THE HISTORY OF A CRIME THE TESTIMONY OF

AN EYE-WITNESS BY VICTOR HUGO THE FIRST

DAY---
THE AMBUSH.
CHAPTER I. “SECURITY” On December 1, 1851, Charras
shrugged his shoulder and unloaded his pistols. In truth, the
belief in the possibility of a coup d’état had become
humiliating. The supposition of such illegal violence on the part
of M. Louis Bonaparte vanished upon serious consideration.
The great question of the day was manifestly the Devincq
election; it was clear that the Government was only thinking of
that matter. As to conspiracy against the Republic and against
the People, how could anyone premeditate such a plot? Where
was the man capable of entertaining such dream? For a
tragedy there must be an actor, and here assuredly the actor
was wanting. To outrage Right, to suppress the Assembly, to
abolish the Constitution, to strangle the Republic, to overthrow
the Nation, to sully the Flag, to dishonour the Army, to suborn
the Clergy and the Magistracy, to succeed, to triumph, to
govern, to administer, to exile, to banish, to transport, to ruin,
to assassinate, to reign, with such complicities that the law at
last resembles as foul bed of corruption. What! All these
enormities were to be committed! And by whom? By a
Colossus? No, by a dwarf. People laughed at the notion. They
no longer said “What a farce!” For after all they reflected:
heinous crimes require stature. Certain crimes are too lofty
for certain hands. A man who would achieve an 18th
Brumaire must have Arcola in his past and Austerlitz in his
future. The art of becoming a great scoundrel is not
accorded to the first comer. People said to themselves, who
is this son of Hortense? He has Strasbourg behind him
instead of Arcola, and Boulogne in place of Austerlitz. He is a
Frenchman, born a Dutchman, and naturalized a Swiss; he is
Bonaparte crossed with Verhuell; he is only celebrated for
the ludicrousness of his imperial attitude, and he who would
pluck a feather from his eagle would risk finding a goose’s
quill his hand. This Bonaparte does not pass currency in the
array, he is a counterfeit image less of gold than of lead, and
assuredly French soldiers will not give us the change for this
false napoleon in rebellion, in atrocities, in massacres, in
outrages, in treason. If he should attempt roguery it would
miscarry. Not a regiment would stir. Besides, why should he
make such an attempt? Doubtless he has his suspicious side,
but why suppose him an absolute villain? Such extreme
outrages are beyond
him; he is incapable of them physically, why judge him capable
of them morally? Has he not pledged honor? Has he not said,
“No one in Europe doubts my word?” Let us fear nothing. To
this could be answered, Crimes are committed either on a
grand or on a mean scale. In the first category there is Caesar;
in the second there is Mandrid. Caesar passes the Rubicon,
Mandrid bestrides the gutter. But wise men interposed, “Are
we not prejudiced by offensive conjecture? This man has been
exiled and unfortunate. Exile enlightens, misfortune corrects.”
For his part Louis Bonaparte protested energetically. Facts
abounded in his favor. Why should he not act in good faith? He
had made remarkable promises. Towards the end of October,
1848, then a candidate for Presidency, he was calling at No. 37,
Rue de la Tour d’Auvergne, on a certain personage, to whom he
remarked, “I wish to have an explanation with you. They
slander me. Do I give you the impression of a madman? They
think that I wish to revivify Napoleon. There are two men
whom a great ambition can take for its models, Napoleon and
Washington. The one is a man of Genius, the other is a man of
Virtue. It is ridiculous to say, ‘I will a man of Genius;’ it is
honest to say, ‘I will be a man of Virtue.’ Which of these
depends upon ourselves? Which can we accomplish by our will?
To be Genius? No. To be Priority? Yes. The attainment of
Genius is not possible; the attainment of Probity is a possibility.
And what could I revive of Napoleon? One sole thing-a crime.
Truly a worthy ambition! Why should I be considered man? The
Republic being established, I am not a great man, I shall not
copy Napoleon; but I am an honest man. I shall imitate
Washington. My name, the name of Bonaparte, will be
inscribed on two pages of the history of France; on the first
there will be crime and glory, on the second probity and honor.
And the second will perhaps be worth the first. Why? Because if
Napoleon is the greater, Washington is the better man.
Between the guilty hero and the good citizen, I choose the good
citizen. Such is my ambition. “From 1848 to 1851 three years
elapsed. People had long suspected Louis Bonaparte; but long
continued suspicion blunts the intellect and wears itself out by
fruitless alarms. Louis Bonaparte had dissimulating ministers
such as Magne and Rouher; but he had also had
straightforward ministers such as Léon Faucher and Odilon
Barrot; and these last had affirmed that he was upright and
sincere. He had been seen to seen to beat his breast before the
doors of Ham; his foster sister, Madame Hortense Cornu, wrote
to Mieroslawsky, “I am a good Republican, and I can answer for
him.” His friend of ham, Peauger, a loyal man, declared, “Louis
Bonaparte is incapable of treason. “Had not Louis Bonaparte
written the work entitled “Pauperism”? In the intimate circles
of the Elysée Count Potocki was a Republican and Count
d’Orsay was a liberal; Louis Bonarte said to Potocki, “I am a
man of the Democracy,” and to D’Orsay, “I am a man of
Liberty.” The Marquis du Hallays opposed the coup d’état,
while the Marquise du Hallays was in its favor. Louis Bonaparte
said to Marquis, “Fear nothing” (it is true that he whispered to
the Marquise, “Make your mind easy”). The Assembly, after
having shown here and there some symptoms of uneasiness,
had grown calm. There was General Neumayer, “who was to be
depended upon, “and who from his position at Lyons would at
need march upon Paris. Changarnier exclaimed,
“Representatives of the people, deliberate in peace. “Even
Louis Bonaparte himself had pronounced these famous words,
“I should see an energy of my country in any one who would
change by force that which has been established by law, “and,
moreover, the Army was “force,” and the Army possessed
leaders, leaders who were beloved and victorious. Lamoricére,
Changarnier, Cavaignac, Leflô, Bedeau, Charrras; how could
anyone imagine the Army of Africa arresting the Generals of
Africa? On Friday, November 28, 1851, Louis Bonaparte said to
Michel de Bourges, “If I wanted to do wrong I could not.
