Napoleon the Little

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"Criminal, I sentence you to the galleys," he says:

"Monseigneur, I swear fealty to you."

Now take a balance, place in one scale the judge, in the other the
felon, and tell me which side kicks the beam.

VI

EVERYWHERE THE OATH

Such are the things we have beheld in France, on the occasion of the
oath to M. Bonaparte. Men have sworn here, there, everywhere; at Paris,
in the provinces, in the north, in the south, in the cast, and in the
west. There was in France, during a whole month, a tableau of hands
raised, of arms outstretched, and the final chorus was: "We swear,"
etc. The ministers placed their oaths in the hands of the President,
the prefects in those of ministers, and the mob in those of the
prefects. What does M. Bonaparte do with all these oaths? Is he making
a collection of them? Where does he put them? It has been remarked
that none but unpaid functionaries have refused the oath, the
councillors-general, for instance. The fact is, that the oath has been
taken to the budget. We heard on the 29th of March a senator exclaim,
in a loud voice, against the omission of his name, which was, so to
speak, vicarious modesty. M. Sibour, Archbishop of Paris swore;[1] M.
Frank Carre, procureur-general to the Court of Peers in the affair of
Boulogne, swore;[2] M. Dupin, President of the National Assembly on the
2nd of December, swore[3]--O, my God! it is enough to make one wring
one's hands for shame. An oath, however, is a sacred obligation.

[1] As Senator.

[2] As First President of the Court of Appeal at Rouen.

[3] As a member of his Municipal Council.

The man who takes an oath ceases to be a man, he becomes an altar, upon
which God descends. Man, that infirmity, that shadow, that atom, that
grain of sand, that drop of water, that tear dropped from the eye of
destiny; man, so little, so weak, so uncertain, so ignorant, so
restless; man, who lives in trouble and in doubt, knowing little of
yesterday, and nothing of to-morrow, seeing just enough of his road to
place his foot before him, and then nothing but darkness; who trembles
if he looks forward, is sad if he looks back; man, enveloped in those
immensities and those obscurities, time, space, and being, and lost in
them; having an abyss within him, his soul; and an abyss without,
heaven; man, who at certain hours bows his head with a sacred horror,
under every force of nature, under the roar of the sea, under the
rustling of the trees, under the shadow of the mountain, under the
twinkling of the stars; man, who can not lift his head by day, without
being blinded by the light, nor by night, without being crushed by the
infinite; man, who knows nothing, who sees nothing, who hears nothing,
who may be swept away to-morrow, to-day, now, by the waves that pass,
by the breeze that blows, by the pebble that falls, by the hour that
strikes; on a certain day, man, that trembling, stumbling being, the
plaything of chance and of the passing moment, rises suddenly before
the riddle that is called human life, feels that there is within him
something greater than this abyss,--honour! something stronger than
fatality,--virtue! something more mysterious than the unknown,--faith!
and alone, feeble and naked, he says to all this formidable mystery
that envelopes him: "Do with me what you will, but I will do this, and
I will not do that;" and proud, tranquil, serene, creating by a word a
fixed point in the sombre instability that fills the horizon, as the
mariner casts his anchor in the sea, he casts his oath into the future.

O plighted oath! admirable confidence of the just man in himself!
Sublime permission given by God to man, to affirm! It is all over.
There are no more of them. Another of the soul's splendours that has
vanished!

BOOK VIII

PROGRESS CONTAINED IN THE COUP D'ETAT

I

THE QUANTUM OF GOOD CONTAINED IN EVIL

Among us democrats, many well-meaning minds were stupefied by the event
of the 2nd of December. It disconcerted some, discouraged others, and
terrified many. I have seen some who cried: _Finis Poloniae_. As for
myself, since at certain times I am obliged to say, I, and to speak in
the face of history as a witness, I proclaim that I saw that event
without perturbation. I say more than this, that at times, in the face
of the 2nd of December, I declare myself satisfied.

When I can abstract myself from the present, when for a moment I can
turn my eyes away from all the crimes, from all the blood spilt, from
all the victims, from all the proscribed, from those hulks that echo
the death rattle, from those deadful penal settlements of Lambessa and
Cayenne, where death is swift, from that exile where death is slow,
from this vote, from this oath, from this vast stain of shame inflicted
upon France, which is growing wider and wider each day; when,
forgetting for a few moments these painful thoughts, the usual
obsession of my mind, I succeed in confining myself within the severe
calmness of the politician, and in considering, not the fact, but the
consequences of the fact; then, among many results, disastrous beyond
doubt, a considerable, real, enormous progress becomes manifest to me,
and, from that moment, while I am still of those whom the 2nd of
December exasperates, I am no longer of those whom it afflicts.

