conditions the Commissary of Police gave Gindrier two men and a safe conduct to fetch the body of Baudin from the hospital where he had been carried.

Meanwhile Baudin's brother, a young man of four-and-twenty, a medical student, came up. This young man has since been arrested and imprisoned. His crime is his brother. Let us continue. They proceeded to the hospital. At the sight of the safe conduct the director ushered Gindrier and young Baudin into the parlor. There were three pallets there covered with white sheets, under which could be traced the motionless forms of three human bodies. The one which occupied the centre bed was Baudin. On his right lay the young soldier killed a minute before him by the side of Schoelcher, and on the left an old woman who had been struck down by a spent ball in the Rue de Cotte, and whom the executioners of the coup d'etat had gathered up later on; in the first moment one cannot find out all one's riches.

The three corpses were naked under their winding sheets.

They had left to Baudin alone his shirt and his flannel vest. They had found on him seven francs, his gold watch and chain, his Representative's medal, and a gold pencil-case which he had used in the Rue de Popincourt, after having passed me the other pencil, which I still preserve. Gindrier and young Baudin, bare-headed, approached the centre bed. They raised the shroud, and Baudin's dead face became visible. He was calm, and seemed asleep. No feature appeared contracted. A livid tint began to mottle his face.

They drew up an official report. It is customary. It is not sufficient to kill people. An official report must also be drawn up. Young Baudin had to sign it, upon which, on the demand of the Commissary of Police, they "made over" to him the body of his brother. During these signatures, Gindrier in the courtyard of the hospital, attempted if not to console, at least to calm the two despairing women.