Yesterday, Thursday, I invited to my Table five Colonels of the
garrison of Paris, and the whim seized me to question each one
by himself. All five declared to me that the army would never
lend itself to coup de force, nor attack the inviolability of the
Assembly. You can tell your friends this. “- “He smiled, “said
Michel de Bourges, reassured, ‘and I also smiled. “After this,
Michel de Borges declared in the Tribune, “this is the man for
me.” In that same month of November, a satirical journal,
charged with calumniating the President of the Republic, was
sentenced to fine and imprisonment for a caricature depicting a
shooting-gallery and Louis Bonaparte using the Constitution as
a target. Morigny, Minister of the Interior, declared in the
Council before the President “that a Guardian of Public Power
ought never to violet the law as otherwise he would be- “- “a
dishonest man, “interposed the President. All these words and
all these facts were notorious. The material and moral
impossibility of the coup d’ état was manifest to all. To outrage
the National Assembly! To arrest the Representatives! What
madness! As we have seen, Charras, who had long remained on
his guard, unloaded his pistols. The feeling of security was
complete and unanimous. Nevertheless, there were some of us
in the Assembly who still retained a few doubts, and who
occasionally shook our heads, but we were looked upon as
fools.

Chapter II. PARIS SLEEPS---THE BELL RINGS

On the 2d December, 1851, Representative Versigny, of the

Haute-Saône, who resided at Paris, at No.4 Rue Léonie, was
asleep. He slept soundly; he had been working till late at night.
Versigny was a young man of thirty-two, soft- feathered and fair
complexioned, of a courageous spirit, and a mind tending
towards social and economical studies. He had passed the first
hours of the night in the perusal of a book Bastiat, in which he
was making marginal
notes, and, leaving the book open on the table, he had fallen
asleep. Suddenly he awoke with a start at the sound of a sharp
ring at the bell. He sprang up in surprise. It was dawn. It was
about seven o’clock in the morning. Never dreaming what could
be the motive for so early a visit, and thinking that someone had
mistake the door, he again lay down, and was about to resume
his slumber, when a second ring at the bell, still louder than the
first, completely aroused him. He got up in his night-shirt and
opened the door. Michel de Bourges and
Théodore Bac entered. Michel de Bourges was the neighbor of
Versigny; he lived at No.16, Rue de Milan. Théodore Bac and
Michel were pale, and appeared greatly agitated. “Versigny,”
said Michel, “dress yourself at once—Baune has just been
arrested. ““Bah!” exclaimed Versigny. “Is the Mauguin business
beginning again?””It is more that that,” replied Michel.
“Baune’s wife and daughter came to me half-an hour ago. They
awoke me. Baune was arrested in bed at six o’clock this
morning. ““What does that mean?” asked Versigny. The bell
rang again. “This probably tell us, “answered Michel de
Bourges. Versigny opened the door. It was the Representative
Pierre Lefranc. He brought, in truth, the solution of the enigma.
“Do you know what is happening?” said he. “Yes,” answered
Michel. “Baune is in prison. ” It is the Republic who is a
prisoner, “said Pierre Lefranc. “Have you read the placards?”
“No.” Pierre Lefranc explained to them that the walls at that
moment were covered with placards which the curious crowd
were thronging to read, that he had glanced over one of them
at the corner of his street, and that the blow had fallen. “The
blow!” exclaimed Michel. “Say rather the crime. “Pierre Lefranc
added that there were three placards—one decree and two
proclamations-all three on white paper, and pasted close
together. The decree was printed in large letters. The
exConstituent Laissac, who lodged, like Michel de Bourges, in
the neighborhood (no. 4, Cité Gaillard), then came in. He
brought the same news, and announced further arrests which
had been made during the night. There was not a minute to
lose. They went to impart the bews to Yvan, the Secretary of
the Assembly, who had been appointed by the Left, and who
Lived in the Rue de Boursault. An immediate meeting was
necessary. Those Republican Representatives who were still at
Liberty must be warned and brought together without delay.
Versigny said, “I will go and find Victor Hugo.” It was eight
o’clock in the morning. I was awake and working in bed. My
servant entered and said, with an air of alarm, --“A
Representative of people is outside who wishes to speak to
you, sir. “ “ Who is it? ”Monsieur Versigny:””Show him in.”
Versigny entered, and told me the state of affairs. I sprang out
of bed. He told me that state of affairs. I sprang out of bed. He
told me the “rendezvous” at the rooms of the other
Representatives,” said I. He left.
Computer III. WHAT HAD HAPPENED DURING THE NIGHT

Previous to the Fatal days of June, 1848, the esplanade of the

Invalides was divided into eight huge grass plots, surrounded by
wooden railings and enclosed between two groves of trees,
separated by a street running perpendicularly to the front of
the Invalides. This street was traversed by three streets running
parallel to the Seine. There were large lawns upon which
children were wont to play. The centre of the eight grass plots
was marred by a pedestal which under the Empire had borne
the bronze lion of St. Mark, which had been brought from
Venice; under the Restoration a white marble statue of Louis
XVIII.; and under Louis Philippe a plaster bust of Lafayette.
Owing to the Palace of the Constituent Assembly having been
nearly seized by a crowd of insurgents on the 22nd of June,
1884, and there being no barracks in the neighbourhood,
General Cavaignaic had constructed at three hundred paces
from the Legislative Palace, on the grass plot of the invalids,
several rows of long huts, under which the grass was hidden.