Fixing my eyes upon certain points in the future, I say to myself: "The
deed was infamous, but the result is good."

Attempts have been made to explain the inexplicable victory of the
_coup d'etat_ in a hundred ways. A true balance has been struck
between all possible resistances, and they are neutralized one by the
other: the people were afraid of the bourgeoisie, the bourgeoisie were
afraid of the people;--the faubourgs hesitated before the restoration
of the majority, fearing, wrongfully however, that their victory would
bring back to power that Right which is so thoroughly unpopular; the
shopocracy recoiled before the red republic; the people did not
understand; the middle classes shuffled; some said, "Whom shall we send
to the legislative palace?" others: "whom are we going to see at the
Hotel de Ville?" In fine, the rude repression of 1848, the insurrection
crushed by cannon-shot, the quarries, the casements, and the
transportations--a living and terrible recollection;--and then--Suppose
some one had succeeded in beating the call to arms! Suppose a single
legion had sallied forth! Suppose M. Sibour had been M. Affre, and had
thrown himself in the midst of the bullets of the pretorians! Suppose
the High Court had not suffered itself to be driven away by a corporal!
Suppose the judges had followed the example of the representatives, and
we had seen the scarlet gowns on the barricades, as we saw the scarfs!
Suppose a single arrest had miscarried! Suppose a single regiment had
hesitated! Suppose the massacre on the boulevards had not taken place,
or had turned out ill for Louis Bonaparte! etc., etc., etc. This is all
true, and yet what has been, was what was to be. Let us say again,
under the shadow of that monstrous victory vast and definitive progress
is taking place. The 2nd of December succeeded, because in more than
one point of view, I repeat, it was good that it should succeed. All
explanations are just, but all are vain. The invisible hand is mingled
in all this. Louis Bonaparte committed the crime; Providence brought
about the result.

In truth, it was essential that _order_ should come to the end of
its logic. It was essential that people should learn, and should learn
for all time, that, in the mouths of the men of the past, that word
_order_ signifies false oaths, perjury, pillage of the public cash-box,
civil war, courts-martial, confiscation, sequestration, deportation,
transportation, proscription, fusillades, police, censorship,
degradation of the army, disregard of the people, debasement of France,
a dumb Senate, the tribune overthrown, the press suppressed, a political
guillotine, murder of liberty, garroting of the right, violation of
laws, sovereignty of the sword, massacre, treason, ambuscades. The
spectacle that we have before our eyes is a profitable spectacle. What
we see in France since the 2nd of December is the debauch of order.

Yes, the hand of Providence is in it. Reflect, too, upon this: for
fifty years the Republic and the Empire have filled men's imaginations,
the one with its souvenirs of terror, the other with its souvenirs of
glory. Of the Republic men saw only 1793, that is to say, the terrible
revolutionary necessity,--the furnace; of the Empire they saw only
Austerlitz. Hence a prejudice against the Republic, and prestige for
the Empire. Now, what is the future of France to be? is it the Empire?
No, it is the Republic.

It became necessary to reverse that situation, to suppress the prestige
of that which cannot be restored, and to suppress the prejudice against
that which must be. Providence did it: it destroyed those two mirages.
February came and took away from the Republic its terror; Louis
Bonaparte came and deprived the Empire of its prestige. Henceforth,
1848, fraternity, is superimposed upon 1793, terror; Napoleon the
Little is superimposed upon Napoleon the Great. The two grand things,
one of which alarmed and the other dazzled, are receding. We perceive
'93 only through its justification, and Napoleon only through his
caricature; the foolish fear of the guillotine vanishes, the empty
imperial popularity disappears. Thanks to 1848, the Republic no longer
terrifies; thanks to Louis Bonaparte, the Empire no longer fascinates.
The future has become possible. These are the secrets of the Almighty!

But the word republic is not sufficient; it is the _thing_ republic
that is wanting; well, we shall have the thing with the word. Let us
develop this thought.

II

THE FOUR INSTITUTIONS THAT STAND OPPOSED TO THE REPUBLIC

Awaiting the marvellous but tardy simplifications which the union of
Europe and the democratic federation of the continent will some day
bring forth, what will be in France, the form of the social edifice, of
whose ill-defined and luminous outlines the thinking man already has a
glimpse, through the darkness of dictatorships?

