Napoleon the Little
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Victor Hugo >> Napoleon the Little
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But to make an assault upon the tribune is a family crime. The first
Bonaparte had already committed it, but at least what he brought into
France to replace that glory, was glory, not ignominy.
Louis Bonaparte did not content himself with overthrowing the tribune;
he determined to make it ridiculous. As well try that as anything else.
The least one can do, when one cannot utter two words consecutively,
when one harangues only with written notes in hand, when one is short
both of speech and of intelligence, is to make a little fun of
Mirabeau. General Ratapoil said to General Foy, "Hold your tongue,
chatterbox!"--"What is it you call the tribune?" cries M. Bonaparte
Louis; "it is parliamentarism!" What have you to say to
"parliamentarism"? Parliamentarism pleases me. Parliamentarism is a
pearl. Behold the dictionary enriched. This academician of _coups
d'etat_ makes new words. In truth one is not a barbarian to refrain
from dropping a barbarism now and then. He too is a sower; barbarisms
fructify in the brains of idiots. The uncle had "ideologists"--the
nephew has "parliamentarisms." Parliamentarism, gentlemen;
parliamentarism, ladies. This is answerable for everything. You venture
timidly to observe: "It is perhaps a pity so many families have been
ruined, so many people transported, so many citizens proscribed, so
many coffins filled, so many graves dug, so much blood spilt" "Aha!"
replies a coarse voice with a Dutch accent; "so you mistrust
parliamentarism, do you?" Get out of the dilemma if you can.
Parliamentarism is a great find. I give my vote to M. Louis Bonaparte
for the next vacant seat at the Institute. What's that? why, we must
encourage neology! This man comes from the dung-heap, this man comes
from the Morgue, this man's hands steam like a butcher's, he scratches
his ear, smiles, and invents words like Julie d'Angennes. He marries
the wit of the Hotel de Rambouillet to the odour of Montfaucon. We will
both vote for him, won't we, M. de Montalembert?
IX
THE TRIBUNE DESTROYED
So "parliamentarism"--that is to say, protection of the citizen,
freedom of discussion, liberty of the press, liberty of the subject,
supervision of the taxes, inspection of the receipts and expenses, the
safety-lock upon the public money-box, the right of knowing what is
being done with your money, the solidity of credit, liberty of
conscience, liberty of worship, protection of property, the guarantee
against confiscation and spoliation, the safeguard of the individual,
the counterpoise to arbitrary power, the dignity of the nation, the
glory of France, the steadfast morals of free nations, movement,
life,--all these exist no longer. Wiped out, annihilated, vanished! And
this "deliverance" has cost France only the trifle of twenty-five
millions, divided amongst twelve or fifteen saviours, and forty
thousand francs in eau-de-vie, per brigade! Verily, this is not dear!
these gentlemen, of the _coup d'etat_ did the thing at a discount.
Now the deed is done, it is complete. The grass is growing at the
Palais-Bourbon. A virgin forest is beginning to spring up between Pont
de la Concorde and Place Bourgogne. Amid the underbrush one
distinguishes the box of a sentry. The Corps Legislatif empties its urn
among the reeds, and the water flows around the foot of the sentry-box
with a gentle murmur.
Now it is all over. The great work is accomplished. And the results of
the work! Do you know that Messieurs So-and-So won town houses and
country houses in the Circuit Railway alone? Get all you can, gorge
yourselves, grow a fat paunch; it is no longer a question of being a
great people, of being a powerful people, of being a free nation, of
casting a bright light; France no longer sees its way to that. And this
is success! France votes for Louis-Napoleon, carries Louis-Napoleon,
fattens Louis-Napoleon, contemplates Louis-Napoleon, admires
Louis-Napoleon, and is stupefied. The end of civilization is attained!
Now there is no more noise, no more confusion, no more talking, no more
parliament, or parliamentarism. The Corps Legislatif, the Senate, the
Council of State, have all had their mouths sewn up. There is no more
fear of reading a fine speech when you wake up in the morning. It is
all over with everything that thought, that meditated, that created,
that spoke, that sparkled, that shone among this great people. Be
proud, Frenchmen! Lift high your heads, Frenchmen! You are no longer
anything, and this man is everything! He holds in his hand your
intelligence, as a child holds a bird. Any day he pleases, he can
strangle the genius of France. That will be one less source of tumult!