These huts, where three or four thousand men could be
accommodated, lodged the troops specially appointed to keep
watch over the National Assembly. On the 1st December, 1851,
the two regiments hutted on the Esplanade were the 6th and
the 42d Regiments of the Line, the 6th commanded by Colonel
Garderens de Boisse, who was famous before the Second of
December, the 42d by Colonel Espinasse, who became famous
since that date. The ordinary night-guard of the Palace of the
Assembly was composed of a battalion of Infantry and of thirty
artillerymen, with a captain. The Minister of War, in addition,
sent several troopers for orderly service. Two mortars and six
pieces of cannon, with their ammunition wagons, were ranged
in a little square courtyard situated on the right of the Cour
d'Honneur, and which was called the Cour des Canons. The
Major, the military commandant of the Palace, was placed
under the immediate control of the Questors. At nightfall the
gratings and the doors were secured, sentinels were posted,
instructions were issued to the sentries, and the Palace was
closed like a fortress. The password was the same as in the
Place de Paris. The special instructions drawn up by the
Questors prohibited the entrance of any armed force other
than the regiment on duty. On the night of the 1st and 2nd of
December the Legislative Palace was guarded by a battalion of
the 42d. The sitting of the 1st of December, which was
exceedingly peaceable, and had been devoted to a discussion
on the municipal law, had finished late, and was terminated by
a Tribunal votes. At the moment when M. Baze, one of the
Questors, ascended the Tribune to deposit his vote, a
Representative, belonging to what was called "Les Bancs
Elyséens"" approached him, and said in a low tone, "To-night
you will be carried off." Such warnings as these were received
every day, and, as we have already explained, people had
ended by paying no heed to them. Nevertheless, immediately
after the sitting the Questors sent for the Special Commissary
of Police of the Assembly, President Dupin being present. When
interrogated, the Commissary declared that the reports of his
agents indicated "dead calm"-such was his expression-and
that assuredly there was no danger to be apprehended for that
night. When the Questors pressed him further, President
Dupin, exclaiming "Bah!" left the room. On that same day, the
1st December, about three o'clock in the afternoon, as General
Leflô's father-in-law crossed the boulevard in front of Tortoni's,
Someone rapidly passed by him and whispered in his ear these
significant words, "Eleven o'clock- midnight." This incident
excited but little attention at the Questure, and several even
laughed at it. It had become customary with them.
Nevertheless, General Leflô would not go to bed until the hour
mentioned had passed by, and remained in the Offices of the
Questure until nearly one o'clock in the morning. The
shorthand department of the Assembly was done out of doors
by four messengers attached to the Moniteur, who were
employed to carry the copy of the shorthand writers to the
printing-office, and to bring back the proof-sheets to the Palace
of the Assembly, where M. Hippolyte Prévost corrected them.
M. Hippolyte Prévost was chief of the stenographic staff, and in
that capacity had apartments in the Legislative Palace. He was
at the same time editor of the musical feuilleton of the
Moniteur. On the 1st December he had gone to the Opéra
Comique for the first representation of a new piece, and did
not
return till after midnight. The fourth messenger from the
Moniteur was waiting for him with a proof of the last slip of the
sitting; M. Prévost corrected the proof, and the messenger was
reigned around, and, with the exception of the guard, all in the
Assembly came to the Major and said, "The Colonel has sent for
me,"" and he added according to military etiquette, "Will you
permit me to go?" The Commandant was astonished. "Go," he
said with some sharpness, ""but the Colonel is wrong to disturb
an officer on duty." One of the soldiers on guard, without
understanding the meaning of the words, heard the
Commandant pacing up and down, and muttering several
times, "What the deuce can he want?" Half an hour afterwards
the Adjutant-Major returned. "Well," asked the Commandant,
"What did the Colonel want with you? ""Nothing," answered
the Adjutant, "he wished to give me the orders for to-morrow's
duties." The night became further advanced. Towards four
o'clock the Adjutant-Major came again to the Major. "Major,""
he said, "the Colonel has asked for me." "Again!" exclaimed the
Commandant. "This is becoming strange; nevertheless, go." The
Adjutant-Major had amongst other duties that of giving out the
instructions to the sentries, and consequently had the power of
rescinding them. As soon as the Adjutant-Major had gone out,
the Major, becoming uneasy, thought that it was his duty to
communicate with the Military Commandant of the Palace. He
went upstairs to the apartment of the Commandant-
Lieutenant Colonel Niols. Colonel Niols had gone to bed and the
attendants had retired to their rooms in the attics. The Major,
new to the Palace, groped about the corridors, and, knowing
little about the various rooms, rang at a door which seemed to
him that of the Military Commandant. Nobody answered, the
door was not opened, and the Major returned downstairs,
without having been able to speak to anybody. On his part the
Adjutant-Major re-entered the Palace, but the Major did not see
him again. The Adjutant remained near the grated door of the
Place Bourgogne, shrouded in his cloak, and walking up and
down the courtyard as though expecting someone. At the
instant that five o'clock sounded from the great clock of the
dome, the soldiers who slept in the hut-camp before the
Invalides were suddenly awakened. Orders were given in a low
voice in the huts to take up arms, in silence. Shortly afterwards
two regiments, knapsack on back were marching upon the Palace
of the Assembly; they were the 6th and the 42d. At this same
stroke of five, simultaneously in all the quarters of Paris, infantry
soldiers filed out noiselessly from every barrack, with their
colonels at their head. The aides-de camp and orderly officers of
Louis Bonaparte, who had been distributed in all the barracks,
superintended this taking up of arms. The cavalry were not set in
motion until three-quarters of an hour after the infantry, for fear
that the ring of the horses' hoofs on the stones should wake
slumbering Paris too soon. M. de Persigny, who had brought
from the Elysée to the camp of the Invalides the order to take up
arms, marched at the head of the 42d, by the side of Colonel
Espinasse. A story is current in the army, for at the present day,
wearied as people are with dishonorable incidents, these
occurrences are yet told with a species of gloomy indifference-
the story is current that at the moment of setting out with his
regiment one of the colonels who could be named hesitated, and
that the emissary from the Elysée, taking a sealed packet from
his pocket, said to him, "Colonel, I admit that we are running a
great risk. Here in this envelope, which I have been charged to
hand to you, are a hundred thousand francs in banknotes for
contingencies." The envelope was accepted, and the regiment
set out. On the evening of the 2d of December the colonel said
to a lady, "This morning l earned a hundred thousand francs and
my General's epaulets." The lady showed him the door. Xavier
Durrieu, who tells us this story, had the curiosity later on to see
this lady. She confirmed the story. Yes, certainly! she had shut
the door in the face of this wretch; a soldier, a traitor to his flag
who dared visit her! She receive such a man? No! she could not
do that, "and," states Xavier Durrieu, she added, "And yet l have
no character to lose." Another mystery was in progress at the
Prefecture of Police. Those belated inhabitants of the Cité who
may have returned home at a late hour of the night might have
noticed a large number of street cabs loitering in scattered
groups at different points round about the Rue de Jerusalem.