That form is this:--

The sovereign commune, ruled by an elective mayor; universal suffrage
everywhere, subordinate to the national unity only in respect to acts
of general concern; so much for the administration. Syndics and upright
men arranging the private differences of associations and industries;
the jury, magistrate of the fact, enlightening the judge, magistrate of
the law; elective judges; so much for justice. The priest excluded from
everything except the church, living with his eye fixed on his book and
on Heaven, a stranger to the budget, unknown to the state, known only
to his flock, no longer possessing authority, but possessing liberty;
so much for religion. War confined to the defence of the territory. The
whole nation constituting a national guard, divided into three
districts, and able to rise as one man; so much for power. The law for
ever, the right for ever, the ballot for ever, the sword nowhere.

Now, what were the obstacles to this future, to this magnificent
realization of the democratic ideal?

There were four material obstacles, namely:--

The standing army.
Centralized administration.
The office-holding clergy.
The irremovable magistracy.

III

SLOW MOVEMENT OF NORMAL PROGRESS

What these four obstacles are, what they were even under the Republic
of February, even under the Constitution of 1848; the evil they
produced, the good they prevented, what sort of past they perpetuated,
what excellent social order they postponed, the publicist saw, the
philosopher knew, the nation did not know.

These four institutions, immense, ancient, solid, supported one upon
another, composite at their base and summit, growing like a hedge of
tall old trees, their roots under our feet, their branches over our
heads, smothered and crushed on all sides the scattered germs of the
new France. Where life and movement, association, local liberty,
communal initiative should have been, there was administrative
despotism; where there should have been the intelligent vigilance,
armed at need, of the patriot and the citizen, there was the passive
obedience of the soldier; where the quick Christian faith should have
gushed forth, there was the Catholic priest; where there should have
been justice, there was the judge. And the future was there, under the
feet of suffering generations, which could not rise and were waiting.

Was this known among the people? Was it suspected? Was it divined?

No!

Far from it. In the eyes of the greater part, and of the middle classes
in particular, these four obstacles were four buttresses. Army,
magistracy, administration, clergy, these were the four virtues of
order, the four social powers, the four sacred pillars of the old
French structure.

Attack that, if you dare!

I have no hesitation is saying, that in the state of blindness in which
are plunged the best minds, with the measured march of normal progress,
with our assemblies, of which I shall not be suspected to be the
detractor, but which, when they are both honest and timid, as is often
the case, are disposed to be led only by their average men, that is, by
mediocrity; with the committees of initiative, their delays and
ballottings, if the 2nd of December had not brought its overwhelming
demonstration, if Providence had not taken a hand, France would have
remained condemned for an indefinite term to its irremovable
magistracy, to administrative centralization, to the standing army, and
to the office-holding clergy.

Surely, the power of the tribune and of the press combined, these two
great forces of civilization,--it is not I who seek to deny or belittle
them; but see how many efforts of all kinds it would have required, in
every direction, and under every form, by the tribune and by the
newspaper, by the book and by the spoken word, to succeed even in
shaking the universal prejudice in favor of these four fatal
institutions! How many to succeed in overthrowing them! to exhibit the
evidence to the eyes of all, to overcome selfish, passionate or
unintelligent resistance, thoroughly to enlighten public opinion, the
consciences of the people, and the ruling powers, to cause this
fourfold reform to force its way first into ideas, then into the laws.
Reckon up the speeches, the writings, the newspaper articles, the
projects of laws, the counter-projects, the amendments, the amendments
to amendments, the reports, the counter-reports, the facts, the
incidents, the polemics, the discussions, the assertions, the denials,
the storms, the steps forward, the steps backward, the days, the weeks,
the months, the years, the quarter-century, the half-century!

IV

WHAT AN ASSEMBLY WOULD HAVE DONE

I imagine, on the benches of an assembly, the most intrepid of
thinkers, a brilliant mind, one of those men who, when they ascend the
tribune, feel it beneath them like the tripod of the oracle, suddenly
grow in stature and become colossal, surpass by a head the massive
appearances that mask reality, and see clearly the future over the
high, frowning wall of the present. That man, that orator, that seer,
seeks to warn his country; that prophet seeks to enlighten statesmen;
he knows where the breakers are; he knows that society will crumble by
means of these four false supports: centralized government, standing
army, irremovable judges, salaried priesthood; he knows it, he desires
that all should know it, he ascends the tribune and says:--

"I denounce to you four great public perils. Your political system
bears that within it that will destroy it. It is incumbent upon you to
transform your government root and branch, the army, the clergy, and
the magistracy: to suppress here, retrench there, remodel everything,
or perish through these four institutions, which you consider as
lasting elements, but which are elements of dissolution."

Murmurs. He exclaims: "Do you know what your centralized administration
may become in the hands of a perjured executive power? A vast treason,
carried into effect at one blow over the whole of France, by every
office-holder without exception."