In the meantime, let us repeat in chorus: "No more Parliamentarism, no
more tribune!" In lieu of all those great voices which debated for the
improvement of mankind, which were, one the idea, another the fact,
another the right, another justice, another glory, another faith,
another hope, another learning, another genius; which instructed, which
charmed, which comforted, which encouraged, which brought forth fruit;
in lieu of all those sublime voices, what is it that one hears amid the
dark night that hangs like a pall over France? The jingle of a spur, of
a sword dragged along the pavement!
"Hallelujah!" says M. Sibour. "Hosannah!" replies M. Parisis.
BOOK VI
THE ABSOLUTION:--FIRST PHASE: THE 7,500,000 VOTES
I
THE ABSOLUTION
Some one says to us: "You do not consider! All these facts, which you
call crimes, are henceforth 'accomplished facts,' and consequently to
be respected; it is all accepted, adopted, legitimized, absolved."
"Accepted! adopted! legitimized! absolved! by what?"
"By a vote."
"What vote?"
"The seven million five hundred thousand votes."
"Oh! true. There was a plebiscite, and a vote, and seven million five
hundred thousand ayes. Let us say a word of them."
II
THE DILIGENCE
A brigand stops a diligence in the woods.
He is at the head of a resolute band.
The travellers are more numerous, but they are separated, disunited,
cooped up in the different compartments, half asleep, surprised in the
middle of the night, seized unexpectedly and without arms.
The brigand orders them to alight, not to utter a cry, not to speak a
word, and to lie down with their faces to the ground.
Some resist: he blows out their brains.
The rest obey, and lie on the road, speechless, motionless, terrified,
mixed up with the dead bodies, and half dead themselves.
The brigand, while his accomplices keep their feet on the ribs of the
travellers, and their pistols at their heads, rifles their pockets,
forces open their trunks, and takes all the valuables they possess.
The pockets rifled, the trunks pillaged, the _coup d'etat_ completed,
he says to them:--
"Now, in order to set myself right with justice, I have written down on
paper a declaration, that you acknowledge that all I have taken
belonged to me, and that you give it to me of your own free will. I
propose that this shall be your view of the matter. Each of you will
have a pen given you, and without uttering a syllable, without making
the slightest movement, without quitting your present attitude" (belly
on ground, and face in the mud) "you will put out your arms, and you
will all sign this paper. If any one of you moves or speaks, here is
the muzzle of my pistol. Otherwise, you are quite free."
The travellers put out their arms, and sign.
The brigand thereupon tosses his head, and says:--
"I have seven million five hundred thousand votes."
III
SCRUTINY OF THE VOTE.--A REMINDER OF PRINCIPLES.--FACTS
M. Louis Bonaparte is president of this diligence. Let us recall a few
principles.
For a political ballot to be valid, three absolute conditions must
exist: First, the vote must be free; second, the vote must be
intelligent; third, the figures must be accurate. If one of these three
conditions is wanting, the ballot is null. How is it when all three are
wanting?
Let us apply these rules.
First. _That the vote must be free._
What freedom there was in the vote of the 20th of December, we have
just pointed out; we have described that freedom by a striking display
of evidence. We might dispense with adding anything to it. Let each of
those who voted reflect, and ask himself under what moral and physical
violence he dropped his ballot in the box. We might cite a certain
commune of the Yonne, where, of five hundred heads of families, four
hundred and thirty were arrested, and the rest voted "aye;" or a
commune of the Loiret, where, of six hundred and thirty-nine heads of
families, four hundred and ninety-seven were arrested or banished; the
one hundred and forty-two who escaped voted "aye." What we say of the
Loiret and the Yonne might be said of all the departments. Since the
2nd of December, each town has its swarm of spies; each village, each
hamlet, its informer. To vote "no" was imprisonment, transportation,
Lambessa. In the villages of one department, we were told by an
eye-witness, they brought "ass-loads of 'aye' ballots." The mayors,
flanked by gardes-champetres, distributed them among the peasants. They
had no choice but to vote. At Savigny, near Saint-Maur, on the morning
of the vote, some enthusiastic gendarmes declared that the man who
voted "no" should not sleep in his bed. The gendarmerie cast into the
house of detention at Valenciennes M. Parent the younger, deputy
justice of the peace of the canton of Bouchain, for having advised
certain inhabitants of Avesne-le-Sec to vote "no." The nephew of
Representative Aubry (du Nord), having seen the agents of the prefect
distribute "aye" ballots in the great square of Lille, went into the
square next morning, and distributed "no" ballots. He was arrested and
confined in the citadel.
As to the vote of the army, a part of it voted in its own cause; the
rest followed.