From eleven o'clock in the evening, under pretext of the arrivals
of refugees at Paris from Genoa and London, the Brigade of
Surety and the eight hundred sergents de ville had been retained
in the Prefecture. At three o'clock in the morning a summons had
been sent to the forty-eight Commissaries of Paris and of the
suburbs, and also to the peace officers. An hour afterwards all of
them arrived. They were ushered into a separate chamber, and
isolated from each other as much as possible. At five o'clock a
bell was sounded in the Prefect's cabinet. The Prefect Maupas
called the Commissaries of Police one after another into his
cabinet, revealed the plot to them, and allotted to each his
portion of the crime. None refused; many thanked him. It was a
question of arresting at their own homes seventy-eight
Democrats who were influential in their districts, and dreaded by
the Elysée as possible chieftains of barricades. It was necessary,
a still more daring outrage, to arrest at their houses sixteen
Representatives of the People. For this last task were chosen
among the Commissaries of Police such of those magistrates who
seemed the most likely to become ruffians. Amongst these were
divided the Representatives. Each had his man. Sieur Courtille
had Charras, Sieur Desgranges had Nadaud, Sieur Hubaut the
elder had M. Thiers, and Sieur Hubaut the younger General
Bedeau, General Changarnier was allotted to Lerat, and General
Cavaignac to Colin. Sieur Dourlenstook Representative Valentin,
Sieur Benoist Representative Miot,
Sieur Allard Representative Cholat, Sieur Barlet took Roger (Du
Nord), General Lamoricière fell to Commissary Blanchet,
Commissary Gronfier had Representative Greppo, and
Commissary Boudrot Representative Lagrange. The Questors
were similarly allotted, Monsieur Baze to the Sieur Primorin,
and General Leflô to Sieur Bertoglio. Warrants with the name of
the Representatives had been drawn up in the Prefect's private
Cabinet. Blanks had been only left for the names of the
Commissaries. These were filled in at the moment of leaving. In
addition to the armed force which was appointed to assist them,
it had been decided that each Commissary should be
accompanied by two escorts, one composed of sergents de ville,
the other of police agents in plain clothes. As Prefect
Maupas had told M. Bonaparte, the Captain of the Republican
Guard, Baudinet, was associated with Commissary Lerat in the
arrest of General Changarnier. Towards half-past five the fiacres
which were in waiting were called up, and all started, each with
his instructions. During this time, in another corner of
Paris-the old Rue du Temple-in that ancient Soubise
Mansion which had been transformed into a Royal Printing
Office, and is to day a National Printing Office, another section
of the Crime was being organized. Towards one in the morning
a passer-by who had reached the old Rue du Temple by the Rue
de Vieilles-Haudriettes, noticed at the junction of these two
streets several long and high windows brilliantly lighted up,
These were the windows of the work rooms of the National
Printing Office. He turned to the right and entered the old Rue
du Temple, and a moment afterwards paused before the
crescent-shaped entrance of the front of the printing-office.
The principal door was shut, two sentinels guarded the side
door. Through this little door, which was ajar, he glanced into
the courtyard of the printing-office, and saw it filled with
soldiers. The soldiers were silent, no sound could be heard, but
the glistening of their bayonets could be seen. The passer-by
surprised, drew nearer. One of the sentinels thrust him rudely
back, crying out, "Be off." Like the sergents de ville at the
Prefecture of Police, the workmen had been retained at the
National Printing Office under plea of night-work. At the same
time that M. Hippolyte Prévost returned to the Legislative
Palace, the manager of the National Printing Office re-entered
his office, also returning from the Opéra Comique, where he
had been to see the new piece, which was by his brother, M. de
St. Georges. Immediately on his return the manager, to whom
had come an order from the Elysée during the day, took up a
communicates by means of a few steps with the courtyard.
fiacre entered, a man who carried a large portfolio alighted.
The manager went up to the man, and said to him, "Is that you,
Monsieur de Béville?" "Yes," answered the man. The fiacre was
put up, the horses placed in a stable, and the coachman shut up
in a parlor, where they gave him drink, and placed a purse in his
hand. Bottles of wine and louis d'or form the groundwork of
this hind of politics. The coachman drank and then went to
sleep. The door of the parlor was bolted. The large door of the
courtyard of the printing-office was hardly shut than it
reopened, gave passage to armed men, who entered in silence,
and then reclosed. The arrivals were a company of the
Gendarmerie Mobile, the fourth of the first battalion,
commanded by a captain named La Roche d'Oisy. As may be
remarked by the result, for all delicate expeditions the men
the coup d'état took care to employ the Gendarmerie Mobile
and the Republican Guard, that it is to say the two corps almost
entirely composed of former Municipal Guards, bearing at
heart a revengeful remembrance of the events of February.
Captain La Roche d'Oisy brought a letter from the Minister of
War, which placed himself and his soldiers at the disposition of
the manager of the National Printing Office. The muskets were
loaded without a word being spoken. Sentinels were placed in
the workrooms, in the corridors, at the doors, at the windows,
in fact, everywhere, two being stationed at the door leading
into the street. The captain asked what instructions he should
give to the sentries. ""Nothing more simple,"" said the man who
had come in the fiacre. "Whoever attempts to leave or to open
a window, shoot him."" This man, who, in fact, was De Béville,
orderly officer to M. Bonaparte, withdrew with the manager
into the large cabinet on the first story, a solitary room which
looked out on the garden. There he communicated to the
manager what he had brought with him, the decree of the
dissolution of the Assembly, the appeal to the Army, the appeal
to the People, the decree convoking the electors, and in
addition, the proclamation of the Prefect Maupas and his letter
to the Commissaries of Police. The four first documents were
entirely in the handwriting of the President, and here and there
some erasures might be noticed. The compositors were in
waiting. Each man was placed between two gendarmes, and
was forbidden to utter a single word, and then the documents
which had to be printed were distributed throughout the room,
being cut up in very small pieces, so that an entire sentence
could not be read by one workman. The manager announced
that he would give them an hour to compose the whole. The
different fragments were finally brought to Colonel Béville, who
put them together and corrected the proof sheets. The
machining was conducted with the same precautions, each
press being between two soldiers. Notwithstanding all possible
diligence the work lasted two hours. The gendarmes watched
over the workmen. Béville watched over St. Georges. When the
work was finished a suspicious incident occurred, which greatly
resembled a treason within a treason. To a traitor a greater

traitor. This species of crime is subject to such accidents. Béville

and St. Georges, the two trusty confidants in whose hands la
the secret of the coup d'état, that is to say the head of the
President;-that secret, which ought at no price to be allowed
to transpire before the appointed hour, under risk of causing
everything to miscarry, took it into their heads to confide it at
once to two hundred men, in order ""to test the effect," as the
ex-Colonel Béville said later on, rather naïvely. They read the
mysterious document which had just been printed to the
Gendarmes Mobiles, who were drawn up in the courtyard.