Murmurs break out anew with redoubled violence; cries of "order!" The
orator continues: "Do you know what your standing army may become at
any moment? An instrument of crime. Passive obedience is the bayonet
ever pointed at the heart of the law. Yes, here, in this France, which
is the initiatress of the world, in this land of the tribune and the
press, in this birthplace of human thought, yes, the time may come when
the sword will rule, when you, inviolable legislators, will be collared
by corporals, when our glorious regiments will transform themselves,
for the profit of one man and to the shame of the nation, into
gold-laced hordes and pretorian bands, when the sword of France will
become a thing that strikes from behind, like the dagger of a hired
assassin, when the life-blood of the first city in the world, done to
death, will splash the gold epaulettes of your generals!"

The murmur becomes an uproar, cries of "Order!" are heard from all
quarters. The orator is interrupted: "You have been insulting the
government, now you insult the army!" The President calls the orator to
order.

The orator resumes:

"And if it should happen some day that a man, having in his hand the
five hundred thousand officeholders who constitute the government, and
the four hundred thousand soldiers composing the army, if it should
happen that this man should tear up the Constitution, should violate
every law, break every oath, trample upon every right, commit every
crime, do you know what your irremovable magistrates, instructors in
the right, and guardians of the law, would do? They would hold their
tongues."

The uproar prevents the orator from completing his sentence. The tumult
becomes a tempest.--"This man respects nothing. After the government
and the army, he drags the magistracy in the mire! Censure! censure!"
The orator is censured and the censure entered in the journal. The
President declares that, if he continues, the Assembly will proceed to
a vote, and the floor will be taken from him.

The orator continues: "And your paid clergy! and your office-holding
bishops! On the day when a pretender shall have employed in such
enterprises the government, the magistracy, and the army; on the day
when all these institutions shall drip with the blood shed by and for
the traitor; when, placed between the man who has committed the crimes
and God who orders an anathema to be launched against the criminal--do
you know what these bishops of yours will do? They will prostrate
themselves, not before God, but before man!"

Can you form any idea of the frenzied shouts and imprecations that
would greet such words? Can you imagine the shouts, the apostrophes,
the threats, the whole Assembly rising _en masse_, the tribune
escaladed and with difficulty guarded by the ushers! The orator has
profaned every sanctified ark in succession, and he has ended by
profaning the Holy of Holies, the clergy! And what does he mean by it
all? What a medley of impossible and infamous hypotheses! Do you not
hear Baroche growl, and Dupin thunder? The orator would be called to
order, censured, fined, suspended from the Chamber for three days, like
Pierre Leroux and Emile de Girardin; who can tell, perhaps expelled,
like Manuel.

And the next day, the indignant citizen would say: "That is well done!"
And from every quarter the journals devoted to order would shake their
fist at the CALUMNIATOR. And in his own party, on his usual bench in
the Assembly, his best friends would forsake him, and say: "It is his
own fault; he has gone too far; he has imagined chimeras and
absurdities."

And after this generous and heroic effort, it would be found that the
four institutions that have been attacked were more venerable and
impeccable than ever, and that the question, instead of advancing, had
receded.

V

WHAT PROVIDENCE HAS DONE

But Providence,--Providence goes about it differently. It places the
thing luminously before your eyes, and says, "Behold!"

A man arrives some fine morning,--and such a man! The first comer, the
last comer, without past, without future, without genius, without
renown, without prestige. Is he an adventurer? Is he a prince? This man
has his hands full of money, of bank-notes, of railroad shares, of
offices, of decorations, of sinecures; this man stoops down to the
office-holders, and says, "Office-holders, betray your trust!"

The office-holders betray their trust.

What, all? without one exception?

Yes, all!

He turns to the generals, and says: "Generals, massacre."

And the generals massacre.

He turns towards the irremovable judges, and says: "Magistrates, I
shatter the Constitution, I commit perjury, I dissolve the sovereign
Assembly, I arrest the inviolate members, I plunder the public
treasury, I sequester, I confiscate, I banish those who displease me, I
transport people according to my fancy, I shoot down without summons to
surrender, I execute without trial, I commit all that men are agreed in
calling crime, I outrage all that men are agreed in calling right;
behold the laws--they are under my feet."

"We will pretend not to see any thing," say the magistrates.

"You are insolent," replies the providential man. "To turn your eyes
away is to insult me. I propose that you shall assist me. Judges, you
are going to congratulate me to-day, me who am force and crime; and
to-morrow, those who have resisted me, those who are honor, right, and
law, them you will try,--and you will condemn them."