But even as to the freedom of this vote of the soldiers, let us hear
the army speak for itself. This is what is written by a soldier of the
6th Regiment of the Line, commanded by Colonel Garderens de Boisse:--
"So far as our company was concerned, the vote was a roll-call. The
subaltern officers, the corporals, the drummers, and the soldiers,
arranged in order of rank, were named by the quartermaster in presence
of the colonel, the lieutenant-colonel, the major, and the company
officers; and as each man named answered, 'Here!' his name was
inscribed by the sergeant-major. The colonel, rubbing his hands, was
saying, 'Egad, gentlemen, this is going on wheels!' when a corporal of
the company to which I belong approached the table at which the
sergeant-major was seated, and requested him to let him have the pen,
that he might himself inscribe his name on the 'no' register, which was
intended to remain blank.
"'What!' cried the colonel; 'you, who are down for quartermaster, and
who are to be appointed on the first vacancy,--you formally disobey
your colonel, and that in the presence of your company! It would be bad
enough if this refusal of yours were simply an act of insubordination,
but know you not, wretched man, that by your vote you seek to bring
about the destruction of the army, the burning of your father's house,
the annihilation of all society! You hold out your hand to debauchery!
What! X----, you, whom I intended to urge for promotion, you come here
to-day and admit all this?'
"The poor devil, it may be imagined, allowed his name to be inscribed
with the rest."
Multiply this colonel by six hundred thousand, and the product is the
pressure of the functionaries of all sorts--military, political, civil,
administrative, ecclesiastical, judicial, fiscal, municipal,
scholastic, commercial, and consular--throughout France, on the
soldier, the citizen, and the peasant. Add, as we have above pointed
out, the fictitious communist Jacquerie and the real Bonapartist
terrorism, the government imposing by phantasmagoria on the weak, and
by dictatorship on the refractory, and brandishing two terrors
together. It would require a special volume to relate, expose, and
develop the innumerable details of that immense extortion of
signatures, which is called "the vote of the 20th of December."
The vote of the 20th of December prostrated the honour, the initiative,
the intelligence, and the moral life of the nation. France went to that
vote as sheep go to the slaughter-house.
Let us proceed.
Second. _That the vote must be intelligent._
Here is an elementary proposition. Where there is no liberty of the
press, there is no vote. The liberty of the press is the condition
_sine qua non_, of universal suffrage. Every ballot cast in the absence
of liberty of the press is void _ab initio_. Liberty of the press
involves, as necessary corollaries, liberty of meeting, liberty of
publishing, liberty of distributing information, all the liberties
engendered by the right--antedating all other rights--of informing
one's self before voting. To vote is to steer; to vote is to judge. Can
one imagine a blind pilot at the helm? Can one imagine a judge with his
ears stuffed and his eyes put out? Liberty, then,--liberty to inform
one's self by every means, by inquiry, by the press, by speech, by
discussion,--this is the express guarantee, the condition of being, of
universal suffrage. In order that a thing may be done validly, it must
be done knowingly. Where there is no torch, there is no binding act.
These are axioms: outside of these axioms, all is _ipso facto_ null.
Now, let us see: did M. Bonaparte, in his ballot of the 20th of
December, obey these axioms? Did he fulfil the conditions of free
press, free meetings, free tribune, free advertising, free inquiry. The
answer is an immense shout of laughter, even from the Elysee.
Thus you are yourself compelled to admit that it was thus that
"universal suffrage" was exercised.
What! I know nothing of what is going on: men have been killed,
slaughtered, murdered, massacred, and I am ignorant of it! Men have
been arbitrarily imprisoned, tortured, banished, exiled, transported,
and I scarcely glimpse the fact! My mayor and my cure tell me: "These
people, who are taken away, bound with cords, are escaped convicts!" I
am a peasant, cultivating a patch of land in a corner of one of the
provinces: you suppress the newspaper, you stifle information, you
prevent the truth from reaching me, and then you make me vote! in the
uttermost darkness of night! gropingly! What! you rush out upon me from
the obscurity, sabre in hand, and you say to me: "Vote!" and you call
that a ballot.
"Certainly! a 'free and spontaneous' ballot," say the organs of the
_coup d'etat_.
Every sort of machinery was set to work at this vote. One village
mayor, a species of wild Escobar, growing in the fields, said to his
peasants: "If you vote 'aye,' 'tis for the Republic; if you vote 'no,'
'tis against the Republic." The peasants voted "aye."