These ex-municipal guards applauded. If they had hooted, it
might be asked what the two experimentalists in the coup
d'état would have done. Perhaps M. Bonaparte would have
waked up from his dream at Vincennes. The coachman was
then liberated, the fiacre was horsed, and at four o'clock in the
morning the orderly officer and the manager of the National
Printing Office, henceforward two criminals, arrived at the
Prefecture of Police with the parcels of the decrees. Then began
for them the brand of shame. Prefect Maupas took them by the
hand. Bands of bill-stickers, bribed for the occasion, started in
very direction, carrying with them the decrees and
proclamations. This was precisely the hour at which the Palace
of the National Assembly was invested. In the Rue de
l'Université there is a door of the Palace which is the old
Assembly. This door, termed the Presidency door, was
according to custom guarded by a sentry. For some time past
the Adjutant-Major, who had been twice sent for during the
night by Colonel Espinasse, had remained motionless and silent,
close by the sentinel. Five minutes after, having left the huts of
the Invalides, the 42d Regiment of the line, followed at some
distance by the 6th Regiment, which had marched by the Rue
de Bourgogne, emerged from the Rue de l'Université. "The
regiment," says an eye-witness, "marched as one steps in a
sickroom." It arrived with a stealthy step before the Presidency
door. This ambuscade came to surprise the law. The sentry,
seeing these soldiers arrive, halted, but at the moment when he
was going to challenge them with a qui-vive, the
AdjutantMajor seized his arm, and, in his capacity as the officer
mpowered to countermand all instructions, ordered him to
give free passage to the 42d, and at the same time commanded
the amazed porter to open the door. The door turned upon its
hinges, the soldiers spread themselves through the avenue.
Persigny entered and said, ""It is done." The National Assembly
was invaded. At the noise of the footsteps the Commandant
Mennier ran up. "Commandant,"" Colonel Espinasse cried out to
him,"I come to relieve your battalion." The Commandant
turned pale for a moment, and his eyes remained fixed on the
ground. Then suddenly he put his hands to his shoulders, and
tore off his epaulets, he drew his sword, broke it across his
knee, threw the two fragments on the pavement, and,
trembling with rage, exclaimed with a solemn voice, "Colonel,
you disgrace the number of your regiment." "All right, all right,"
said Espinasse. The Presidency door was left open, but all the
other entrances remained closed. All the guards were relieved,
all the sentinels changed, and the battalion of the night guard
was sent back to the camp of the Invalides, the soldiers piled
their arms in the avenue, and in the Cour d'Honneur. The 42d,
in profound silence, occupied the doors outside and inside, the
courtyard, the reception-rooms, the galleries, the corridors, the
passages, while everyone slept in the Palace. Shortl
afterwards arrived two of those little chariots which are call
"Forty sons,"" and two fiacres, escorted by two detachments of
the Republican Guard and of the Chasseurs de Vincennes, and
by several squads of police. The Commissaries Bertoglio and
Primorin alighted from the two chariots. As these carriages
drove up a personage, bald, but still young, was seen to appear
at the grated door of the Place de Bourgogne. This personage
had all the air of a man about town, who had just come from
the opera, and, in fact, he had come from thence, after having
passed through a den. He came from the Elysée. It was De
Morny. For an instant he watched the soldiers piling their arms,
and then went on to the Presidency door. There he exchanged
a few words with M. de Persigny. A quarter of an hour
afterwards, accompanied by 250 Chasseurs de Vincennes, he
took possession of the ministry of the Interior, startled M. de
Thorigny in his bed, and handed him brusquely a letter of
thanks, from Monsieur Bonaparte. Some days previously honest
M. De Thorigny, whose ingenuous remarks we have already
cited, said to a group of men near whom M. de Morny was
passing, "How these men of the Mountain calumniate the
President! The man who would break his oath, who would
achieve a coup d'état must necessarily be a worthless wretch."
Awakened rudely in the middle of the night, and relieved of his
post as Minister like the sentinels of the Assembly, the worthy
man, astounded, and rubbing his eyes, muttered,"Eh! then the
President is a --." "Yes," said Morny, with a burst of laughter.
He who writes these lines knew Morny. Morny and Walewsky
held in the quasi-reigning family the positions, one of Royal
bastard, the other of Imperial bastard. Who was Morny? We
will say, "A noted wit, an intriguer, but in no way austere, a
friend of Romieu, and a supporter of Guizot possessing the
manners of the world, and the habits of the roulette table,
selfsatisfied, clever, combining a certain liberality of ideas with
a readiness to accept useful crimes, finding means to wear a
gracious smile with bad teeth, leading a life of pleasure,
dissipated but reserved, ugly, good-tempered, fierce,
welldressed, intrepid, willingly leaving a brother prisoner under
bolts and bars, and ready to risk his head for a brother
we’re visiting Paris, and who slept in a room, the door of which
led into one of the corridors of the Palace. Commissary
Bertoglio knocked at the door, opened it, and together with his
agents abruptly burst into the room, where a woman was in
bed. The general's brother-in-out sprang out of bed, and cried
out to the Questor, who slept in an adjoining room,"Adolphe,
the doors are being forced, the Palace is full of soldiers. Get
up!" The General opened his eyes, he saw Commissary
Bertoglio standing beside his bed. He sprang up. "General," said
the Commissary,""I have come to fulfil a duty." "I understand,"
said General Leflô, ""you are a traitor." The Commissary
stammering out the words, "Plot against the safety of the
State," displayed a warrant. The General, without pronouncing
a word, struck this infamous paper with the back of his hand.
Then dressing himself, he put on his full uniform of Constantine
and of Médéah, thinking in his imaginative, soldier-like loyalty
that there were still generals of Africa for the soldiers whom he
would find on his way. All the generals now remaining were
Emperor, having the same mother as Louis Bonaparte, and like
Louis Bonaparte, having some father or other, being able to call
himself Beauharnais, being able to call himself Flahaut, and yet
calling himself Morny, pursuing literature as far as light
comedy, and politics, as far as tragedy, a deadly free liver,
possessing all the frivolity consistent with assassination,
capable of being sketched by Marivaux and treated of by
Tacitus, without conscience, irreproachably elegant, infamous,
and amiable, at need a perfect duke. Such was this malefactor."