These irremovable judges kiss his boot, and set about investigating
_l'affaire des troubles_.

They swear fidelity to him, to boot.

Then he perceives, in a corner, the clergy, endowed, gold-laced, with
cross and cope and mitre, and he says:--

"Ah, you are there, Archbishop! Come here. Just bless all this for me."

And the Archbishop chants his _Magnificat_.

VI

WHAT THE MINISTERS, ARMY, MAGISTRACY, AND CLERGY HAVE DONE

Oh! what a striking thing and how instructive! "_Erudimini_," Bossuet
would say.

The Ministers fancied that they were dissolving the Assembly; they
dissolved the government.

The soldiers fired on the army and killed it.

The judges fancied that they were trying and convicting innocent
persons; they tried and convicted the irremovable magistracy.

The priests thought they were chanting hosannahs upon Louis Bonaparte;
they chanted a _De profundis_ upon the clergy.

VII

THE FORM OF THE GOVERNMENT OF GOD

When God desires to destroy a thing, he entrusts its destruction to the
thing itself.

Every bad institution of this world ends by suicide.

When they have weighed sufficiently long upon men, Providence, like the
sultan to his viziers, sends them the bowstring by a mute, and they
execute themselves.

Louis Bonaparte is the mute of Providence.

CONCLUSION--PART FIRST

PETTINESS OF THE MASTER--ABJECTNESS OF THE SITUATION

I

Never fear, History has him in its grip.

If perchance it flatters the self-love of M. Bonaparte to be seized by
history, if perchance, and truly one would imagine so, he cherishes any
illusion as to his value as a political miscreant, let him divest
himself of it.

Let him not imagine, because he has piled up horror on horror, that he
will ever raise himself to the elevation of the great historical
bandits. We have been wrong, perhaps, in some pages of this book, here
and there, to couple him with those men. No, although he has committed
enormous crimes, he will remain paltry. He will never be other than the
nocturnal strangler of liberty; he will never be other than the man who
intoxicated his soldiers, not with glory, like the first Napoleon, but
with wine; he will never be other than the pygmy tyrant of a great
people. Grandeur, even in infamy, is utterly inconsistent with the
calibre of the man. As dictator, he is a buffoon; let him make himself
emperor, he will be grotesque. That will finish him. His destiny is to
make mankind shrug their shoulders. Will he be less severely punished
for that reason? Not at all. Contempt does not, in his case, mitigate
anger; he will be hideous, and he will remain ridiculous. That is all.
History laughs and crushes.

Even the most indignant chroniclers will not help him there. Great
thinkers take satisfaction in castigating the great despots, and, in
some instances, even exalt them somewhat, in order to make them worthy
of their rage; but what would you have the historian do with this
fellow?

The historian can only lead him to posterity by the ear.

The man once stripped of success, the pedestal removed, the dust
fallen, the tinsel and spangles and the great sabre taken away, the
poor little skeleton laid bare and shivering,--can one imagine anything
meaner and more pitiful?

History has its tigers. The historians, immortal keepers of wild
beasts, exhibit this imperial menagerie to the nations. Tacitus alone,
that great showman, captured and confined eight or ten of these tigers
in the iron cage of his style. Look at them: they are terrifying and
superb; their spots are an element in their beauty. This is Nimrod, the
hunter of men; this, Busiris, the tyrant of Egypt; this, Phalaris, who
baked living men in a brazen bull, to make the bull roar; this,
Ahasuerus, who flayed the heads of the seven Maccabees, and had them
roasted alive; this, Nero, the burner of Rome, who smeared Christians
with wax and pitch, and then set them alight as torches; this,
Tiberius, the man of Capraea; this, Domitian; this, Caracalla; this,
Heliogabalus; that other is Commodus, who possesses an additional claim
to our respect in the horrible fact that he was the son of Marcus
Aurelius; these are Czars; these, Sultans; these, Popes, among whom
remark the tiger Borgia; here is Philip, called the Good, as the Furies
were called the Eumenides; here is Richard III, sinister and deformed;
here, with his broad face and his great paunch, Henry VIII, who, of
five wives that he had, killed three, one of whom he disemboweled; here
is Christiern II, the Nero of the North; here Philip II, the Demon of
the South. They are terrifying: hear them roar, consider them, one
after the other; the historian brings them to you; the historian drags
them, raging and terrible, to the side of the cage, opens their jaws
for you, shows you their teeth and their claws; you can say of every
one of them: "That is a royal tiger." In fact, they are taken from all
the thrones of the earth. History parades them through the ages. She
prevents them from dying; she takes care of them. They are her tigers.

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