And let us illuminate another aspect of this turpitude that people call
"the plebiscite of the 20th of December." How was the question put? Was
any choice possible? Did he--and it was the least that a _coup d'etat_
man should have done in so strange a ballot as that wherein he put
everything at stake--did he open to each party the door at which its
principles could enter? were the Legitimists allowed to turn towards
their exiled prince, and towards the ancient honour of the
_fleurs-de-lys_? were the Orleanists allowed to turn towards that
proscribed family, honoured by the valued services of two soldiers, M
M. de Joinville and d'Aumale, and made illustrious by that exalted
soul, Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans? Did he offer to the people--who are
not a party, but the people, that is to say, the sovereign--did he
offer to the people that true republic before which all monarchy
vanishes, as night before day; that republic which is the manifest and
irresistible future of the civilized world; the republic without
dictatorship; the republic of concord, of learning, and of liberty; the
republic of universal suffrage, of universal peace, and of universal
well-being; the republic, initiator of peoples, and liberator of
nationalities; that republic which after all and whatever any one may
do, "will," as the author of this book has said elsewhere,[1] "possess
France to-morrow, and Europe the day after." Did he offer that? No.
This is how M. Bonaparte put the matter: there were in this ballot two
candidates; first candidate, M. Bonaparte; second candidate--the abyss.
France had the choice. Admire the adroitness of the man, and, not a
little, his humility. M. Bonaparte took for his opponent in this
contest, whom? M. de Chambord? No! M. de Joinville? No! The Republic?
Still less. M. Bonaparte, like those pretty Creoles who show off their
beauty by juxtaposition with some frightful Hottentot, took as his
competitor in this election a phantom, a vision, a socialistic monster
of Nuremberg, with long teeth and talons, and a live coal in its eyes,
the ogre of Tom Thumb, the vampire of Porte Saint-Martin, the hydra of
Theramenes, the great sea-serpent of the _Constitutionnel_, which the
shareholders have had the kindness to impute to it, the dragon of the
Apocalypse, the Tarask, the Dree, the Gra-ouili, a scarecrow. Aided by
a Ruggieri of his own, M. Bonaparte lit up this pasteboard monster with
red Bengal fire, and said to the scared voter: "There is no possible
choice except this or myself: choose!" He said: "Choose between beauty
and the beast; the beast is communism; the beauty is my dictatorship.
Choose! There is no medium! Society prostrate, your house burned, your
barn pillaged, your cow stolen, your fields confiscated, your wife
outraged, your children murdered, your wine drunk by others, yourself
devoured alive by the great gaping-jaws yonder, or me as your emperor!
Choose! Me or Croque-mitaine!"
[1] _Litterature et Philosophie Melees 1830._
The citizen, affrighted, and consequently a child; the peasant,
ignorant, and consequently a child, preferred M. Bonaparte to
Croque-mitaine. Such is his triumph!
Observe, however, that of ten millions of voters, five hundred thousand
would, it seems, have preferred Croque-mitaine.
After all, M. Bonaparte only had seven million five hundred thousand
votes.
Thus, then, and in this fashion,--freely as we see, knowingly as we
see,--that which M. Bonaparte is good enough to call universal
suffrage, voted. Voted what?
Dictatorship, autocracy, slavery, the republic a despotism, France a
pachalik, chains on all wrists, a seal on every mouth, silence,
degradation, fear, the spy the soul of all things! They have given to a
man--to you!--omnipotence and omniscience! They have made that man the
supreme, the only legislator, the alpha of the law, the omega of power!
They have decreed that he is Minos, that he is Numa, that he is Solon,
that he is Lycurgus! They have incarnated in him the people, the
nation, the state, the law! and for ten years! What! I, a citizen,
vote, not only for my own dispossession, my own forfeiture, my own
abdication, but for the abdication of universal suffrage for ten years,
by the coming generations, over whom I have no right, over whom you, an
usurper, force me to usurp power, which, by the way, be it said in
passing, would suffice to nullify that monstrous ballot, if all
conceivable nullities were not already piled, heaped and welded upon
it. What! is that what you would have me do? You make me vote that all
is finished, that nothing remains, that the people is a slave! What!
you say to me: "Since you are sovereign, you shall give yourself a
master; since you are France, you shall become Haiti!" What an
abominable farce!
Such is the vote of the 20th of December,--that sanction, as M. de
Morny says; that absolution, as M. Bonaparte says.
Assuredly, a short time hence,--in a year, in a month, perhaps in a
week,--when all that we now see has vanished, men will be ashamed of
having, if only for an instant, bestowed upon that infamous semblance
of a ballot, which they call the ballot of seven million five hundred
thousand votes, the honour of discussing it. Yet it is the only basis,
the only support, the only rampart of this prodigious power of M.