It was not yet six o'clock in the morning. Troops began to mass
themselves on the Place de la Concorde, were
LeroySaintArnaud on horseback held a review. The
Commissaries of Police, Bertoglio and Primorin ranged two
companies in order under the vault of the great staircase of the
Questure, but did not ascend that way. They were accompanied
by agents of police, who knew the most secret recesses of the
Palais
Bourbon, and who conducted them through various passages.
General Leflô was lodged in the Pavilion inhabited in the time of
the Duc de Bourbon by Monsieur Feuchères. That night General
Leflô had staying with him his sister and her husband, who
we’re visiting Paris, and who slept in a room, the door of which
led into one of the corridors of the Palace. Commissary
Bertoglio knocked at the door, opened it, and together with his
agents abruptly burst into the room, where a woman was in
bed. The general's brother-in-out sprang out of bed, and cried
out to the Questor, who slept in an adjoining room, "Adolphe,
the doors are being forced; the Palace is full of soldiers. Get
up!" The General opened his eyes, he saw Commissary
Bertoglio standing beside his bed. He sprang up. "General," said
the Commissary, "I have come to fulfil a duty." "lI understand,"
said General Lefl6, "you are a traitor." The Commissary
stammering out the words, "Plot against the safety of the
State," displayed a warrant. The General, without pronouncing
a word, struck this infamous paper with the back of his hand.
Then dressing himself, he put on his full uniform of Constantine
and of Médéabh, thinking in his imaginative, soldier-like loyalty
that there were still generals of Africa for the soldiers whom he
would find on his way. All the generals now remaining were
brigands. His wife embraced him; his son, a child of seven years,
in his nightshirt, and in tears, said to the Commissary of Police,
"Mercy, Monsieur Bonaparte." The General, while clasping his
wife in his arms, whispered in her ear, "There is artillery in the
courtyard, try and fire a cannon." The Commissary and his men
led him away. He regarded these policemen with contempt,
and did not speak to them, but when he recognized Colonel
Espinasse, his military and Breton heart swelled with
indignation. "Colonel Espinasse," said he, "you are a villain, and
I hope to live long enough to tear the buttons from your
uniform." Colonel Espinasse hung his head, and stammered, "I
do not know you." A major waved his sword, and cried, "We
have had enough of lawyer generals." Some soldiers crossed
their bayonets before the unarmed prisoner, three sergents de
ville pushed him into a fiacre, and a sub-lieutenant approaching
the carriage, and looking in the face of the man who, if he were
a citizen, was his Representative, and if he were a soldier was
his general, flung this abominable word at him, "Canaille!"
Meanwhile Commissary Primorin had gone by a more
roundabout way in order the more surely to surprise the other
Questor, M. Baze. Out of M. Baze's apartment a door led to the
lobby communicating with the chamber of the Assembly. Sieur
Primorin knocked at the door. "Who is there?" asked a servant,
who was dressing. "The Commissary of Police," replied
Primorin. The servant, thinking that he was the Commissary of
Police of the Assembly, opened the door. At this moment M.
Baze, who had heard the noise, and had just awakened, put on
a dressing-gown, and cried, "Do not open the door." He had
scarcely spoken these words when a man in plain clothes and
three sergents de ville in uniform rushed into his chamber. The
man, opening his coat, displayed his scarf of office, asking M.
Baze, "Do you recognize this?" "You are a worthless wretch,"
answered the Questor. The police agents laid their hands on M.
Baze. "You will not take me away," he said. "You, a Commissary
of Police, you, who are a magistrate, and know what you are
doing, you outrage the National Assembly, you violate the law,
you are a criminal!" A hand-to-hand struggle ensued—four
against one. Madame Baze and her two little girls giving vent to
screams, the servant being thrust back with blows by the
sergents de ville. "You are ruffians," cried out Monsieur Baze.
They carried him away by main force in their arms, still
struggling, naked, his dressing-gown being torn to shreds, his
body being covered with blows, his wrist torn and bleeding. The
stairs, the landing, the courtyard, were full of soldiers with fixed
bayonets and grounded arms. The Questor spoke to them.
"Your Representatives are being arrested, you have not
received your arms to break the laws!" A sergeant was wearing
a brand-new cross. "Have you been given the cross for this?"
The sergeant answered, "We only know one master." "I note
your number," continued M. Baze. "You are a dishonored
regiment." The soldiers listened with a stolid air, and seemed
still asleep. Commissary Primorin said to them, "Do not answer,
this has nothing to do with you." They led the Questor across
the courtyard to the guard-house at the Porte Noire. This was
the name which was given to a little door contrived under the
vault opposite the treasury of the Assembly, and which opened
upon the Rue de Bourgogne, facing the Rue de Lille. Several
sentries were placed at the door of the guard-house, and at the
top of the flight of steps which led thither, M. Baze being left
there in charge of three sergents de ville. Several soldiers,
without their weapons, and in their shirt-sleeves, came in and
out. The Questor appealed to them in the name of military
honor. "Do not answer," said the sergent de ville to the
soldiers. M. Baze's two little girls had followed him with
terrified eyes, and when they lost sight of him the youngest
burst into tears. "Sister," said the elder, who was seven years
old, "let us say our prayers," and the two children, clasping
their hands, knelt down. Commissary Primorin, with his swarm
of agents, burst into the Questor's study, and laid hands on
everything. The first papers which he perceived on the middle
of the table, and which he seized, were the famous decrees
which had been prepared in the event of the Assembly having
voted the proposal of the Questors. All the drawers were
opened and searched. This overhauling of M. Baze's papers,
which the Commissary of Police termed a domiciliary visit,
lasted more than an hour. M. Baze's clothes had been taken to
him, and he had dressed. When the "domiciliary visit" was over,
he was taken out of the guard-house. There was a fiacre in the
courtyard, into which he entered, together with the three
sergents de ville. The vehicle, in order to reach the Presidency
door, passed by the Cour d'Honneur and then by the Courde
Canonis. Day was breaking. M. Baze looked into the courtyard
to see if the cannon were still there. He saw the ammunition
wagons ranged in order with their shafts raised, but the places
of the six cannon and the two mortars were vacant. In the
avenue of the Presidency the fiacre stopped for a moment. Two
lines of soldiers, standing at ease, lined the footpaths of the
avenue. At the foot of a tree were grouped three men: Colonel
Espinasse, whom M. Baze knew and recognized, a species of
Lieutenant-Colonel, who wore a black and orange ribbon round
his neck, and a Major of Lancers, all three swords in hand,
consulting together. The windows of the fiacre were closed; M.
Baze wished to lower them to appeal to these men; the
sergents de ville seized his arms. The Commissary Primorin then
came up, and was about to re-enter the little chariot for two
persons which had brought him. "Monsieur Baze," said he, with
that villainous kind of courtesy which the agents of the coup
d'état willingly blended with their crime, "you must be
uncomfortable with those three men in the fiacre. You are
cramped; come in with me." "Let me alone," said the prisoner.
"With these three men | am cramped; with you I should be
contaminated." An escort of infantry was ranged on both sides
of the fiacre. Colonel Espinasse called to the coachman, "Drive
slowly by the Quai d'Orsay until you meet a cavalry escort.
When the cavalry shall have assumed the charge, the infantry
can come back." They set out. As the fiacre turned into the Quai
d'Orsay a picket of the 7th Lancers arrived at full speed. It was
the escort: the troopers surrounded the fiacre, and the whole
galloped off. No incident occurred during the journey. Here and
there, at the noise of the horses' hoofs, windows were opened
and heads put forth; and the prisoner, who had at length
succeeded in lowering a window heard startled voices saying,
"What is the matter?" The fiacre stopped. "Where are we?"
asked M. Baze. "At Mazas," said a sergent de ville. The Questor
was taken to the office of the prison. Just as he entered, he saw
Baune and Nadaud being brought out. There was a table in the
centre, at which Commissary Primorin, who had followed the
fiacre in his chariot, had just seated himself. While the
Commissary was writing, M. Baze noticed on the table a paper
which was evidently a jail register, on which were these names,
written in the following order: Lamoriciére, Charras, Cavaignac,
Changarnier, Lefl6, Thiers, Bedeau, Roger (du Nord),
Chambolle. This was probably the order in which the
Representatives had arrived at the prison. When Sieur Primorin
had finished writing, M. Baze said, "Now, you will be good
enough to receive my protest, and add it to your official
report." "It is not an official report," objected the Commissary,
"it is simply an order for committal." "l intend to write my
protest at once," replied M. Baze. "You will have plenty of time
in your cell," remarked a man who stood by the table. M. Baze
turned round. "Who are you?" "l am the governor of the
prison," said the man. "In that case," replied M. Baze, "| pity
you, for you are aware of the crime you are committing." The
man turned pale, and stammered a few unintelligible words.
The Commissary rose from his seat; M. Baze briskly took
possession of his chair, seated himself at the table, and said to
Sieur Primorin, "You are a public officer; | request you to add
my protest to your official report." "Very well," said the
Commissary, "let it be so." Baze wrote the protest as follows: —
"I, the undersigned, Jean-Didier Baze, Representative of the
People, and Questor of the National Assembly, carried off by
violence from my residence in the Palace of the National
Assembly, and conducted to this prison by an armed force
which it was impossible for me to resist, protest in the name of
the National Assembly and in my own name against the outrage
on national representation committed upon my colleagues and
upon myself. "Given at Mazas on the 2d December 1851, at
eight o'clock in the morning. "BAZE." While this was taking
place at Mazas, the soldiers were laughing and drinking in the
courtyard of the Assembly. They made their coffee in the
saucepans. They had lighted enormous fires in the courtyard;
the flames, fanned by the wind, at times reached the walls of
the Chamber. A superior official of the Questure, an officer of
the National Guard, Ramond de la Croisette, ventured to say to
them, "You will set the Palace on fire;" whereupon a soldier
struck him a blow with his fist. Four of the pieces taken from
the Cour de Canons were ranged in battery order against the
Assembly; two on the Place de Bourgogne were pointed
towards the grating, and two on the Pont de la Concorde were
pointed towards the grand staircase. As side-note to this
instructive tale let us mention a curious fact. The 42nd Regiment
of the line was the same which had arrested Louis Bonaparte at
Boulogne. In 1840 this regiment lent its aid to the law against
the conspirator. In 1851 it lent its aid to the conspirator against
the law: such is the beauty of passive obedience.
CHAPTER IV. OTHER DOINGS OF THE NIGHT During the same
night in all parts of Paris acts of brigandage took place.
Unknown men leading armed troops, and themselves armed
with hatchets, mallets, pincers, crow bars, life-preservers,
swords hidden under their coats, pistols, of which the butts
could be distinguished under the folds of their cloaks, arrived in
silence before a house, occupied the street, encircled the
approaches, picked the lock of the door, tied up the porter,
invaded the stairs, and burst through the doors upon a sleeping
man, and when that man, awakening with a start, asked of
these bandits,
"Who are you?" their leader answered, "A Commissary of
Police." So it happened to Lamoriciére who was seized by
Blanchet, who threatened him with the gag; to Greppo, who
was brutally treated and thrown down by Gronfier, assisted by
six men carrying a dark lantern and a pole-axe; to Cavaignac,
who was secured by Colin, a smooth-tongued villain, who
affected to be shocked on hearing him curse and swear; to M.
Thiers, who was arrested by Hubaut (the elder); who professed
that he had seen him "tremble and weep," thus adding
falsehood to crime; to Valentin, who was assailed in his bed by
Dourlens, taken by the feet and shoulders, and thrust into a
padlocked police van; to Miot, destined to the tortures of
African casemates; to Roger (du Nord), who with courageous
and witty irony offered sherry to the bandits. Charras and
Changarnier were taken unawares. They lived in the Rue St.
Honoré, nearly opposite to each other, Changarnier at No. 3,
Charras at No. 14. Ever since the 9th of September Changarnier
had dismissed the fifteen men armed to the teeth by whom he
had hitherto been guarded during the night, and on the 1st
December, as we have said, Charras had unloaded his pistols.
These empty pistols were lying on the table when they came to
arrest him. The Commissary of Police threw himself upon them.