Bonaparte. This vote is the excuse of cowards, this vote is the buckler
of dishonoured consciences. Generals, magistrates, bishops, all crimes,
all prevarications, all degrees of complicity, seek refuge for their
ignominy behind this vote. France has spoken, say they: _vox populi,
vox Dei_, universal suffrage has voted; everything is covered by a
ballot.--_That_ a vote! _that_ a ballot? One spits on it, and passes
by.
Third. _The figures must be accurate._ I admire that figure: 7,500,000!
It must have had a fine effect, through the fog of the 1st of January,
in letters of gold, three feet high, on the portal of Notre-Dame.
I admire that figure. Do you know why? Because I consider it humble.
Seven million five hundred thousand. Why seven million five hundred
thousand? It is not many. No one refused M. Bonaparte full measure.
After what he had done on the 2nd of December, he was entitled to
something better than that. Tell us, who played him that trick? Who
prevented him from putting down eight millions, or ten millions,--a
good round sum? As for myself, I was quite disappointed in my hopes. I
counted on unanimity. _Coup d'etat_, you are indeed modest!
How now! a man has done all we have recalled or related: has taken an
oath and perjured himself; was the guardian of a constitution and
destroyed it, was the servant of a republic and betrayed it, was the
agent of a sovereign assembly and violently crushed it; used the
military pass-word as a poignard to kill military honour, used the
standard of France to wipe away mud and shame, put handcuffs on the
generals of Africa, made the representatives of the people travel in
prison-vans, filled Mazas, Vincennes, Mont Valerien, and Sainte-Pelagie
with inviolable men, shot down point-blank, on the barricade of the
law, the legislator girt with that scarf which is the sacred and
venerable symbol of the law; gave to a colonel, whom we could name, a
hundred thousand francs to trample duty under foot, and to each soldier
ten francs a day; distributed in four days forty thousand francs' worth
of brandy to each brigade; covered with the gold of the Bank the
card-tables of the Elysee, and said to his friends, "Help yourselves!"
killed M. Adde in his own house, M. Belval in his own house, M.
Debaecque in his own house, M. Labilte in his own house, M. de
Couvercelle in his own house, M. Monpelas in his own house, M. Thirion
de Mortauban in his own house; massacred on the boulevards and
elsewhere, shot anybody anywhere, committed numerous murders, of which
he modestly confesses to only one hundred and ninety-one; changed the
trenches about the trees on the boulevards into pools of blood; spilt
the blood of the infant with the blood of the mother, mingling with
both the champagne of the gendarmes!--a man has done all these things,
has taken all this trouble; and when he asks the nation: "Are you
satisfied?" he obtains only seven million five hundred thousand
voters!--Really, he is underpaid.
Sacrifice one's self "to save society," indeed! O, ingratitude of
nations!
In truth, three millions of voices replied "_No_." Who was it, pray,
who said that the South Sea savages call the French the "_oui-ouis_?"
Let us speak seriously. For irony is painful in such tragic matters.
_Coup d'etat_ men, nobody believes in your seven million five hundred
thousand votes.
Come, be frank, and confess that you are more or less swindlers, that
you cheat a little. In your balance-sheet of the 2nd of December you
set down too many votes,--and not enough corpses.
Seven million five hundred thousand! What figure is that? Whence comes
it? What do you want us to do with it?
Seven million, eight million, ten million, what does it matter? We
concede you everything, and we contest everything with you.
The seven million you have, plus the five hundred thousand; the round
sum, plus the odd money; you say so, prince, you affirm it, you swear
it; but what proves it?
Who counted? Baroche. Who examined? Rouher. Who checked? Pietri. Who
added? Maupas. Who certified? Troplong. Who made the proclamation?
Yourself!
In other words, servility counted, platitude examined, trickery
checked, forgery added, venality certified, and mendacity proclaimed.
Very good.
Whereupon, M. Bonaparte ascends to the Capitol, orders M. Sibour to
thank Jupiter, puts a blue and gold livery on the Senate, a blue and
silver livery on the Corps Legislatif, and a green and gold livery on
his coachman; lays his hand on his heart, declares that he is the
product of "universal suffrage," and that his "legitimacy" has issued
from the ballot-box. That box is a wine-cup.
IV
WHO REALLY VOTED FOR M. BONAPARTE?
We declare therefore, we declare simply this, that on the 20th of
December, 1851, eighteen days after the 2nd, M. Bonaparte put his hand
into every man's conscience, and robbed every man of his vote. Others
filch handkerchiefs, he steals an Empire. Every day, for pranks of the
same sort, a _sergent-de-ville_ takes a man by the collar and carries
him off to the police-station.
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