"Idiot," said Charras to him, "if they had been loaded, you
would have been a dead man." These pistols, we may note, had
been given to Charras upon the taking of Mascara by General
Renaud, who at the moment of Charras' arrest was on
horseback in the street helping to carry out the coup d'état. If
these pistols had remained loaded, and if General Renaud had
had the task of arresting Charras, it would have been curious if
Renaud's pistols had killed Renaud. Charras assuredly would
not have hesitated. We have already mentioned the names of
these police rascals. It is useless to repeat them. It was Courtille
who arrested Charras, Lerat who arrested Changarnier,
Desgranges who arrested Nadaud. The men thus seized in their
own houses were Representatives of the people; they were
inviolable, so that to the crime of the violation of their persons
was added this high treason, the violation of the Constitution.
There was no lack of impudence in the perpetration of these
outrages. The police agents made merry. Some of these droll
fellows jested. At Mazas the under-jailors jeered at Thiers,
Nadaud reprimanded them severely. The Sieur Hubaut (the
younger) awoke General Bedeau. "General, you are a
prisoner."—"My person is inviolable." — "Unless you are caught
red-handed, in the very act." —"Well," said Bedeau, "l am caught
in the act, the heinous act of being asleep." They took him by the
collar and dragged him to a fiacre. On meeting together at
Mazas, Nadaud grasped the hand of Greppo, and Lagrange
grasped the hand of Lamoriciére. This made the police gentry
laugh. A colonel, named Thirion, wearing a commander's cross
round his neck, helped to put the Generals and the
CHAPTER V. THE DARKNESS OF THE CRIME Versigny had just left
me. While | dressed hastily there came in a man in whom | had
every confidence. He was a poor cabinet-maker out of work,
named Girard, to whom I had given shelter in a room of my
house, a carver of wood, and not illiterate. He came in from the
street; he was trembling. "Well," I asked, "what do the people
say?" Girard answered me, — "People are dazed. The blow has
been struck in such a manner that it is not realized.
Workmen read the placards, say nothing, and go to their work.
Only one in a hundred speaks. It is to say, 'Good!" This is how it
appears to them. The law of the 31st May is abrogated —'Well
done!" Universal suffrage is re-established—'Also well done!"
The reactionary majority has been driven away—'Admirable!'
Thiers is arrested—'Capital!' Changarnier is seized—'Bravo!'
Round each placard there are claqueurs. Ratapoil explains his
coup d'état to Jacques Bonhomme, Jacques Bonhomme takes it
all in. Briefly, it is my impression that the people give their
consent." "Let it be so," said I. "But," asked Girard of me, "what
will you do, Monsieur Victor Hugo?" I took my scarf of office
from a cupboard, and showed it to him. He understood. We
Representatives into jail. "Look me in the face," said Charras to
him. Thirion moved away. Thus, without counting other arrests
which took place later on, there were imprisoned during the
night of the 2d of December, sixteen Representatives and
seventy-eight citizens. The two agents of the crime furnished a
report of it to Louis Bonaparte. Morny wrote "Boxed up;"
Maupas wrote "Quadded." The one in drawing-room slang, the
other in the slang of the galleys. Subtle gradations of language.
shook hands. As he went out Carini entered. Colonel Carini is an
intrepid man. He had commanded the cavalry under
Mieroslawsky in the Sicilian insurrection. He has, in a few
moving and enthusiastic pages, told the story of that noble
revolt. Carini is one of those Italians who love France as we
Frenchmen love Italy. Every warm-hearted man in this century
has two fatherlands— the Rome of yesterday and the Paris of
to-day. "Thank God," said Carini to me, "you are still free," and
he added, "The blow has been struck in a formidable manner.
The Assembly is invested. I have come from thence. The Place
de la Révolution, the Quays, the Tuileries, the boulevards, are
crowded with troops. The soldiers have their knapsacks. The
batteries are harnessed. If fighting takes place it will be
desperate work." I answered him, "There will be fighting." And I
added, laughing, "You have proved that the colonels write like
poets; now it is the turn of the poets to fight like colonels." I
entered my wife's room; she knew nothing, and was quietly
reading her paper in bed. I had taken about me five hundred
francs in gold. I put on my wife's bed a box containing nine
hundred francs, all the money which remained to me, and I told
her what had happened. She turned pale, and said to me,
"What are you going to do?" "My duty." She embraced me, and
only said two words: — "Do it." My breakfast was ready. I ate a
cutlet in two mouthfuls. As I finished, my daughter came in. She
was startled by the manner in which I kissed her, and asked me,
"What is the matter?" "Your mother will explain to you." And I
left them. The Rue de la Tour d'Auvergne was as quiet and
deserted as usual. Four workmen were, however, chatting near
my door; they wished me "Good morning." I cried out to them,
"You know what is going on?" "Yes," said they. "Well. It is
treason! Louis Bonaparte is strangling the Republic. The people
are attacked. The people must defend themselves." "They will
defend themselves." "You promise me that?" "Yes," they
answered. One of them added, "We swear it." They kept their
word. Barricades were constructed in my street (Rue de la Tour
d'Auvergne), in the Rue des Martyrs, in the Cité Rodier, in the
Rue Coquenard, and at Notre-Dame de Lorette.

CHAPTER VI. "PLACARDS" On leaving these brave men I could

read at the corner of the Rue de la Tour d'Auvergne and the
Palace, the manager of the National Printing Office re-entered
his office, also returning from the Opéra Comique, where he
had been to see the new piece, which was by his brother, M. de
St. Georges. Immediately on his return the manager, to whom
had come an order from the Elysée during the day, took up a
pair of pocket pistols, and went down into the vestibule, which
communicates by means of a few steps with the courtyard.
Shortly afterwards the door leading to the street opened, a
fiacre entered; a man who carried a large portfolio alighted.
The manager went up to the man, and said to him, "Is that you,
Monsieur de Béville?" "Yes," answered the man. The fiacre was
put up, the horses placed in a stable, and the coachman shut up
in a parlor, where they gave him drink, and placed a purse in his
hand. Bottles of wine and louis d'or form the groundwork of
this hind of politics. The coachman drank and then went to
sleep. The door of the parlor was bolted. The large door of the
courtyard of the printing-office was hardly shut than it
reopened, gave passage to armed men, who entered in silence,
and then reclosed. The arrivals were a company of the
Gendarmerie Mobile, the fourth of the first battalion,
commanded by a captain named La Roche d'Oisy. As may be